2002 Vintage
By Jancis Robinson
Financial Time
Published: October 17 2009 00:31 | Last updated: October 17 2009 00:31
On the face of it, the 2002 vintage of red bordeaux looks a rather attractive prospect. The wines were never going to be particularly long-lived, so many should be starting to drink well now. The vintage was this century’s least expensive on release and prices have not exactly soared since.
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One wine that surprised me for its price-quality ratio was Ch Bernadotte, a modest Haut-Médoc property owned by Louis Roederer champagne in tandem with second growth Ch Pichon Lalande in Pauillac. According to the wine search engine www.wine-searcher.com, it is possible to find this wine at €7.80 a bottle in France and £12.95 from the Fine Wine Company of Edinburgh, which is not bad for a wine I thought showed as well as my other favourite in that flight, classed growth Ch Calon Ségur of St-Estèphe (and better than Calon’s neighbour Ch Sociando-Mallet, profiled recently here).

The fact that Bernadotte is in the hinterland of Pauillac and was compared blind with a range of wines from the more austere terroir of St-Estèphe may have played a part in how well it showed, for the Pauillacs were undoubtedly the stars of this vintage. That said, be warned that Ch Fournas-Bernadotte is the second wine of Ch Bernadotte and some retailers may confuse the two.