James Suckling publie dans Wine Spectator Weekly (une sorte de carnets de dégustations hebdomadaire) ses dernières impressions sur le millésime 2000. Comme vous le constaterez, il n'y va pas par 4 chemins...

Angélus - 97 Points
"Wow. Greatest Angélus I have ever tasted. (meilleur A. jamais gouté) This is a kick-ass (coup de pied au cul!) wine. Incredible aromas of crushed blackberries and cherries, with wet earth, mineral and mint. Full-bodied, with fantastically refined, silky tannins and a long, long, long finish. Terrific. Best after 2010"

Clinet - 96 Points
"Best Clinet I have ever tasted. Chocolate and berry, with mineral and cream. Full-bodied with a wonderful velvety, caressing texture and long, long finish. Wonderfully balanced and generous. Best after 2010."

Cos d'Estournel - 96 Points
"Cos puts together serious reds in serious years, and with large production for a relatively reasonable price. Cos's head, Jean-Guillaume Prats, has made the property's best red since 1989. Georgeous on the nose with currants, blackberries and cut flowers, it is full-bodied, with ultrafine tannins and a solid core of fruit. Goes on and on. It is the essence of class and refinement. Best after 2010."

Ducru Beaucaillou - 95 Points
"Muscular Ducru. Fantastic aromas of blackberries, wild berries and minerals. Extremely aromatic. Full-bodied and very tight with big, silky tannins and a long, caressing finish. Superb. Best after 2010."

Eglise Clinet - 97 Points
"This has everything. Super class and elegance, yet ripe and exciting. Winemaker Denis Durantou is a purist and it shows. Fantastic aromas of blackberries, cherries, violets and minerals. Full-bodied, with incredible raspberry, cherry, mineral and silky tannins. Very long. Best after 2012."

Evangile - 96 Points
"Great concentration to this wine. Yet it's harmonious and classy. The ripe fruit and toasted oak jump out of the glass. Full-bodied, with an opulent fruit, coffee and milk chocolate character. Velvety and round-textured. Best after 2010."

Gruaud Larose - 95 Points
"Greatest wine from this estate since 1945 (meilleur vin produit depuis 1945) Absolutely wonderful aromas of flowers, currants and citrus. Full-bodied , yet very, very refined, with a centre core of fruit that tastes like crushed raspberries. It goes on and on across the palate. Best after 2010."

Mondotte - 95 Points
"La Mondotte is a great wine. Subdued, but impressive concentration of berry, cherry and mineral character. Full-bodied, very silky, with a lovely texture and a long inviting finish. Smokey, coffee character. A silky and sexy wine that develops into a big and powerful red. Best after 2010."

Haut Brion - 94 Points
"An Haut Brion with lots of finesse. Beautiful tobacco,berry, cedar and plum aromas in this one. Full-bodied, yet very fine and reserved, with silky tannins and a medium finish. I still prefer the 1998 HB, but this is very, very fine indeed. Best after 2010."

Cheval Blanc - 93 Points
"It's not the 1998, but it's very good indeed. Fresh mineral, berry and earth aromas. Decadent. Full-bodied, yet refined and silky with a lovely long finish that goes on and on, with tobacco, berry, cherry and spices. Very, very long. Best after 2006."

Lafite - 100 Points
"Since taking over this first-growth estate in 1994, director Charles Chevallier has taked the wines from strength to strength. He is now the most capable winemaker of the top estates in the Médoc. This is the best young Lafite I have tasted. A triumph. Subtle aromas of currants, leather , tobacco and cedar-a classic cigar box nose, with plenty of fruit. It's full-bodied, with silky, ripe tannins. This is a wine that completely coats your palate, but caresses it at the same time. Best after 1012."

Latour à  Pomerol - 95 Points
"A wine with a reserved, yet complex, nose of blackberries, raspberries and flowers. Full-bodied, with silky tannins and a soft and sweet fruit finish. A beautiful wine. Hard not to drink this now. Best I have had in years. The real thing. Better than the 1998. Best after 2010."

Latour - 100 Points
"Some said that Latour could never top its modern classic, the 1990, but director Frédéric Engerer and his team at this famous first-growth have equaled it with the 2000. It's a young wine that electrifies every taste bud in your mouth. Compact aromas of crushed currants and minerals, with roses and lilacs, it is full bodied, with masses of silky, refined tannins and a finish that lasts for minutes. Best after 1012."

Léoville Barton - 97 Points
"This is the biggest, most powerful ever from Léoville Barton. Amazingly rich and silky. Lots of chocolate and blackberry aromas, with hints of raspberries. Full-bodied, with silky and round tannins. Great concentration. Long, long finish. Best after 2012."

