- Beausejour (Duffau Lagarrosse)
- Bellevue Mondotte
- Clinet
- Clos Fourtet
- Cos d'Estournel
- Ducru Beaucaillou
- Haut Brion
- La Mission Haut Brion
- La Mondotte
- Latour
- Le Pin
- Leoville-Poyferre
- L'Evangile
- Montrose
- Pape Clement
- Pavie
- Petrus
- Pontet-Canet
- Smith-Haut-Lafitte
In short, 2009 is the greatest vintage I have tasted in Bordeaux since 1982, of which it is a modern-day version, but greatly improved. It is more consistent (many châteaux that were making mediocre wine in 1982 are now making brilliant wine) and of course, the yields are lower, the selection process is stricter, and there are any other number of factors, from investments in the wineries to impeccable, radical viticulture, that have resulted in extraordinary raw materials.
What I find very interesting about these scores is that no wine from the Margaux region acheived a perfect score. During En Primeur for the 2009 vintage, the Margaux wines really jumped out at me and they have continued to impress, above and beyond the other regions as I have tried them over time. That is not to say that the above wines don't deserve great scores, I am just surprised by the absense of Margaux wines from the above list.
That being said, I want to give a special shoutout to our friends at Chateau Brane-Cantenac, Parker called them out in a seperate article and gave their 2009 vintage a 95 and this stunning review:
A spectacular effort from this estate rivaling their 2005, but more flashy/flamboyant, this dark ruby/purple wine has a strikingly intense nose of licorice, flowers, plums and dark berries. Medium to full-bodied, very approachable and silky, this suave, very sexy wine can be drunk early on as well as aged for 20+ years.
Congratulations to Henri, Maria, Corinne and the entire team at Brane-Cantenac it is nice to see this well-deserved recognition.
1 comment:
While I do believe the hype of 2009 probably is warranted, I have to question 19 perfect scores. It just seems to take the excitement out of seeing it.
It is interesting as well to see Montrose on that list given it's normally more rustic and earthy style. There are also a few more common heavy hitters missing given the size of the list like Margaux, Lafite, Mouton, and Leoville Les Cases.
Hope you're having fun over there.
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