2007 Pape-Clement: Concentration and power for the whites and the reds

 With the right terroir and attention to the vines 2007 has the potential to produce big concentrated wines with freshness too. The opposite of what the image of the vintage has for the reds

2007 Pape-Clement, Pessac-Leognan

Interviewed Patrice Hateau, Technical Director of Chateau Pape Clement. Very worried en August and thought it was going to be the worst vintage ever. For those that had the means to spray as much as needed and keep rot under control were able to harvest late and harvest ripe grapes. Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc excellent. Petit Verdot suprise this year. Fantastic quality.

Yields stayed same as 2005 and 2006. 100 % new oak. Very long and late harvest in 2007 12 September until 27th September. Employs eight people permanently. 74 acres.

Red

Clementin du Chateau Pape Clement: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, 3% Petit VerdotVery deep coloured black wine with intense blackcurrant aromas and cream. Very concentrated for a second wine. In the same vein as the grand vin. Not lightweight.

Château Pape Clement: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, 3% Petit VerdotVery deep in colour. Black fruits – blackcurrant. Dense and concentrated and very tannic structure. A big concentrated wine. The opposite of what you would expect from 2007. Coffee moca developed as the wine opened up. Touch spice from the Petit Verdot. Opulent and ripe.

White

The white wines this year are outstanding; complex powerful and fullbodied.

Clementin du Chateau Pape Clement: 60% Sauvignon, 35% Semillon, 5% Muscadelle. Concentrated lime and grapefruit  flavours

Château Pape Clement: 50% Semillon, 40% Sauvignon, 5% Sauvignon Gris, 5% Muscadelle. More restrained and more Semillon with creamy floral notes and minerality. Dense, intense and very long.

2007 Haut Brion: Whites win hands down but finesse with more Cabernet Sauvignon for the reds

2007 Haut Brion, First Growth, Pessac Leognan

Haut Brion is one on its own. It is the only red first growth outside the Medoc and is located just on the outskirts on Bordeaux. It is always the first to be harvested due to its hot micro-climate and very gravelly soils. It is one of the most aromatically complex of wines. Its red has a recognisable cedar and graphite mineral nose.

Here they do their selection in December when the wine is just been made so that every barrel has the finished wine in it already.

WHITE WINES

The tiny parcels of vineyards produce one of Bordeaux’s finest white wines, as powerful as the best Burgundys. Though the two plots are very close geographically and in terms of wine-making (made by the same winemaking teams), the white wine produced at La Mission (Laville) and Haut Brion are world’s apart. Laville has a higher percentage of Semillon, but it is the terroir that makes the real difference.

In 2007 the white wines have the volume, concentrated ripe fruit of white peaches and cream and the wonderful singy acisity which ties the whole thing together. Power, concentration, elegance and expression. Truely divine.

2007 Château Laville Haut-Brion3.5 hectares 83% Semillon and 17% Sauvignon. Exotic intensely aromatic nose of citrus, flinty with exotic side to it with creamy coconut notes. Layers of fruit flavours. Sauvignon in the blend is very expressive! Still cloudy due to the recent stirrings (batonnage) as the wine is fermented in oak barrels and then left on its lees and stirred to expose more of the wine to the enriching degrading yeast cells.

2007 Château Haut-Brion Blanc3.5 hectares. 45% Semillon, 55% Sauvignon. Very dense and complex on the nose. Very intense powerful flinty aromas and spicy wood notes too. Much more restrained without the intense fruit aromas of Laville. Much more terroir based than grape variety. Minerality with a capital M. Thick and unctuous with a very long finish. Semillon much more dominant than the Sauvignon although less in the blend!

RED WINES

This year more Cabernet Sauvignon in the blends as it was the most successful grape variety with its smooth velvety tannins. Less wood used this year, 70% new oak instead of 100% in 2005 and 2006. Average yields lower too as the grapes were smaller (45 hl/ha compared to 55 last year).

Aromatically complex cigar box lead pencil mineral plum multi-layered pure

2007 La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion: 64% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc. Exuberant red fruit with floral notes and picking up creaminess from the oak. Light and fresh with soft supple tannins.  

2007 Château Bahans Haut-Brion: 51% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet FrancNose more closed but eventually opened up into caramel cherry sweetness. Ripe and concentrated  dense cherry on the palate. Slightly bitter finish.

2007 Château La Mission Haut-Brion: 43% Merlot, 48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Cabernet Franc. Spiciness and cedar on the nose but again still quite closed. Mineral, hot stones complemented by almost cherry kirsch sweetness. Dense with long finish but ending slightly sour.

