Confounding the Forecasts for Bordeaux 2011(2)

On the Left Bank, most of my favorites were from the Pauillac and Saint-Julien appellations; there, chateaus like Gruaud-Larose, Pichon-Longueville and Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande made fresh, elegant wines, marked by the purity of the blackberry and black currant fruit flavors.

Elsewhere on the Left Bank, the reds seemed less consistent, especially in Saint-Estèphe, just north of Pauillac, and in Pessac-Léognan, south of Bordeaux. Yet Haut-Bailly came through with an excellent Pessac-Léognan, as it often seems to in difficult years.

On the Right Bank, there were good wines from Pomerol, though here and in Saint-Émilion, I think the contrast with 2009 and 2010 is more marked than on the other side of the river.

While swirling and spitting, I chatted with Paolo Baracchino, one of the best-known Italian wine critics, who has been coming to Bordeaux for years for en primeur week.

“The 2011 red wines are deceptive,” he said. “They start out silky. They have fresh fruit and are nicely balanced. But the finish is often quite harsh.”

Some chateaus would have done better, he felt, if they had not tried so hard for a repeat of their amply endowed 2009s or 2010s. Indeed, I wonder whether the fruit or the tannins — dry substances that give red Bordeaux its structure but also its youthful astringency — will ultimately win the tug of war in the 2011s.

I have no such concerns about the potential of the whites. Both the dry whites of Pessac-Léognan and the sweet wines of the Sauternes and Barsac appellations are very promising.

While the cool, damp summer created problems for the red grapes, it was good for the whites, giving them the high acidity that provides freshness. Unlike some whites from cool summers, however, these wines are densely structured and intensely flavored.

In Pessac-Léognan, Domaine de Chevalier showed a white 2011 that already tasted like a complete wine, even at this early stage. The dry whites of several other chateaux, like Larrivet Haut-Brion, Pape-Clément, Fieuzal and Smith-Haut-Lafitte, were not far behind.

The sweet 2011s from Sauternes and Barsac might be even better. One chateau after another displayed wines with perfect botrytis — that is, the “noble rot” that gives these nectars their rich, complex textures and flavors.

“Such a vigorous burst of noble rot is rare,” Denis Dubourdieu, a winemaker and oenologist, wrote in a report on the 2011 vintage. “In 40 years of making wine in the region, I have only seen this phenomenon twice, in 2009 and 2011.”

There is also something nimble about the sweet 2011s, thanks to relatively high acidities. Although white Bordeaux — sweet and dry — is made primarily from the sauvignon blanc and semillon varieties, the 2011 Sauternes and Barsacs reminded me a bit of the great rieslings of Germany. Despite their ample sugar content, they were so fresh and racy — yes, so seemingly dry — that I sometimes almost forgot I was tasting sweet wines.

Some chateau owners in Sauternes and Barsac are calling 2011 the best vintage since 2001.

The question is whether anyone will notice. Sweet wines are out of fashion. The labels, and prices, attached to a Bordeaux vintage tend to reflect the quality of the reds.

Futures prices will start to trickle out of Bordeaux in the coming days. During en primeur week, the talk was that some top chateaus would cut their prices by 50 percent or so from those of the 2010 vintage. If that happens, some red 2011s might be worth buying en primeur, though I doubt that they will be a better value than certain older, overlooked vintages, like 2001 or 2004, whose wines are closer to maturity.

If you’d rather drink great wine than invest in it, then the 2011 whites, both dry and sweet, are the clear choice.