Vintage year for bordeaux

Perfect weather conditions - a fine summer followed by dry, cool nights last month - could make the 2009 bordeaux vintage one of the best on record, say French wine experts.

Although the grape harvest is only just finishing and the juvenile wines will not be tasted for months, some professionals are already predicting that 2009 clarets will surpass the outstanding vintage of 2005.

"Nature has been exceptionally kind to us," said Denis Dubourdieu, director of the Bordeaux l'Institut des Sciences de la Vigne.

"The conditions have been so sumptuous that it is difficult to find a parallel. You have perhaps to go back to the 1940s to find a comparable year."

Jean-Christophe EstEve, a wine taster and trader, said the weather in the final days before grape picking last month - mostly fine days but cool, dry nights - had been the finest in the Bordeaux area for 60 years.

Cool nights in September prevent the grapes from becoming too ripe and lush and help to produce a more sophisticated wine. July and August had already been close to perfect in southwest France, with high temperatures and plenty of sun.

Alfred Tesseron, proprietor and manager of the Chateau Pontet-Canet in Paulliac, one of the most prized of Medoc clarets, is harvesting his last grapes this weekend.

"Of course it's too early to be sure," he told the Independent yesterday. "But already in 2005 I thought I was a lucky man to see such exceptional grapes in my lifetime. Now it seems that I may be lucky twice. The weather patterns of the two years were very similar but, if anything, the cool nights in September could make 2009 even better."

Foreign wine traders and private buyers may take these early predictions, if not with a pinch of salt, then at least a cube of ice.

Bordeaux sales, for all but the most sought-after chateaux, slumped badly last year after a brief boom attributed to the global thirst for the 2005 vintage.

The 2009 primeurs, or young wines, will not be ready for preliminary tasting until January or February.

- INDEPENDENT