2007 Château Haut Brion: 43% Merlot, 48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Cabernet Franc. Complex intense nose of ripe cherry fruit and spicy cedar. No scorched earth here but refreshing freshness complemented the very ripe fruit. Very together for such a young wine with creamy vanilla notes apparent too. Not a heavy weight but incredibly complex and elegant.

2007 a year for the whites

Graves 2007 a year for the dry whites and a lot of work in the vineyards

Dominique Hervlan, President of the Syndicate of Graves explained that white wines were uniformly successful if not lacking a little volume. For the reds as long as a lot of work was done in the vineyard this year (spraying, removing leaves and green harvest), producers were able to wait late into the autumn and  harvest grapes with good ripeness benefitting from the autumn sunshine.

Tasted first range of wines from the 2007 vintage today at the Maison des Graves at Podensac. At the end of March the en primeur tastings for real with the world’s wine trade and press descending on Bordeaux – or perhaps not! Many apparently not coming this year due to the weather conditions during 2007 compounded by the weak pound and dollar against the euro.

Blind tasted a range of 100 wines from the Graves, half white and half red. Tasting blind gives interesting results – cannot help being affected by the label and our preconceptions. This way one just focuses on what our senses tell us at that moment.

White Graves: Sauvignon,  Semillon, Muscadelle

Found the quality of the white Graves to be more uniform than the reds. High levels of acidity but in the best the sharpness is rounded off with a weight of fruit to balance. Predominantly citrus fruits (lemon and grapefruit), very fresh and full of vivacity. Many wines lacked volume.  Careful use of oak not to overpower the fruit helped to round some of the aggressive acidity but best wines  emphasized the freshness and pure fruit flavours of these taste-bud popping wines.

I found the best White Graves to be; Clos Floridene,  de Fougeres, M de Malle, Tourteau Chollet, Beauregard Ducasse, Rougement, Pouyanne, Navarro, de Seuil

White Graves Coup de Coeurs were Duc d’Arnauton (fresh and zingy) and Château Callac (more complex with  successful use of oak)

Red Graves:  Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot  Quality is very uneven. Some producers tried to produce supple fruity wines but the lack of ripeness was very apparent. Green tannins and vegetal (IBMP in the Cabernets) notes all too often. Some overextraction. Very difficult tasting. Very few stood out. Many appalling.

I found the best Red Graves to be; de Castre, Pessan, Tour Bichan, Rahoul, Lahoul, de Cerons, Fleur Jonquet, Tourteau Chollet, Clos Foridene

Red Graves Coup de Coeur was Vieux Chateau Gaubert by far the best

2007 Bordeaux en primeur: thoughts before the tasting starts

2007 Bordeaux Reds

Due to the abundance of water during the growing season the vine did not experience the usual summer shut-down of the vegetative cycle during the summer of 2007. This meant that the vine continued to produce vegetation instead of pumping all of its sugars into the grapes themselves. It was only on soils that naturally limited the vine’s access to water that the usual concentration of sugars in the grape occurred. This was particularly a problem with the Merlot grape unless on well-drained (like on the Cotes of St Emilion) or exceptionally clayey soils (so heavy that water is restricted to the vine) – as in parts of Pomerol. Merlot is the first to ripen.

Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc did not seem to suffer so much from this problem particularly when grown on well-drained soils which limited the amount to water the vine received.  There is good potential for these wines.

Ripeness could be achieved if the vines had been well tended and sprayed to avoid mildew and leaves remved to aid aeration. Good wines could be made if the wine producer could wait to benefit from the Autumn sun not as powerful as the Summer sun but did ripen the vines.

Petit Verdot ripened amazingly well and was the surprise of the vintage with its black colour and spicy notes.

2007 Bordeaux Whites

This will be a year for dry white wines with good aromatic potential (lots of citrus flavours) and high levels of acidity. Good levels of ripeness.  Good basis for vins liquoreux too. It was the sweet wine producing regions south of Bordeaux that could make the most of the hot sunny autumn to super-ripen the Sauvignon and Semillon grapes further sweetened by the arrival of noble rot. Wonderful range of aromas from lemon and grapefruit through to apricot and peach on the fruit palate, honeysuckle and organge blossom on the flower palate and honey and butterscotch from the noble rot itself intermingling with toasty vanillary notes from the oak barrels.

 Do the wines in Bordeaux really vary so much year to year?

Being so ‘northern’ Bordeaux is particularly subjected to any vagries of the weather causing rot and unripeness due to the lack of sun.  Whatever techniques the producers employ, the wines of Bordeaux do continue to show considerable vintage variation due to the region’s temperate climate. Having great terroir does seem to even these differences out. Global warming seems to helping too across the region with a string of ripe vintages in the 2000s (particularly the late ripening Cabernet Sauvignon).

