We are delighted to bring you Highlights of the Right Bank Bordeaux En Primeur 2009 Tastings, straight from Bordeaux and Chris Piper himself.
"The Wines from the Right Bank tasted yesterday were incredibly intense, rich, powerful and alcoholic but with a stunning freshness that makes the vintage so unusual and with such perfect balance.
Yesterday's visit and tasting of Right Bank wines showed the sheer quality of the Merlot, so much so, that Chevel Blanc has unusually included 60% in its final blend. This indeed, was a monolithic wine of prodigious potential.
So far, our Right Bank tastings have revealed wines of unparalleled balance. They combine power and finesse with very high tannins; tannins that are so fine that they are so discreet when tasted, enveloped in an amazing amount of unctuous fruit. The watchword so far is 'freshness', despite the fact in a vast amount of cases, these wines have high alcohol levels (+13.5%) which are hardly perceptible.
This is a very great vintage indeed."
Stars of the Tastings: (*more wines will come behind these)
St. Emilion Château La Fleur Cardinale Château Figeac Château Larcis Ducasse, Château Clos Fourtet Château Chauvin
Pomerol Château Petit Village Château 'Eglise Clinet Château Bourgneuf Vayron Château Gazin Château la Pointe
Satellite Right Bank Château Dalem (Fronsac) Cap de Faugeres (Castillon) La Chenade (Lalande de Pomerol) Château de Francs Les Cérisiers (Fronsac) Haut Carles (Fronsac)
If you would like us to reserve any of the above wines for you in advance as quantity will undoubtedly be extremely limited please let us know and we will contact you at a later date to confirm further details and prices. .................................................................................................................................
Highlights from the Left Bank En Primeurs
Chris Piper, tasting in Bordeaux at this present moment, phoned in this morning ( thursday 1st April ) to summarise the tastings of the Left Bank En Primeurs.
"There have been discussions over the consistency of vintage in the American press, however we feel this is a vintage that is all about how winemakers have handled their Terroir. As we worked our way through the Left Bank wines, two styles clearly emerged.
The first being wines of massive fruit characters with balancing finesse, and the second of a more structured and muscular style, more in a classic vein of Bordeaux."
The wines that really impressed are as follows:
Médoc & Haut Médoc Château Cambon La Pelouse Château d'Escurac Château d'Agassac Château Potensac Château La Tour de By
St Estéphe Château Lafon Rochet Château Les Ormes de Pez Dame de Montrose Château Montrose ** Outstanding
St Julienproduced some of the most consistent quality and exciting wines out of the communes in the classic areas of the Médoc.
The outstanding wines: Château St. Pierre Château Leoville Barton * stunning Château Leoville Lascases Château Gruaud Larose Château Branaire Ducru Château Ducru Beaucaillou - The STAR of the vintage
The wines fromPauillac had less consistency although there were some outstanding wines. Particularly those from: Château Pichon Longueville Château Lynch Bages Château Haut Bages Liberal Château Grand Puy Lacoste And not to forget the second wine of Grand Puy Lacoste, Lacoste Borie.
On to Listrac, Moulis, Sauternes and Barsac tomorrow.
If you would like us to reserve any of the above wines for you in advance as quantity will undoubtedly be extremely limited please let us know and we will contact you at a later date to confirm further details and prices.
Sauternes & Barsac (and a few more highlights from the Medoc)
The CPW 'road show' headed south from Margaux to taste the Médocs and Haut-Médocs at the UGC tasting at Château Cantmerle. The continuing theme of quality at all levels continued at this tasting with notable successes coming from cru classés La Lagune (richly silky and hyper-fresh) and Cantmerle (a racey mix of the old and the new). In the less fashionable Moulis-Listrac appellations, saw a beautifully textured and ripe Foucas-Dupré, an immensely fresh and pure Chasse-Spleen and an unusually voluptuous and silky Poujeaux (maybe down to the change in ownership?). The newly purchased Fourcas-Borie (now in the Ducru-Beaucaillou stable) had previously shown its huge potential when we were tasting at Ducru.
Other wines from the Médoc and Haut-Médoc zones that stood out were a really serious La Tour de By, a fleshy and fruit-saturated Citran and two wines that appeared on our radar for the first time; Beaumont with densely packed fruit and fine, long fresh finish and Lamarque with an unexpected rich, ripe fruitiness and beautifully integrated fine tannins.
Our final destination was the Sauternes and Barsac tasting (conveniently organised at Chateau Dauzac in Margaux, this year). This was one of the most exciting of all this year's tastings and our obvious pleasure was picked up by one of France's TV chains, with John giving a resumé of his feelings of what we had been tasting over the week. The beautiful pervasive richness of these wines, with their thrilling freshness through their balancing acidity, made us think that it was a possible marriage between the finely tuned 2001's and the extraordinary opulence of the 2003's. Either way, here are our stars of Sauternes and Barsac:
La Tour Blanche (remarkable) Lafaurie-Peyraguey (amazingly balanced) Rabaud-Promis (great concentration and poise) Suduiraut (aristocratic) and three really lovely lesser-known beauties..... Châteaux Myrat, Nairac and d'Arche...(these should offer outstanding value).
We returned to Exeter on Good Friday feeling that we had indeed been tasting some of the greatest Bordeaux since the 1982's. Maybe there is not the overall consistency of the 2005's but here there are numerous individual wines that often do by-pass this great previous vintage. Combining richness and power with freshness and finesse can really only be achieved by nature itself and the 2009 climatic conditions were ideal. The record-level tannins are so fine-grained and integrated, that they will ensure longevity without giving hard, unfriendly wines. As with all the very great vintages, these Bordeaux will taste scrumptious when young and will age gracefully for many years. Now all that remains is for the prices!
We will be publishing our full selection on our web site over the next few weeks.
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