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Wine Description
The Story
The Gruaud Larose terroir is truly remarkable and unique. It is a single vineyard of 80 hectares with gravels from the Gironde estuary, dating from the Mindel Ist and Mindel IInd (about 700 000 years ago), and that in some places are over 18 feet deep. The soil is very poor and sandy, and therefore does not hold water. Drainage is one of the major concerns of a conscientious vine-grower.
It is also an important factor at Gruaud Larose where...
Wine Information
SOIL : Garonne gravel from the first quaternary, settled more than 600 000 years ago.
2009 CLIMATE : Extremely severe winter and then mild weather in March. Beginning of spring particularly humid with violent storms in May. Early onset of summer. A very beautiful summer with hot days, but not scorching, few disturbances in July and beginning of August. In September/October: sun, heat and drought allowing to peacefully reach optimum ripeness.
Vintage 2009
Much like 1947, 1961 and 2005, 2009 is a year of almost overly (for Bordeaux) flamboyant and opulent wines with high maturity and low acidity. The tannins are exceptionally ripe, while the wines are quite voluptuous in style. The Left Bank recorded more hours of sunshine than legendary vintages such as 1947 and 1982, and the grapes had higher sugar concentrations than in 2003 and 2005. The key was significant diurnal temperature variations tha...