If you listen to the producers themselves in Bordeaux every year is a ‘vintage’ year (although this does not have the same meaning as with Champagne or Port when only exceptional years are ‘vintage’ and have only that year’s wine in the bottle). Do the quality of years vary so much today with modern technology available to smooth out any problems and global warming to boost the temperatures?

With a greater understanding of the science of wine aided by modern technology and a greater attention to detail it is true that many of the problems of past vintages can be avoided today. Producers would be the first to admit that nature can never be overridden but today there is a better understanding of how to work with nature and this starts in the vineyard. In good vintages such as 2005 producer and nature were able to work even hand in hand. In more difficult vintages such as 2007 producers have had to work against nature spraying against mildew, removing leaves to allow greater through-flow of air and if the health of the grapes permitted leaving harvesting as late as possible into the autumn to achieve a level of ripeness.

And then there is the problem of the pricing. 2005 was the vintage of the century. 2006 was in its shadow but has become expensive. The dollar and pound is very low against the Euro. 2007 is being compared to 2004 but yields are down and they say there is always demand for good Bordeaux wines…..

The En Primeur Parade

The en primeur tastings of the 2007 vintage are starting in Bordeaux. Every year the world’s wine buyers and press come to Bordeaux early April to slate or exalt the region’s latest offerings. There is no in-between view. Depending on the weather during harvest, minds have already been conditioned one way or another. The wet Summer of 2007 has not been a good promotion for the 2007 campaign.

Making the New WineThe grapes were harvested in the Autumn 2007 and over a few weeks the juice turns into wine. The different grape varieties and different plots of the vineyard with different aged grapes are kept separate. Once fermentation is complete these lots are put into barrel in the early new year for at least 18 months.

There are a few decisions that the winemaker can make to suit the style of the vintage. How long the juice is kept in contact with the skins after fermentation and the amount of new oak and the length in barrel are tweeks to the recipe of making wine to ensure that whatever the weather a balanced wine is produced each year.

The world’s wine trade arrives a few short months later at the beginning of April to taste the brand new wine and to decide on the successes of the vintage and which wines they want to buy when the prices are released in May/June time.

The winemakers make their ‘selection’, blending together the various different lots of grape wine to make the ‘new wine’ of the vintage of their chateau.  Final blending is done just before bottling which will take place for the 2007 harvest in June 2009 – to the same recipe, of course, as the samples for the en primeurs.

Are these young wines really representative of what the wine will taste like once bottled?

These wines are very young with a few months in oak and still over a year to go in barrel. Are they representative of what they will be another year in barrel? Recently tasted the 2006s after their second winter in barrel and these wines are very indicative. It is important to bear this mind. Tasting en primeur wines is not the same. Identifying the potential is what the aim is. Looking for potential balance of the different components. And who is to say that the final blend will be the same as the wine presented?

It is worth remembering that these wines are brand new and are not stable. Patrice Hateau, Technical Director of Chateau Pape Clement says it takes 2 and a half hours to prepare a sample. Freshness of sample is paramount.

How the En Primeur Tastings work

During the first week of April the Union de Grand Cru organises tastings of a range of the different appellations in different locations. There are five properties that host each year welcoming thousands of trade/press to taste the appellation’s wines and organising lunch too (news spreads fast as to who is doing the best lunch). Producers present their wines to the trade and press. Blind tastings are also available.This year the UGC tastings are at;

Chateau Desmirail, Margaux: Barsac and SauternesChateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion, Leognan: Graves and Pessac-LeognanChâteau Lascombes, Margaux : MargauxChâteau Pontet-Canet, Pauillac : St Julien, Pauillac, St EstepheChâteau La Tour Carnet, St Laurent de Medoc : Listrac, Moulis,Ht Medoc, Medoc

The first tasting the UGC organise is to the Bordeaux negociants themselves two weeks before the en primeur week starts.

Buyers also make appointments at the chateaux themselves so they can be presented in situ by the winemakers. Surely though it is more effective to taste the wines side by side and be able to compare wines of the appellations. Or even blind would be the best. Even the top wine journalists and buyers do not normally do it this way.

2007 Sauternes: Tasting Nectar straight from the barrel

2007 Chateau Sigalas Rabaud, Premier Cru Classe

Pale gold with peaches and apricots, vanilla notes , honey and light butterscotch, citrus and honeysuckle. Complexity of flavours  with wonderful freshness and purity of fruit flavor. Beautiful balance. Restrained and elegant with a very long finish.

