2009 Bordeaux winemakers 'were free to express themselves'
There were not many external pressures on the 2009 Bordeaux harvest, meaning that winemakers could express themselves with this vintage.
This is according to Patrick Maroteaux of Chateau Branaire Ducru, a previous president of the Union des Grands Crus, who said that proprietors were able to produce the kind of wine they wanted to instead of one that nature forced them to, the Financial Times reported.
No threat of rain or plummeting acid levels were a big help to the winemakers' creativity, he suggested.
Notable critic Jancis Robinson, writing for the newspaper, said that she has never had such fun tasting bordeaux en primeur.
She pointed out that on the typically less potent left bank of the Gironde, "both first-growth Chateau Haut-Brion and wannabe first-growth Chateau Cos d'Estournel admitted to producing wines of more than 14 per cent alcohol, verging on California levels".
Elin McCoy, in a recent piece for Bloomberg, noted that some 2009 Bordeaux are better than those from the much-lauded 2005 vintage.