Wine & Spirits - June 2012 - (Page 6)

ﬁned & ﬁltered 2011 Bordeaux “THE ICEBERG VINTAGE” by Fiona Morrison, MW 2011 was a rollercoaster vintage, its short periods of calm punctuated with moments of dizzying anxiety. he year started oﬀ well: The winter was dry and cool, and March and April were even drier but warm. The vines ﬂowered under ideal conditions at the end of May, two weeks earlier than normal—so early that many calculated that harvest would begin in August. But then, at the end of June a violent heat wave rolled in with temperatures around 40°C during the last weekend of the month. Hailstorms hit Margaux and damaged much of the crop (yields at châteaux Palmer and Margaux were a paltry 20 hectoliters per hectare). July, on the other hand, was the coolest in 30 years; August brought rain at the beginning and end of the month and between these two periods it was hot and sunny, almost tropical, with the danger of rot. For some, like La Mission, who started picking whites on August 18th, the harvest was early and fast; others, such in those in St-Emilion and the northern Médoc, waited until the showers and hail had passed and harvested towards the end of September when Indian summer conditions set in. A decade ago, Bordeaux winemakers faced with these conditions would not have made T FM’s picks of the vintage Calon Ségur Cheval Blanc Ducru Beaucaillou Duhart Milon La Fleur Latour La Mission Haut Brion Blanc Palmer Pétrus Pichon Lalande Yquem such a good wine. But the Bordelais have come a long way—especially in learning to compensate for nature with nurture in the vineyard (careful leaf stripping, less green harvest). Selection was key in 2011, and that meant eliminating pink and green shot berries, brown berries, rotten berries, shriveled berries, sunburnt berries—anything that did not resemble a perfectly rounded, small black pearl. It is not only the luxury of a great soil and site that distinguishes the top wines from the rest of the pack in Bordeaux; it is also the luxury of being able to cut back severely and select rigorously, conﬁdent that there is a market for a second or even a third wine. In general there was very little of the lean, mean herbaceousness that plagued Bordeaux in the past. The best wines—and there are many of them—have lovely acidity, bright color, fresh aromas and a rather traditional, somewhat austere structure. In the Médoc, the cabernet dominates, compensating for the lack of fully ripe merlot fruit. As a result the wines have more structure than their aromas or their attacks would suggest. On the Right Bank, the top wines of 2011 are inﬂuenced by cabernet franc—particularly from that band of millennia-old gravel that runs from Figeac and Cheval Blanc in St-Emilion up to Vieux Château Certan and Château Laﬂeur in Pomerol. Pomerol also beneﬁted from more even summer temperatures and earlier picking, while St-Emilion still seems plagued by over-extraction and overripe fruit; many of the wines taste as if they were made in California or Priorat. Sauternes is another highlight of the vintage: Botrytis developed fast and easily in September and the wines are intense and pure—as are the top white wines of PéssacLéognan (especially La Mission Haut Brion Blanc and Domaine de Chevalier Blanc.) Of course, there’s price. Most people in Bordeaux are in agreement that the prices will be released earlier this year—many expecting Olivier Berrouet of Château Pétrus that the top châteaux will release before the Vinexpo trade fair opens in Hong Kong at the end of May. My prediction is that prices will be down from 2010, but not as much as some people had hoped: around 10 to 15 percent. The commentary has been positive and interest in the vintage seems high (the Union des Grands Crus had 5,000 registered visitors for the en primeur tastings—a new record). Even so, 2011 comes after two much-lauded vintages, 2009 and 2010, and there is doubt as to whether the Asian honeymoon is still on (it is rumored that about 20 percent of the en primeur wines sold to China in 2011 are yet to be paid for). Talking up the third great vintage in a row is something that the commercially savvy Bordeaux are loath to do, even if this were true. It is rather a coincidence that many of the traditionally great wines of Bordeaux (Laﬁte, Mouton, Margaux) tasted muted during en primeur week. The last word on the vintage goes to Olivier Berrouet at Pétrus who described 2011 as “an iceberg vintage”—not much shows above the water, except for a beautiful sight, but a lot of depth and tannic structure lurks underneath. That’s an apt description of his own wine and many others. I 6 W I N E & S P I R I T S J U N E 2 0 1 2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - June 2012

Wine & Spirits - June 2012
Editor’s Note
Happenings
Contents
Fined & Filtered: Bordeaux 2011, Diamond Jubilee Port, News in Brief
Jamon + Jerez
Spirits: Agave Distilled, by Lou Bustamante
Tequila Comes to Dinner
Sauvignon from the Heights
Geology Jazz
Value Brands of the Year
Tastings Overview
Top 100 Values
Sauvignon Blanc
Southern Italy
Ribera del Duero
American Wines
Imported Wines
Books: Summer Reading

Wine & Spirits - June 2012