Pack your good liver: Tasting with a negociant

Post by John Perry | Saturday, March 27th

I thought that by coming to Bordeaux for the tasting of the 2008 vintage last year I would feel more hip to the experience on my sophomore trip. But it's still an impressive (and intimidating!) sight to enter a room with hundreds of bottles of wine lined up on a table - all to be opened and tasted.  This is how we spent a couple of hours on Saturday evening on a return visit to one of our negociants. The sheer volume of what was presented to us I remembered all too well from the previous year. Believe me, it takes some strength to come out of one of these on top!

This year we started in a tasting room dedicated to wines from the 2009 vintage, with a handful of 08s thrown in for comparison. Although there were hundreds of bottles, it was not quite as jam packed as last year. There were spaces on the table for 2009 samples that had yet to arrive, and more space in the location in general, allowing for a slightly more relaxed experience.  Corks were popped and we dug right in.  Of all the 2009 wines that we tasted, I was particularly impressed with the offerings from Margaux (d'Issan, Brane Cantenac, Malescot) as well as St. Julien (Beychevelle, Lagrange).  Phenomenal aromas, big and round on the palate, terrific structure and length- whether this is indicative of the vintage in general remains to be seen, but for me things were getting off to a fantastic start.

An American wine writer happened to be visiting the negociant at the same time we were there and he was welcomed to join us in tasting.  It was a pleasure to get a perspective from outside our group, and as things often do around here the discussion boiled down to quality and price.  What will the market for 2009 Bordeaux be like?  Whatever the outcome, there was the sentiment that Americans don't want to get burned by the Bordelais...we don't want to see the wines we purchase now on the market for the same price or less two years down the road when they come stateside. I had a similar feeling last year, though having a child born in 2008 made me desire the vintage regardless of quality and where the pricing would go. I have a similar stake in 2009 as I would like to document a unique moment in my life with this vintage. Fortunately, the quality that I've experienced thus far makes these a very compelling purchase.

After wrapping up in the first room, we were invited into the second tasting room, smaller with a semi-circular table.  At least we presumed there to be a table as every square centimeter was covered by our evening's work. It was an intense experience last year when there were just four of us there to taste.  This year, there were eleven of us crammed together like kids in a candy shop.  We had bottles on the table from the mid-90s through 2007 and what a blast! One person would try something they really liked and I would rush over to try it too.  Then I would hear about another amazing wine across the room and I had to rush over and try that one!  Of course, not every wine is the most amazing thing ever, but even when we came across average bottles or outright duds it was still very enjoyable to get that much palate education in one fell swoop.

By the time we were finished we were all famished and in need of some serious food. None of us had really eaten save for a baguette, prosciutto, pate and cheese at a tasting eight hours earlier and it was definitely time to go.  So without further ado, we were off with yet another successful and wonderful tasting at this negociant in the books!  Au revoir, see you next year!