Wednesday 21 October 2009

Burgundy 2009 exclusive!

Some initial thoughts just in from David Clark on the 2009 vintage in Burgundy...

Hello James,

Since you asked – a few thoughts on the 2009 vintage –

Certainly there seems to be genuine excitement here for the new wines as they now go into barrel. However, I can’t help but think that expectations are so high that perhaps there might be some disappointments down the road. From what I have tasted it seems particularly difficult to make generalisations about the wines – there always seems to be a glaring exception! Anyway for what is worth I currently see 2009 red Burgundy as:

1) Excellent sugars and now alcohols – very few wines below 12.5% but also very few above 13.5%. A bad year for sugar-beet farmers?!
2) Low-ish to very low acidities. Very little malic acid which is a generally sign of good ripeness.
3) High yields. There was a lot of rain in June and July.
4) Mixed colours – some deep, but some surprisingly pale.
5) Potentially quite a lot of tannin, depending on extraction.

Should be fun to taste these when Burgundy comes to London to sell en primeur in January 2011!

Cheers,

David

So, bad news for sugar beet farmers, but potentially good news for growers and drinkers of burgundy.

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