Robert Parker released his scores for the 2008 Bordeaux vintage last night and surprised the market with his generosity. He scored the vintage significantly higher that all the other major critics to have pronounced so far and gave four wines the opportunity to score 100 points.
As he notes in his vintage report:
"It did not take me long to realize that the 2008 vintage was dramatically better than I had expected. It had all the qualities that make an excellent and in some cases, a great vintage so special: exceptionally dark opaque colours, gorgeously ripe fruit, stunning purity almost across the board, great freshness (because it was a cool year), slightly higher acids than normal, and remarkable density as well as concentration. Moreover, one of the significant keys to evaluating quality is the maturity of the tannins. In 2008, the tannins are unusually velvety."
He also stated: "There is no question that Pomerol seems to be the epicentre of many extraordinary wines. I would even go so far as to say the 2008 Pomerols eclipse/surpass the quality of the 2005s, 2001s, and 2000s."
The top-scoring First Growth was Lafite Rothshchild with 98-100 points, which was also the top wine in the Liv-ex 2008 Bordeaux En Primeur Survey.
All the wines scoring 94-96 and above are listed below:
(source: erobertparker.com).
So, what are we to make of the scores? Anecdotally, it would seem most members of the trade are incredulous. Simon Staples, fine wine director at Berry Bros & Rudd, is arguably speaking for many with a post he made this morning on Twitter:
"He went crazy about 2003 (all on his own) He missed 2005 (everyone else loved it) He's now potty about 08(a few very nice wines) Plot? Lost?”
To see how highly he rates the 2008 compared to recent vintages, we took a group of 29 of the most popular wines in both the investment and collecting communities. We then analysed their scores in the 2003, 2005 and 2006 vintage, with the 2008 scores represented by the middle of the barrel score spread. As you can see below, on average, 2008 is rated significantly higher than both 2006 and 2003, and just 0.3 of a point behind 2005.
(Source: erobertparker.com/ *middle of barrel score spread)
A full analysis of these numbers will be included in the next week's Liv-ex Market Report along with their effect on the fine wine market. What fate the 2006s and 2007s?
