2004 Petrus

Thanks to repeated crop thinning during the summer, Christian Moueix was able to harvest such properties as Lafleur-Petrus, Providence and Hosanna before the all-day rain that fell across much of the Right Bank on September 16. (Among the other chateaux of Pomerol, only Vieux Chateau Certan started that early, according to Moueix.) Those three properties have made wines that taste like they're from a sunny vintage, Moueix observed. And even for the rest, most of the merlot planted on gravelly soil was harvested between September 12 and 15, with the harvest shifting to merlot on clay on and after the 16th Petrus and Trotanoy were picked "half before and half after" the rain of the 16th, with the "core" of Petrus coming in on September 19 and 20. "What some people forget is that in 2005 we had a big storm on September 9th, but it only lasted an hour," Moueix went on. "In 2006, with rain over a period of time, the vegetation started up again, and that's what has induced vegetal tastes in some wines. But it's important to note that in many of our vineyards we had potential alcohol levels of 14% already before the rains started." Moueix is convinced that the merlot had an advantage over the later-picked cabernet franc because it suffered less from the rain. Incidentally, Moueix told me he generally prefers 2006 to 2004 "for structure and fruit."

Christian Moueix can be relied on to explain the shortcomings of every new Bordeaux vintage during the spring after the harvest, and he warmed to this subject in April. "For one thing, 2004 was one of the biggest vintages in decades," he told me. "Only 1994, 1974 and 1973 were bigger. We crop-thinned at the end of June and also in early August. At our top chateaux, we did a third crop-thinning in early September too. We also de-leafed on the north side of the vines in June, and then de-leafed on the south and west sides by mid-August, so that we could crop-thin on the sunny side of the vines for the first time. The second characteristic of the vintage is that it was a very average year in terms of weather: low in rain and average in sunshine. Even our September sunshine was only 2% above the 57-year average. So we had a huge crop and an average summer. Thirty years ago, this kind of vintage would have been like the '73s: for early drinking. Thanks largely to our sorting tables now, 2004 is a useful vintage: good wines for drinking but not for collecting."