I’ve seen  a few news stories about the excellent 2009 Bordeax vintage.   I went back through my blog to see what I had written and realized that I never did a complete 2009 Bordeaux climate review.     The WSJ article referenced above says “This year was no different. No sooner had I arrived at Bordeaux’s Gare Saint-Jean station last week than my taxi driver was telling me what a great vintage this was. Had he tried the wines? No, but the weather was perfect, he confidently informed me. He has a point; the weather in 2009 was superb.”

Let’s take a look at the year in the context of the Ashenfelter et al. paper discussed in this blog. 

Average Temperature over the growing season

2009 Average Temperature:  65.3 oF
Average Temperature:    65.2 oF

Below is a chart showing the progression of daily temperatures in 2009 (Blue) vs. the average daily temperatures (red).   Likewise, Growing Degrees Days, which are also used in agriculture to represent the growing potential assosciated with temperature is presented for 2009 (green) and on average (purple).  

bordeaux_2009_temperatures

As both the average temperature and GDD statistics indicate, the 2009 years temperature wise was very near normal. 

bordeaux_aug2009_precip

bordeaux_2009_precip