Bill Blatch’s Vintage Report « Jeroboams

Introduction

2010 “An embarrassingly good vintage”
Back in November, many owners were already quietly confident that their ’10 was better than the already legendary ’09 but, coming hot on the heels of the hallowed 2009s, they seemed embarrassed to say it too loudly.

March 15, 2010 Read More >

2010 Reds

These are solid wines and happily so – at current prices, we have to provide maximum bang for the buck! High sugars once again produced highly alcoholic wines, mostly slightly less than 09 but sometimes in parts of the Right Bank and in most of Pessac-Léognan, even more. But if they have all the power of [...]

March 16, 2010 Read More >

2010 Dry Whites

This is clearly going to be a tremendous vintage for whites. They are less fat but just as alcoholic as those other dry vintages 05 and 09. Yet they are more aromatic and vibrant, as bright and fresh as the 08s but with all the weight of the 05s and 09s. The Sauvignons are especially [...]

2010 Sauternes

Less dense and less opulent than their monumental predecessor, these 2010 Sauternes and Barsacs make up for that by being the prettiest vintage of all time, with lovely, floral, uniformly pure and totally fresh-styled wines that are all the same beautifully lush and sweet.
8As in 09, and also 05, the summer drought produced an exceptional [...]

Winter 2009/2010

Winter 2009/10
We couldn’t know it at the time, because we didn’t know that we were going into such a dry year, but the very high early winter rainfall was to become the saving grace of the vintage, storing up in the depths of the soil a reserve of dampness that would become crucial in the [...]

April 1, 2010 Read More >

Spring 2010 and the budding

With winter receding, we started to go into an even more irregular weather pattern, certainly a product of the nascent La Niña system, which elsewhere would culminate later in the year in the disastrous crop failures and mine floodings in the Southern hemisphere and the devastating hurricanes in NE Australia. Meanwhile, in France, some equally [...]

Early summer 2010, and the flowering

Early summer 2010, and the flowering
With the drought continuing through May, it was now time for the vines to flower, and after such yo-yo conditions of April and the persistent drought continuing throughout May, the prospects were not perfect. The vine seemed not only thirsty but also confused by such changeable conditions. From 21st May, [...]

High Summer

High summer
With the June rains out of the way, 2010’s mid-season turbulence started to steady in Bordeaux and from 20th June right through the rest of the summer, the Azores high pressure system brought its permanently hot North-Westerly air flows into the region, protecting it from the series of depressions that continued to slam through [...]

September, October and the harvest

Coming off such a dry period, with lawns yellow and roadsides like savannah, it was amazing to see the vines such a beautiful dark green, like Las Vegas golf courses, showing no signs of stress – apart from recently planted vines which had often keeled over and occasionally others on lighter soils or exposed at [...]

Jeroboams - En Primeur Bordeaux 2010

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