Wine 2010

Our view on the 2010 vintage

In Bordeaux, the 2010 vintage was a great success, in a more classic style than the wines of 2009. The flowering time was late: 2010 summer was dry, with warm and sunny days and cool nights leading to a good ripening of the grapes. The 2010 Bordeaux Grands Crus Classes have an imposing tannic structure, and their aging potential is well ensured. 2010 Pomerol and 2010 Saint Emilion are slightly below. The 2010 Pessac Leognan wines are superb (in red as much as in white). The 2010 year produced more austere wines than the 2009 vintage and it will take more time to approach those wines. Like the wines from the 2005 vintage, the 2010 bottles can be kept in the cellar for a long time. For the 2010  Sauternes wines, the successes are numerous but the vintage is slightly behind compared to 2009 and 2001. Looking at 2010 Burgundy wines, a contrasted and unstable weather strongly reduce the yields and forced the winemakers to work hard in the vines to finally produce a very high quality vintage. The 2010 red wines as well as the white wines are superb and thanks to the yield limitation undertaken. Indeed in many sectors, the wines are well concentrated and dense. We can observe that the 2010 Cote de Nuit wines have been slightly advantaged compared to the 2010 Cote de Beaune in red. The 2010 Chablis wines display a very pure and mineral profile with a very long aging potential. The 2010 red wines of the Cote de Nuits (2010 Gevrey Chambertin, 2010 Chambolle Musigny, 2010 Vosne Romanee) are dense, concentrated and with great aging potential. The Cote de Beaune produced very straight and concentrated 2010 white wines (2010 Chassagne Montrachet, 2010 Puligny Montrachet, 2010 Meursault). In Champagne, the vintage has been quite poor and so rare will be the big producers to vintage it. Regarding the 2010 Rhone wines, the 2010 vintage is more classic (less warm than 2009), and there are many successes as in 2010 Cote Rotie (with magnificent balance) in 2010 Saint Joseph, 2010 Cornas or even 2010 Crozes Hermitage. In Southern Rhone, the vintage has been particularly successful in Chateauneuf du Pape. Alsace produced a very good 2010 vintage, endowed with a good acidity and if the Gewurztraminer were badly affected by the frost, the Rieslings and Pinots Gris are very good and will age beautifully. In the Loire valley, 2010 vintage was a good year with elegant red wines (2010 Bourgueil, 2010 Chinon, 2010 Saumur Champigny). For the Loire white wines, the designations of Anjou and Sancerre have produced very balanced wines with finesse.