| Bordeaux
2000: The most hyped vintage in living memory? |
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It's frustrating for wine geeks. The only
way of buying Bordeaux wines at half-way decent prices is to buy them
en primeur. And of all the en primeur releases, this is the one where
the punters don't get a chance to try the wines first. Instead, we
have to rely on the steady deluge of reports from journalists and wine
merchants. Because of the publication delay in most wine print
publications, they are too late: wait for them and the allocations
will already be sold. Bizarrely, this year many Bordeaux properties
were waiting for influential American critic Robert Parker to release
his scores before announcing their opening prices, such is his
influence on the market. Well, he has, and so now there is a daily
flow of wine offers on the market. If you are going to buy, now is the
time to act. I haven't joined the circus to taste the wines, so I've
asked two independent merchants, James Hanford MW and Peter
Ballantyne, to give me their impressions. Two caveats: these wines
are tasted very early in their development, well before they are
bottled, and both merchants have wines they would quite like to sell.
But I think that they're experienced, reputable people who realise
that to sell to a sophisticated and demanding public they have nothing
to gain by not being honest. To their credit, both are wonderfully
frank in their accounts where this is appropriate.
Read the vintage reports and tasting notes from:
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