It is a shame that sweet wines do not have more of a following in the UK. It is not considered ‘the done thing’ to serve a sweet wine at the end of the meal. Why not serve a sweet wine instead of a dessert? A liquid dessert. The French serve ‘vin liquoreux’ or moelleux (less sweet) as an aperitif. I prefer something dry or acidic to get my taste buds going before a meal. There must be a place for these wonderful sweet wines which do not taste overtly sweet due to the incredible ‘gamme’ of flavours and their high acidity. The producers in Sauternes want to promote enjoying their wines throughout the meal. Not having a sweet tooth, I would find this difficult. Why not leave them where they are best suited, at the end but lets not forget them. Perhaps sweet wines could become the trendy bottle to take to friends’ houses? Perhaps their promotional body could develop a single bring-a-sweet-bottle bag to promote it. 

Monday 10th March 2008: Visit to Chateau Sigalas Rabaud, first growth in Sauternes to taste the newly made 2007 vintage. Sixth generation Laure Compeyrot received us at the property in the cold spring rain and wind. It was much cosier in the barrel cellar amongst the barriques of 2007 where Laure using a pipette drew out from a range of different barrels (represented different ‘lots’ from different day’s pickings) and we tasted their light golden coloured ‘nectar’. Noticed an incredible difference between the lots in terms of colour, flavours (from honey and butterscotch to honeysucle and linden flowers, to fruit flavours of citrus , pear, peach and apricot) and varying levels of sweetness. They look for a sugar level of 21 degrees sugar in each lot when it goes in to the barrel at the beginning of the fermentation. This small first growth property (classified in 1855) of only 14 hectares is located on the hillsides of Haut-Bommes. Just behind it, the most famous imposing Chateau d’Yqeum can be seen. As always the terroir of the property (its soil, aspect, location) is key in determining its quality. Laure explained how her one of her ancestors ( not so passionate about wine) had divided up the original property ‘Rabaud’, selling the beautiful Victor Louis chateau with the less good north facing slopes keeping the ‘jewel’ parcel of the best vineyards (south facing and with the ideal gravel and clay soil) in the second half around the farmhouse. This is where Laure’s family and for the past two years, Laure herself  make the fabulous sweet wine of Sigalas Rabaud.Having ripe grapes at harvest is very important when making sweet wine. The south-facing vineyards not only benefit from more of the sun’s rays but the vineyards ripen more evenly too. The gravel stones heat up during the day keeping the ripening process going through the night and the clay  provides a little water (not too much) when the vine needs it. Laure explained that the property’s proximity to the River Ciron means that fog is a daily certitude every morning in the autumn. Coming from the warm area of the Landes, fog is apparently produced when it hits the cooler waters of the Gironde. This is key in encouraging the development of the noble rot Botrytis cinera on the skins of the ripe grapes which develops each year without fail in this ideal climate. Also the fact that the property’s vineyards are grown on slopes on an elevated piece of land means that there is always a wind to aerate and dry the grapes avoiding the development of the ‘wrong’ rot according to Laure.

Noble rot grows on the thick skins of the Semillon (85% of the vineyard) and the thinner Sauvignon grapes (15%). Sauvignon is always a little more difficult as the bunches are much tighter and so there is less chance for air to circulate and the ‘wrong’ type of rot can develop. This fungus punctures the skins of the grapes and feeds off the water concentrating the sugar and causing the grapes to shrivel. Not only is it a super-concentrator of sugar but it also imparts a honeyed twist to the citric and exotic fruit flavours in the grapes.The grapes are harvested grape by grape according to the development of the noble rot. The selection by the pickers in the vineyard is paramount in producing quality sweet wine. Only grapes that are shrivelled, and with white hair from the fungus (‘Ratatine, poilu blanc’) is what the pickers are told to look for and select even if it means cutting the grape in half using finely pointed secateurs! Each year the noble rot develops in different areas of the vineyard first. There is no pattern according to Laure. This year the harvest took over six weeks to be completed between 14^th September and 9^th November. Incredibly labour intensive.

The day’s pickings are pressed back in the cellars firstly be a vertical and then by  horizontal press. The juice is then placed in a stainless steel vat and left to settle (‘debourbage’) overnight at the cool night’s ambient temperature. The juice is then pumped out leaving behind bits of skin etc into another vat, heated to about 25C and the fermentation process begins. Once it is well underway the juice is pumped into barriques. After three or so weeks the level of sugar is around 14% the fermentation slows down as the yeasts struggle and begin to die off. Leaving the wine on the lees gives further richness and roundness to the wine through a process called ‘autolysis’. Sulphur dioxide is added to ensure that fermentation is stopped properly and refermentation is avoided. One third of new oak barrels is used each year.

In February the important process of assemblage takes place where the different lots picked over the six or so weeks are tasted and selected (or not) to make up the final wine. Then the wine is shown to the wine trade in the ‘en primeur tastings’ of the world; tasted and critiqued! Sweet white wines are some of the best made in 2007 with this region beneftting best from the very sunny Autumn. Good luck Laure and the delicious 2007 Sigalas Rabaud.