Looking Backward/Looking Forward: 2000 vs 2001 Bordeaux 

BY NEAL MARTIN | SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

We are only 21 years into the new millennium, and 2000 already feels like a train disappearing over a distant temporal horizon. Let’s take a nostalgic trip back in time… Flip-top Nokias. Napster downloads. Y2K Armageddon. *NSYNC. Gladiator. The Millennium Dome. Tiger Woods wins four golf majors. Big Brother. The Sims. Will Ross and Rachel get together? Pirouetting Billy Elliot. Chris Martin walking down a beach singing about his favorite color (yellow, in case you forgot). 

The vintages under the microscope in this article hail from a time before 9/11. They predate the iPhone and the internet’s omnipresence. They were born before Bordeaux’s rebranding as a global luxury item, and when “high” alcohol was 13 percent – and also before I was writing. Back then, I worked for a Japanese wine importer in London, but I remember visiting Bordeaux during the 2000 en primeur campaign and feeling the palpable excitement about the wines. Proprietors, bless ’em, could barely contain their adoration for the millennial babies, convinced that they would represent the apotheosis of claret for years to come. 

Traditionally, I have always endeavored to taste Bordeaux vintages after 20 years. That is an ideal juncture at which to assess a wine’s trajectory of maturation and how far it may travel. Is it fulfilling its promise or surpassing it? Does it live up to its billing?

At two decades, the furcation between châteaux allows you to gauge whether quality is evenly spread geographically, or clustered in certain pockets, and if so, to understand the reasons behind that. So when I was finally able to travel to Bordeaux post-lockdown, I seized the opportunity. And if winemakers were happy to show their 2000, would they mind opening their 2001 to compare? Instead of a vintage retrospective, this round of tastings became far more interesting as a comparative exercise; juxtaposing consecutive vintages with different backstories and different evolutions, and, as I found to my surprise, ending and beginning two different epochs for Bordeaux.

The Growing Seasons

2000 - The numerical significance and favorable growing season lit the touchpaper for the hype that surrounded the 2000 Bordeaux primeur campaign. Following a run of good but not great vintages in the late 1990s, winemakers, merchants and consumers were eager for a vintage to really get behind – and 2000 delivered. But it was not a growing season without challenges. The year began as the region was recovering from a destructive storm on December 26 that had felled some 400,000 trees and taken lives. January was normal for the season; February was warmer but rainy. Vines awoke from their dormancy around March 14 and temperatures continued to rise steadily throughout the following weeks, reaching 30°C in mid-May. The first flowers began to speckle the landscape on June 1, and full flowering arrived a week later. A combination of showers and warm temperatures provoked mildew that obliged vineyard managers to be on top of their game in terms of spraying their vines. July was cooler than average, with storms on July 3 and 24; at this time, it was still uncertain where the growing season was heading. That question was answered on July 29, when a large high-pressure system squatted over the region. August remained sunny, with temperatures peaking around 35°C, then dropping after rainfall on August 25 and 26. This rain was welcome, as there had been localized hydric stress on gravel soils and younger vines. Despite brief outbreaks of rain in early September, temperatures remained high, up to 33°C. Haut-Brion began picking their reds on September 13, Cheval Blanc the following day, and the Merlot harvest kicked off in earnest under perfect conditions on September 21. The media began to get excited. On September 27, Sud Ouest newspaper declared, “Le millésime 2000 s’annonce grandiose” – before much of the Cabernet had even been picked. But the breathless headlines were premature. A forecasted storm swept across the region from the evening of September 28, which encouraged some châteaux to expedite their harvest, while others opted to wait it out. The Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon started their picking from October 2 under cooler and more autumnal conditions. The optimal picking window was shorter than in 2005, for example; the door slammed shut on October 10, when the weather deteriorated considerably until November. 

2001 – A high-pressure system lodged itself over Bordeaux between November and January, resulting in a very wet and warm winter. Pruning was delayed because the sap would not go down. That changed on January 15, when temperatures fell and the vines shut down. However, warmth returned in March and bud-burst began on March 19. April was cool, which retarded the vines’ growth, although despite frost alerts, a westerly wind managed to blow the cold air away, except in southern Léognan and Blaye on April 20. May saw the mercury rising, and growth sped ahead. There were perfect conditions during flowering in early June: 20°C to 25°C with a light breeze. Flowering was around five days later than the previous two years, though June was hot, notching up seven days in excess of 30°C, during which many chefs du culture thinned their crop and de-leafed canopies. Then July witnessed a fortnight of cold and rainy weather that only served to dampen spirits, since rain was not required following such a wet winter. Some areas saw 91% more rain than usual. The pendulum swung back the other way with a heat wave from July 21 to August 1, but after that, the weather never settled, and the fruit found it difficult to achieve concentration. “Chaotic” is how Bill Blatch described it in his annual growing season summary, with “jabs of heat.” This led to a delayed and spun-out véraison and a much more gradual and irregular ripening than in 2000, encouraging more vineyard managers to lop off bunches. September was not hot like the previous year, though it was very constant, with daytime temperatures of 20°C to 25°C. This allowed skins to thicken, anthocyanins to build, and sugar to accumulate, albeit in discreet fashion. Thankfully, it was very dry, avoiding any swelling of grapes that still had ample water reserves.