2009 Richebourg Grand Cru

"I've been waiting for the vintage, and 2009 is it," said Mounir Saouma in mid-November. "We had a great vintage in 2002, and 2006, 2007 and 2008 were very good, but in 2009 we had the most beautiful grapes I've seen in 21 years." Mounir considers 2005 and 1999 to be too mediatique [essentially, overhyped by the media]: "I'm not a big fan of these vintages. Two thousand five had too much of everything. Two thousand nine is the opposite: not overly alcoholic, not overly tannic, not too high in acidity. The best wines have great harmony. It's a year when Burgundy is Chambolle-Musigny!" But Saouma stressed that there are two kinds of wine in 2009. "The defect to the vintage was that it was very warm just after the harvest. On October 10 we were wearing t-shirts. In many cellars the malos were finished before Christmas and the wines will be bottled early. These wines will be like most 1997s: good for 10 to 15 years. But when we brought our barrels to the cellar in the winter, we turned on the air-conditioning and our earliest malos didn't finish until June. So our wines were able to benefit from another six months of slowly digesting their lees. Assuming that this style of wine survives 18 to 24 months of elevage without being protected by too much sulfur, they'll remain fresh and we'll enjoy them every year for four decades."