2007 – the drinker’s vintage

2007 Bordeaux is a successful vintage after a very unpromising year. With rare exceptions (Sauternes, Lafite-Rothschild and a few of the small-volume properties), 2007 is not a vintage for speculators. But it is a vintage where buying carefully selected wines will bring an early reward for wine-drinkers.

A cool, wet summer left estate-owners wondering if they’d be able to release any of their grands vins (each estate’s top, main label). Then, at the beginning of September, the weather changed. Six weeks of sun meant that grapes could ripen. Harvest happened under perfect, dry conditions.

The most successful red wines are those where a light hand in the cellar followed a hard summer’s work in the vineyard. These wines are elegant and early-maturing (most will be ready to drink in five to eight years). Estates that failed to put in the above-average amount of work needed to keep the grapes free from fungal diseases, or that tried to extract too much tannin in their winemaking, have made wines with dry, unpleasant tannins, which will never be much fun.

The best wines of the vintage are the whites, both dry and sweet. Grapes for dry whites were picked at perfect maturity, yet with bags of zip and energy. Sauternes and Barsac enjoyed a perfect season, and the fast spread of ‘noble rot’ gave the best sweet wines since the great 2001s.

Buying ‘en primeur’

Or, as Americans call it, buying ‘wine futures’. This explains the term more clearly than the French expression. The idea is that you pay money now for wine that you will not receive for two or three years. Why? Because your wine is still maturing in barrel. But in another couple of years it might be more expensive or simply not available.

Six months after grapes have been picked and winemaking begun, producers in Bordeaux invite the wine world to taste the fledgling wines. The wines actually poured are blends of wines from different barrels, which represent more (or less) the blend of the final wine. Importers place their orders, journalists make their notes, and the wines are left to get on with the important process of maturation in barrel for another 12 to 18 months. When the winemakers judge the right moment has arrived, the final blends are decided and the wines are bottled.