After spending seven full days touring Bordeaux and tasting nearly 400 wines from the 2009 vintage (many of them two or three times), we  feel we have an excellent handle on this most recent "Vintage of the Millennium."

The 2009 Bordeaux Futures page on our website will continue to be updated as wines are released, so please bookmark it and refer back often.

Plain and simple, 2009 appears to be an excellent vintage. The wines are deep and dark with record tannin levels and high alcohol percentages, which typically makes tasting barrel samples tiresome and difficult. Yet these wines were remarkably easy to taste out of barrel given their velvety soft tannins, high acidity levels, and wonderful freshness that is sure to become a hallmark of this vintage.

It's been said that 2009 is a Left Bank vintage -- think Margaux, Pauillac, St. Julien and St. Estephe -- where Cabernet Sauvignon dominated. In many instances that's true, but not always. Chateau Palmer in Margaux, for example, produced a stunning wine of over 50% Merlot. Chateau Trotanoy in the Pomerol region, a Right Bank wine, crafted a similarly fantastic wine with a high percentage of Merlot. Much of the success of the vintage was in deciding the proper time to harvest the grapes.

In many vintages the rain determines the harvest time. The grapes approach optimum ripeness and eventually there's rain in the forecast and you pick your grapes before the rain has a chance to ruin your harvest. A near perfect growing season in 2009 was filled with warm days and cool nights. We say "near perfect" because a hailstorm in May caused quite a bit of damage on the Right Bank. Mid to late September had almost no rain, though, so deciding when to harvest became THE decision. Pick early and go for ripe, elegant wines or wait a little and go for more power and concentration? With no right or wrong answer it's often a matter of personal preference.

We tasted a fair amount of Right Bank wines -- those from St. Emilion and Pomerol -- that were clearly harvested a little too late. Overripe, almost raisiny fruit, was not uncommon. We probably encountered more uniformity in the Left Bank, but disappointments were apparent there as well.

Probably the most common question we've been asked since our return is to which vintage does 2009 compare? It's not an easy question to answer and it's not always fair, but we'll give it a try.

Given the fact that 2005 is the most recent "it" vintage in Bordeaux, comparisons are natural. But as we posted after our first day in Bordeaux, 2009, while an excellent vintage, doesn't seem to be the all-encompassing success story that 2005 was. In 2005 you could pretty much close your eyes, spin around and point and you'd most likely be pointing directly at a great wine. From Left Bank to Right Bank and cheap to expensive, 2005 had it all. The best wines of 2009, though,  may be better than their 2005 counterparts, and there are many petit chateaux that we fell in love with that will grace our shelves in the coming years, but you have to be a careful consumer.

Chasing wines with high ratings might help you if you intend to trade wine like a commodity, but with 2009, where classified growths could be quite pricey, we prefer to focus on the smaller wines. There are so many affordable wines -- wines to be drunk -- and this list has the wines released so far that we feel offer excellent value. If you have a particular style of wine that you like, whether that be oaky and rich or fruit forward and a little more elegant, 2009 has it all. Ask us, though, if you're unsure about a particular wine. Highly rated wines are great, but they may not suit your tastebuds.

2009 seems to have the best traits of so many vintages! We've heard 1947, 1961, 1982 and 2005. So which vintage does 2009 remind us of? The answer might be 1989. This excellent, yet often underappreciated vintage, had a similarly fantastic growing season and the wines have similar power and concentration. We found the 2009's to have more freshness, though. This might explain why they're almost drinkable now yet they'll be very long-lived wines! Taken as a whole, at this early stage, 2009 seems to remind us of 1989.

To sum it all up, 2009, whether it ever becomes the Vintage of the Millennium or not, will certainly be a great vintage. We're carefully selecting wines to offer you and we'll do our best to obtain anything you may request from us.

A few points about CW's Bordeaux Futures:

1 - All orders are subject to written confirmation
2 - Prices are subject to change
3 - Payment due at time of order. DC sales tax will be collected at time of pickup, at tax rate at time of pickup. There is no sales tax on shipped orders.
4 - Approximate delivery is Fall 2011-Spring 2012
5 - Please inquire for odd sizes. Half Bottles, Magnums, Double Mags and more are available for a small upcharge.