2001 vintage guide for French wines

Wines of the Year 2001 | Vintage 2001

Is 2001 a vintage close to your heart? Is it a year of birth, a year of marriage or some other symbol that makes you want to offer or drink a wine from that year? Let us help you decipher this vintage and find the right bottle to suit your needs.

> Our 2001 wines in stock

 

• Vintage 2001 in BORDEAUX

Visit 2001 will remain a magnificent vintage for some Bordeaux wines.

Sweet wines benefited from a special climate to produce a great vintage, surely one of the greatest of the last 100 years. While things got off to a bad start for Bordeaux winegrowers, who saw very heavy rainfall at the start of the year, the second half of the vintage went better. Spring was classic for the Sauternes and Barsac regions, perfect for the balance of the vine cycle, while in the Médoc, a few rains slightly disrupted the cycle, but this did not prevent the vines from regaining their health during the season. Summer, too, was relatively calm in the vineyards, although once again the Médoc and Libourne regions were not spared a few rains which slowed down the ripening of the grapes. August and September were on a rollercoaster ride, with hot and cold spells, dry and wet periods, all of which had a slightly disruptive effect on the grapes' development. For this reason, a large part of the harvest will be late, starting at the end of September and finishing in mid-October. Unfortunately, some of the grapes (especially the Cabernet Sauvignons) will not reach perfect ripeness, or the ripeness required to produce a great wine. All these difficulties, the humidity and the late ripening will do the sweet wines the world of good. The berries will have had time to gorge themselves with sugar and recover the rot that will botrytize these golden marbles.

So we'll need to retain the Sauternes wines as a great success story for Bordeaux wines, spearheaded by Château Yquem which will be rated 100/100 by Parker, Château Climens and Château Coutet.

Although less successful than the 2000 vintage, the wines of Pomerol and Saint-Emilion The vast majority will have had a successful 2001 vintage. The only downside will be for those estates that failed to manage their Cabernet Sauvignon or did not carry out a strict sorting procedure. The top Pomerol wines are Château Le Pin with a score of 98/100, followed by Petrus and Clos l'Eglise with a very fine 95/100. In Saint-Emilion, Château Ausone is best rated with a very fine 98/100, closely followed by Angélus 97/100. In the Médoc, wines from Saint-Estèphe and Pauillac are the best tasting. Château Latour and Château Mouton Rothschild share a score of 95/100.

You get the idea, the 2001 vintagewho is "only" 20 years old at the time of writing, still offers many tastable wines.

 

• Vintage 2001 in BOURGOGNE

Burgundy wines also have their share of appellations that have produced a great vintage. The wines of Gevrey-Chambertin and Vosne-Romanée from the Côte de Nuits have produced juices of the highest quality that can be kept for a very long time. Spring was rather classic, with sunshine that heralded good things for the winegrowers and launched a timely, balanced flowering. Summer, on the other hand, was capricious and devastating for certain climates, with a cool, rainy month of July and thunderstorms, sometimes with hail, which destroyed some plots. Fortunately, August was quite the opposite, with sunny, hot days helping the grapes to catch up on their late ripening. But then the weather turned nasty. September brought low rainfall and cool spells, once again resulting in violent hailstorms, which damaged some of the grapes and led to rot in the vineyards.

As far as the harvest is concerned, the Côte de Nuits reds will start around September 20, while the Chablis reds will start later, at the beginning of October. This 2001 vintage is what we might call a winemaker's vintage, since many of the parameters decided by winemakers will have a major impact on the wine's success. Decisions in the vineyards, but above all in the cellars, require a great deal of hard work to extract the very best from their harvest. The wines of Gevrey and Vosnes join those of the rest of the Côte de Nuits to offer Burgundy's best production of the 2001 vintage, with concentrated juices, firm tannins and fine acidity. We recommend tasting Stephane Brocard's wines, which represent the appellation's success. As for the white wines, although the Mâconnais whites are magnificent in this vintage, we'd recommend those from the Côte d'Or, which are straightforward, mineral and opulent. Perfect for laying down.

The success of a domaine: Louis Latour's Meursault Blagny 1er Cru offers evolving aromas of white truffle and earthy notes, while the Batard Montrachet still offers great tension, a full mid-palate and a very long finish.

 

• Vintage 2001 in VALLEE DU RHÔNE

Once again, the quality of Rhone Valley wines is very heterogeneous, with wines from the Vallée Septentrionale very well-balanced and complex, and those from the Vallée Méridionale unstructured. The beginning of the vegetative cycle was contrasted, with a rapid start in March, thanks to sunny days, but slowed down thereafter due to some cool weather. Flowering took place classically in May, and set off to conquer the great vintage! In the north, the wines are fairly balanced. In Côtes-Rôties, the grapes are well ripened, producing complex, powerful yet delicate wines. A little further south, the reds of Saint-Joseph are very different. Of average quality, you'll need to be vigilant about the winemaker's success, and even these days, you'd be better off avoiding them on the 2001 vintage to be sure you don't come across an average bottle. On the other hand, the Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage wines are more powerful, rougher and have great ageing potential. Finally, the wines of Cornas are velvety and fruity, but a little less powerful than usual, but still lovely wines to enjoy today. As for the whites, Condrieu and Château-Grillet come out on top. Although a notch below the 2000 vintage, the wines are complex, full-bodied and mineral. For the wines of the Vallée du Rhônes Méridionale, it was more difficult. If we focus on Châteauneuf du Pape wines, the reds had to endure intense heat waves, which saturated the grapes with far too much sugar and therefore alcohol, leading to an imbalance after vinification, resulting in a lack of ripeness in the grapes and excessively high alcohol levels. In the case of the whites, too much sunshine meant that the wine lacked the acidity needed for good balance and ageing. A year to forget for Châteauneuf. On the other hand, in the rest of the southern appellations, the 2001 vintage is more than correct, it produces pleasant, gourmet wines, but chances are they're no longer enjoyable to drink these days.

 

• Vintage 2001 in the REST OF FRANCE

The 2001 vintage is a delicate one, in which wine lovers will have to select their regions and winemakers carefully to be sure of getting quality in their glasses. Champagne will offer none of this, as it is a catastrophic vintage, with rain and hail taking their toll and very few cuvées seeing the light of day. Suffice to say, they're happy to be able to blend vintages in Champagne when years as difficult as these exist. On the contrary, as with Bordeaux, the sweet wines of Loire and South-Western wines will benefit from a magnificent Indian summer to increase their maturity. The same goes for the reds from the South-West, which benefited from excellent weather conditions to produce well-balanced reds that are not too powerful and should be forgotten for a few years in the cellar. The wines of southern France (Provence, Languedoc and Roussillon) are just as well-suited to ageing.

> Best wines from 2001 in stock

 

THE BEST WINES OF THE 2001 VINTAGE

Here are the greatest wines of the 2001 vintage. All these wines have been rated 100/100 by Robert Parker and the Wine Advocate.

• Clos des Truffiers Coteaux du Languedoc Clos des Truffieres 2001
• Roger Sabon Chateauneuf du Pape le Secret de Sabon 2001
• Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer Furstentum Quintessence de Grains Nobles 2001
• La Mordoree Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee de la Reine des Bois 2001
• Vieille Julienne Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve 2001
• Le Clos du Caillou Chateauneuf du Pape La Reserve 2001
• Château d'Yquem 2001