2009 Bordeaux Wine Vintage Report and Buying Guide with Tasting Notes, Reviews and Ratings and producer comments for the best 2009 2009 Pessac Leognan Bordeaux Wines for red Bordeaux and white Bordeaux wines. The 2009 Pessac Leognan wines were tasted in barrel in Bordeaux, June 2010.
2009 Graves/Pessac Leognan reviews, tasting notes and ratings for the best wines from the 2009 Pessac Leognan appellation.
2009 Branon is deep ruby with purple accents. The wine shows truffle, tobacco, cassis, caramel, and coffee notes in the nose. The palate enjoys the feeling of rich, opulent, fleshy blackberries being draped across it. The wine has a concentrated, sweet berry finish. On average, only 500 cases a year are produced of this wine. 94-96 Pts
2009 Brown has a personality of dark fruit and licorice. This is an early drinking, crowd pleaser style of wine. 84/86 Pts
2009 Les Carmes Haut Brion, with its large percentage of cabernet franc, produced a light style of wine that expresses earth, herb, tobacco, and blackberry aromatics. This elegant wine ends with chocolate covered blackberry flavors. 90/92 Pts
2009 de Chantegrive is a blend of 55% merlot and 45% cabernet sauvignon. Truffles, earth, dark fruit, and coffee aromas are on display in this soft, already accessible wine. The de Chantegrive is a crowd pleaser, a top value wine that will drink well early and should be available for about $18. 86/89 Pts
2009 Domaine de Chevalier opens with smoke, dark berries, earth, and spice aromas. Elegant and round, with textures of silk, the wine ends with a fresh blast of spicy black cherries. 92/94 Pts
2009 de Fieuzal shows a floral, berry, oak, and spice perfume. Round in texture and fleshy in style, the wine finishes with notes of chocolate and blackberry. This chateau keeps improving thanks to the consistent efforts of Hubert de Bouard of Angelus, who consults for the property. 89/91 Pts
2009 Haut Bailly has a beautiful shade of deep ruby. With fresh shaved truffle, cassis, earth, spice, smoke, licorice, mineral, and Cuban cigar tobacco aromatics, this wine offers intensity of flavors and purity of fruit. The wine ends in a blast of cassis, plums, and fennel. There is not a hard edge to be found in this sublime expression of Haut Bailly. The 2009 is the finest wine I have tasted from the property. 96/98 Pts
2009 Haut Bergey is ruby colored with licorice, black raspberry, coffee, and smoke aromas. The wine has round textures, and finishes with sweet, dark berry and spice flavors. 90-92 Pts
2009 Haut Brion is a strong candidate for wine of the vintage. This wine has it all. And it went back and got more. Produced from 46% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon, and 14% cabernet franc, this inky black wine, tinted with purple and blue, explodes with smoke, truffles, cassis, caramel, minerals, crushed rock, spice, and cigar box aromatics. This intense wine is packed and stacked with multiple layers of powerful fruit; it shows intense purity, freshness, harmony, and balance. The seamless finish lasts over sixty seconds. Few wines grab you with a single swirl and sniff. But this wine does. If only I can find friends with enough money to afford it. While it’s high in alcohol, 14.2%, it has no sensation of heat. Another interesting statistic, for those who like stats, is that the 2009 Haut Brion shows a high pH level, 3.9, yet the wine displays ample freshness. Because higher levels of alcohol require more care, Delmas shortened the period of maceration to reduce the potential levels of extraction. According to Delmas, that choice made a big difference in 2009. 99/100 Pts
2009 Le Clarence de Haut Brion offers tobacco, smoke, and cassis aromas. Full bodied, and as good or better than any wine Haut Brion produced in the 70’s, this full bodied, fleshy wine ends with a mouth full of dark berries and chocolate. 90/92 Pts
2009 Haut Nouchet, produced not far from Smith Haut Lafitte on gravely, clay soils, is a blend of 60% cabernet sauvignon and 40% merlot. Here is a crowd pleasing, ripe style of wine that offers a lot of bang for the buck. 84/86 Pts
2009 Malartic La Graviere is a deeply colored wine that opens with smoke, crushed stone, black fruit, and cassis aromatics. Rich and full bodied, the round textured wine finishes with a blast of licorice, cassis, and juicy blackberries. 92/94 Pts
2009 La Mission Haut Brion, a blend of 47% cabernet sauvignon, 47% merlot, and 6% cabernet franc, offers dark purple color along with floral, smoke, cassis, earth and plum liqueur aromatics. Full bodied and filled with dense, sweet, mouth filling fruit, the wine is balanced and pure. The velvet textured finish has blackberry, smoke, and chocolate flavors. Although the wine reached a whopping 14.7 alcohol level, it has no sensation of heat. As a comparison, in 1989 La Mission Haut Brion reached 13% alcohol with the help of chapitalization. The pH in 1989 was 4.0, and 3.85 in 2009. Yet with a very high pH, the wine displays ample freshness. 96/97 Pts
2009 La Chapelle La Mission Haut Brion offers dark berries, smoke, tobacco, and licorice in its aroma. Round and soft textured, the wine finishes with the flavor of black berries. 90/91 Pts
2009 La Passion Haut Brion will be labeled and sold under a new name, Allary, the last name of the 94 year old owner of the property. The 2008 was the first vintage in 30 years. The fruit has been a part of the second wine of Haut Brion, Bahans Haut Brion, for the past 3 decades. Produced from gravel, sand, and clay terroir, and planted with the highest proportion of cabernet franc in the Graves region, 60% cabernet franc and 40% cabernet sauvignon, this soft, elegantly styled wine offers smoke, black raspberry, herb, and spice aromas. Medium bodied and softly textured, it finishes with the flavor of smoky berries. The wine is produced with the cooperation of Stephane Derenoncourt. 90/92 Pts
2009 Smith Haut Lafitte is dark ruby. Its nose is of truffle, earth, spice, smoke, coffee, berry and caramel. Full bodied and filled with ripe, fleshy, opulently textured fruit. If all the oak fully integrates (and I suspect it will), this will be a very strong wine. The fleshy finish has elements of chocolate, coffee, dark berries, and pit fruits. 94/96 Pts
