What's New |
THE 1999 BORDEAUX VINTAGE
Excerpt from The Wine Shopnewsletter:
"Parker sums up the 1999 Bordeaux vintage as a wet, hot and
irregular year. Decanter is not blessed with quite such brevity but
essentially they tell the same story. Although a difficult year in many ways
for the Bordelaise, the warmth meant that the grapes achieved good ripeness.
According to Decanter the wines have ripe fruit. Green and unripe flavours
are uncommon, the tannins are soft and acidity is generally on the low side.
The other characteristic is that it was a year that neither favoured the
right or left bank, where selection was rigorous good wines were made from
all the regions. Not necessarily a vintage to buy for long aging, but some
very appealing wines at attractive prices. In most cases the prices dropped
relative to both the 1997 and 1998 vintages. We do not wish to get into a
massive ratings versus price comparison here so let one fairly rarefied
example suffice. Chateau Leoville las Cases is considered to be one of the
very best Bordeaux available. Situated next to the first growth Chateau
Latour, the only thing that prevents Leoville las Cases being rated a first
growth is that they classified it a second in 1855. Of course back then the
winemaking was not under the aegis of the legendary Delon dynasty. Their
attention to detail is profound and often these wines are considered to be
the best of the vintage. But enough of damning with faint praise and let us
look at the pricing over the last three releases. In 1997 we put Leoville
las Cases on the shelf for $245.50, Parker rated it a 90. For 1998 it costs
$188.50 and receives a score of 91 to 93. The recently arrived 1999 is
$152.00 and rates a 91.
This is a realization by the Bordelaise that pricing had got out of hand and
an initial lack of enthusiasm on the part of the futures buyers such as
ourselves. We admit that we bought a much smaller number of wines in this
vintage but we did make very careful selections. At the top of our list,
despite the painting on the bottle reflecting the 1999 eclipse, has to be
the Chateau Lafite Rothschild $225.00, every critics top wine of the
vintage. Always well rated and so too in this vintage is the fifth growth
Chateau Lynch Bages $71.50. Chateau Belgrave is often described as an
obscure fifth growth, but we have felt it always represents good value for
money and in recent years it has been garnering positive attention from the
critics. A reflection of this is seen in that Parker now includes it with
his main reviews rather than as a footnote. In spite of this recent
notoriety the price remains very reasonable at $33.50."
|
