Is this a joke or just another vintage of the century?

[Roy Hersh]

First it was the highly touted 2000 vintage, then talk of 2003 ... until the uber hot summer. Then 2005 came around and it was definitely the greatest modern day classic vintage for Bordeaux since 1982, right? Yeah, sure. Then 2009 comes along and bests the 2005, supposedly. Now it is off and running again, the media frenzy for 2010:

http://www.shankennewsdaily.com/index.p ... n-classic/

What do you think ... are there others here who enjoy or even buy Claret?

[Peter W. Meek]

Well, "of the century" and 100-year- (and 500-year-) just mean that is how often (based on past experience) they can be expected. You can roll "boxcars" five times in a row (it doesn't happen often, but it CAN happen).

The other possible explanation is that past experience is no longer a reliable guide to what is happening today. Global Warming raises hackles everywhere (pro and con), but there are other changes in the world, and in how we do things. Maybe the sciences of grape-growing and wine-making (possibly an art) have changed to the point where wines as good as previous wines-of-the-century will become more commonplace, and we will require a new, higher standard to judge future wines. Maybe the "scale" of the future will be 99.1, 99.2, 99.3... and (like Formula 1 announcers*) they will just skip the number that stays the same on each wine, and call them .1 and .2 and .3...

It is also possible that the standards have been lowered in order to provide more "hoopla" in the wine industry. Everybody likes (and flocks to) a rare event. It would not be unreasonable to expect the industry (and the outside people who depend on it for a living) to want more and bigger news arriving oftener.


*(Formula 1 announcers call a lap time of 1 minute 38.275 seconds as 38275 since all Formula 1 tracks have lap times of a minute and a bit more.)

[Moses Botbol]

It just happens to be that this is the best decade in France history, right?

[Frederick Blais]

I have not bought Bordeaux Future since 2005 Vintage. Price are way too high for the wines I use to follow year after year and I find that I'm really satisfied with the great year following a fantastic vintage. Good examples are 2001 and 2004, I have bought my last 1er cru in those years and I'm very happy. I just drank a 99 Haut-Brion this week end and I was blown away. I buy my wines to drink them, so I'll put my money where it will not break me an arm to drink them or I won't be tempted to speculate with my bottles. Recently, there is a boom of quality with Nebiolo in Piemonte and the wines are way easier to drink on release even with those dusty tannins than those increasingly big and oaky Bordeaux, so my focus is over there.

For my palate anyway, I think that in those great years, you should buy cru bourgeois like Rolan de By, D'Agassac and such as you can enjoy them on release and over 10-12 years. 1er Cru need to be waited 20-25 years to start to achieve the complexity we all want to drink when we can only have one bottle in our cellar. So you can ask yourself the same question as when you buy Port, will I be young enough to enjoy those bottles when I'll pop them.