Robert Parker
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As always with Bordeaux en primeur, the wine world has been waiting with baited breath for the views, tasting notes and (above all) the scores of Robert Parker of “The Wine Advocate” before the campaign can really get under way.
Mr Parker’s view is that “The wines are good…but not great and that people will be surprised and happy with them when they are in bottle.” He sees the quality of the vintage very much in the same way as we reported it in our blogs last month. “2011 could turn out be close in overall quality to years such as the underrated 2001 and 2008”. Like Farr Vintners, he also believes that Pomerol is the best appellation for the red wines in 2011 and believes that wines of “lower pedigree” are variable. He states that this is a vintage where selection was critical. Reading between the lines, he is saying that this is not a year in which to buy second wines or those from properties who can’t afford to reject grapes that are not of grand vin quality. He gives a total 21 red wines in 2011 a score of 92-95 points or higher. He has Ausone chosen as his wine of the vintage, and indeed the only wine of the vintage with a potential 100 point rating. His top-rated wines are as follows:
Glasses at the ready at Ausone
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His highest rated dry white wines are:
There is also, of course, a review of the sweet wines of Bordeaux by Mr Parker’s colleague Neal Martin and these are the top five Sauternes and Barsacs of the vintage:
Even with few wines released so far, it seems clear that one of the bargains of the vintage (in terms of price to score ratio) is going to be Doisy Daene at £290 per case.
However, like Farr Vintners, Robert Parker sees that the major issue surrounding 2011 is one of pricing. He insists, as we do, that “prices must drop dramatically”. He urges producers to “price low and sell quickly” and warns that these wines “will bomb as wine futures unless prices are dramatically decreased”.
We certainly hope that producers will digest carefully the wise words of Mr Parker and release their wines at prices that are attractive to the consumer. We hope that the leading Chateaux will follow the lead of Lafite by releasing at a price that allows merchants to sell their wine at a lower price than any other available vintage on the market today. Most merchants have now nearly sold out their Lafite allocations and buyers can be happy that have bought at the right price for the market.
Alain Vauthier discusses the vintage with Stephen Browett and Derek Smedley MW
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Other Chateaux, at this early stage, have not been so sensible with their pricing. If we take the example of Cantemerle (who have made a good but not great 2011), the price of this Chateau to us increased from 13.90 euros in 2008 to 19.90 euros in 2009. Maybe this was fair enough because their 2009 is a fabulous young claret. However, it’s still widely available at £250 per case. This makes the decision to only bring the price of the 2011 down by 40 centimes (to 19.50 euros) a mistake in our view. If other Chateaux follow this sort of pricing strategy, instead of that of Lafite, then we will be unable to advise customers to buy the wines.
The next few days and weeks are going to be very interesting for the Bordeaux wine trade. Will the proprietors follow the advice of Robert Parker and give consumers value for money or will they make token price reductions and give consumers no reason to buy the wines en primeur? Unlike other merchants - whose early e-mail offers have been rather “economical with the truth”, we will not be telling you that a wine is worth buying if it isn’t. Let’s hope that Doisy Daene and Lafite are not the only wines at the right prices in 2011.
