Farr Vintners retastes 2009 Bordeaux 10 years on.

The British merchant invited several in the trade and a number of critics to this tasting. If they (the critics) haven’t come out with their own tasting notes, I am sure it is in the works.


https://www.farrvintners.com/blog.php

A good read, always a fun retrospective at this 10-year mark. Always surprises me to see some critics praising the classic wines like Cheval much in the same way they tout Pavie and Troplong. I bet on 2010 and 2008 over 2009, but have slowly been adding in a few stalwarts, like Leoville Barton, which was also praised in this tasting. I liked the praise on Cantermerle, I have a few but really loaded up on the 2010. Can still be found under $50. I’ll track some down. Le Gay seems interesting, too.

Some very fine wines on both sides

Nice article, thanks for sharing. 2009 was the last vintage of Bordeaux that I bought heavily in (I still see several of my Premier Cru '09 futures as “pending” in CT, I should delete them but I can’t bring myself to do it) and am pleased to see/read how they are evolving in bottle. Really hoping these are the modern day equivalents of the 1990 vintage, which I absolutely love for current drinking.

Neal Martin has said he will publish his notes soon.

I thought it was interesting that two different tasters (I’ve seen other participants’ blog posts), including the one from Farr, thought that the 2009 Cos was one of the stars of the tasting. I will be interested to see Neal Martin’s review, since in the past he has not been a fan of it.

Having recently retasted it from half bottle, it was as a big, rich anonymous wine, with a slightly sweet edge. Personally as in 2010, I disliked it.

Once Pavie was mentioned as one of the better wines, the tasting lost most/all of its credibility

When I changed computers I lost pictures of John Gilman tasting 2009 and 2010 Pavie. You could see he disliked the ‘09, but that was nothing compared to the look of absolute horror that he had with the 2010.

Talking of John, his note on the Cos 2009 is a classic.

My guess is he rates it 94, says it’s a high quality wine but stylistically not for everyone.

Loved his note. Wish he still reviewed Bordeaux

I was thinking that too, not of the tasting itself, but of this person’s opinions of the wines.

I can imagine!

There must be a helluva lot of Berserkers hitting that link, as it won’t open for me…their server traffic must be too high…

I’m a member of this panel tasting and was part of both the 2015 and 2009 reviews this year.

I gave the Pavie a respectable enough score - it’s blind, remember - but it was thoroughly out-classed by Canon for me in terms of St Emilion. Overall, the triumph of Latour has been pretty widely discussed but my own top scores were an astonishing Ausone and an equally beautiful Haut Brion. The quality of the top wines in 2009, though, was jaw dropping and splitting them was extremely difficult. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to next year’s tastings of 2016 and 2010.

For better or for worse, I mostly stayed out of the 2009 bordeaux game. I recall not liking the pricing at a time when I was being very, very cost conscious. Somewhere in my cellar in a screwed shut wooden box I have beychevelle, branaire and cantenac brown, and that may be it. I guess I will go find them in a couple/ few years and see what I think!

Jim, I don’t know what the market is like in the US, but in France most of the wines can be found for good prices, sometimes less than EP, so you didn’t miss much!

I saw both Neal Martin and Lisa PB released their notes on the 2009 Bordeaux today from the 10 years on tastings. They both mentioned a worrisome amount of bottles that showed signs of premature oxidation, which is concerning! Lisa also made a general comment about several wines that seemed to be going over the hill, but didn’t call them out.

As a general rule, I have not really liked 2009s, although there are ones like Montrose that have been quite good. Many of the wines to me taste too flabby, not enough acidity. In general, my favorite vintage of recent years has been 2005, although I would like to taste more 2016s.

Holy cow. I don’t subscribe so I can’t see exactly what they say, but am very curious if that clusters around an appellation or if it’s more wide-spread.

the link in the initial post reads:

“We started off on the right bank with our first stop being Saint Emilion. There was a great variation in wine-making styles here and one imagines that picking dates were varied too. The wines were certainly not uniformly great and there were some issues with volatile acidity, over-ripeness and oxidation at a few Chateaux.”

that might be part of an answer, although there might be others.

myself, I didn’t experience too much 2009ers (most are still sleeping), but none of them was over the hill.

matthias

From the 10-year tasting reports of Lisa and Neal re: 2009 Bordeaux…

“A number of wines across varieties and communes seem to be prematurely oxidizing.” LPB
“Especially at the Southwold tasting, I was not the only person concerned about the number of bottles showing signs of oxidation” NM