Anson: Bordeaux 2000 comes around

Some Bordeaux vintages can be annoyingly stubborn. Taking their time to come round to the point that you almost give up. The 2000 has been a bit like that for me. Tannins altogether too foursquare, fruit broad but heavy, lacking the finesse of the 2001 that followed it.

The 2001 has been my favourite of the two pretty much since they were released, with wines like Figeac 2001 and Haut-Bailly 2001 perfectly showcasing the graceful but concentrated elegance of the vintage.

Scroll down for Jane Anson’s top five Bordeaux 2000 tasting notes and scores

But now, after almost two decades, the 2000 is springing to life. A year ago I held a specific 2000 versus 2001 tasting at 67 Pall Mall in London and in that case every wine but the Haut-Brion 2000 (that received a full 100 points) was either beaten or equalled by its 2001 version. A year on and the 2000 seems to have kicked into gear and started to earn its keep.

It was, famously, a vintage with a lot riding on it. The first year of the new millennium, with the three zeros on the label that meant merchants all over the world were keen to promote it to their clients. And prices were high; an average rise of 22% from the 1999 vintage on release, and of the five wines tasted here, prices have not stopped rising since. Right now, you are looking at over £6,000 a case of 12 for the La Mission Haut-Brion in the UK market, more than £3,200 for the Palmer and between £1,500 and £2,500 for the other three.

The weather started out causing a few headaches, with a rainy spring that saw 173mm of rain in April and again a relatively cool, rainy late May and early July, meaning some early but uneven flowering and a generally high risk of disease. But the hot summer and autumn that followed meant that temperatures were 1.5°C more than the 30 year average over the whole growing season, and the faculty of oenology in Bordeaux pointed out in its annual round-up that ‘this last year of the 20th century has been one of the earliest of the previous 100 years’. It was also one of the most drawn-out harvests, beginning in early September and finishing in mid October, with only the sweet wine regions having to bring grapes in under the rain that began around October 10th.

The red wines, at harvest, had high levels of sugar and extremely concentrated phenolics, meaning lots of colour and lots of tannins, which explains in a large part why they took so long being impressive but distinctly unlovely. The usual practise at the time, to measure maturity by sugar levels rather than phenolic maturity, will also have exacerbated the fact that some wines needed a long time to soften. All in all a brilliant illustration of why it’s so often worth giving Bordeaux the benefit of the doubt.

This most recent 2000 tasting was held with the same five wines from 2010, and I would clearly suggest holding off opening these for a good five years at least, as the wines are bursting with potential but barely out of the starting blocks right now.

See Jane Anson’s top five Bordeaux 2000 tasting notes and scores

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