Léoville Lascases - 100 Points
"The hard work and dedication of owner and director Jean-Hubert Delon have helped realize his family's dream: The 2000 Las Cases is absolutely fantastic. This is one of the most exciting young reds I have tasted in a long, long time. It shows intense aromas of berries, currants and minerals, wit hhints of mint. Full-bodiedand packed with fruit and seamless tannins, it is refined, silky and long on the finish. A benchmark for the vintage. Best after 2012."

Lynch Bages - 96 Points
"If you love Lynch, buy this. Gorgeous aromas of plums, blackberries and locorice, with hints of mineral. Full-bodied, with full and silky tannins and a long, long finish. Big and solid. Fantastic. Best after 2010."

Palmer - 97 Points
"I have never tasted a greater young Palmer. This takes time to unwind, but then it explodes with fruit and powerful, yet silky tannins. Perfumed and rich, with berry, cherry and tobacco character. Full-bodied, with super well-integrated tannins and a reduced, refined palate structure. It's compact and powerful. Very racy wine. Best after 2010."

Pichon Lalande - 95 Points
"Muscular Pichon. Classic character. Intense aromas of currant bush and minerals follow through to a a full-bodied palate, with loads of velvety tannins and a long, long finish. Some people find this herbaceous, but it reminds me of a currant bush more than something green. This character is due to a higher percentage of Petit Verdot than normal. Best after 2010."

Vieux Ch Certan - 95 Points
"This is the real thing. Winemaker Alexandre Thienpont crafts his wine like a fine watchmaker. The 2000 VCC is refined, yet rich. Dark and brooding, with chocolate, game and berry aromas. Full-bodied and very silky, with refined tannins and a long, lingering finish. Best after 2010."

d'ou sortes ces notes,s'agit-il de nouvelles?de quand date-elle?Y a t-i un bon traducteur?

Wine Spectator Weekly

Janvier 2002

avec un dico cela ne devrait pas être trop difficile

long=long

finish=finale

aromas=arômes

etc

il semberait qu'il n'y ait plus de controverses et que le millésime 2000 fasse l'unanimité.

cf, ci -dessous l'article de Suckling sur le site de winespectator qui décrit ce millésime comme le millésime d'une vie et de qualité stratosphérique ! Parker va dans le même sens. Achetez tout ce que vous pouvez encore trouver !

cordialement

Yves Z

"If you're asking whether the 2000 Bordeaux, now in bottle, live up to their reputation, and whether you should buy some, the answer is yes.

A vintage such as 2000 in Bordeaux comes along once in a lifetime. Not only is the year an icon for a new millennium, it is a vintage that produced scores of outstanding wines in France's premium wine region. Nearly every Bordeaux winemaker made serious claret, from the grandest châteaus to the simplest vineyards. And consumers don't have to spend a fortune. Many good to very good reds, even a few outstanding ones, retail for $20 or less.

Of course, the megabuck, ultrachic labels have made the high-profile reputation of the vintage. Serious wine drinkers from around the world have paid millions of dollars over the past two years to reserve cherished bottles of this special vintage. At press time, some were paying close to $1,800 a bottle to own such precious 2000s as the prestigious Pomerol of Château Pétrus, or more than $1,000 for a bottle of pure Merlot from the neighboring property of Le Pin. First-growth Château Mouton-Rothschild put its wine in a special gold leaf-engraved bottle, perhaps to highlight the fact that the vintage has become a fashion statement as well as a must-have for fine-wine drinkers.

Such stories of high price and glamour may verge on the ridiculous to some people, but no one can deny that 2000 is an exceptional vintage. I tasted more than 500 wines during November and December in blind tastings in Bordeaux as well as in my office in Tuscany, and I was astonished by the excellence of the year, and particularly by the consistently high quality across the board. The fact that three wines earned 100 points only underlines the majestic quality of the vintage. The flawless 2000s are Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Léoville Las Cases. The 2000 Margaux could also score 100 points, but it had not been bottled at the time of my tasting in early December.

In view of such stratospheric quality, the excellence of the year surpasses, that of all previous great modern vintages, including 1995, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1986, 1985 and 1982. It's difficult to say if it will outshine classic vintages such as 1961, 1947, 1945, 1929 and 1928, even 1900 and 1899. We may have to leave that debate to our children, even our grandchildren. The real test will come in 30 or 40 years, when we will see how well they have evolved. The 2000s have a lot to live up to, since many of the best wines from classic vintages of the past century are still drinking beautifully. I rate the 2000 vintage 99 points, the greatest in four decades and equal to the legendary 1961.

I had the opportunity in December to drink a number of classic clarets from some of the greatest vintages ever, including a 1961 Latour and a 1945 Langoa Barton. The wines were stunning. They were electrifying to drink. They were still fresh and vibrant like young wines yet showed layers of diverse aromas and flavors, from bright red fruits to decadent game and earth. This rich complexity of character only develops in a great wine from a great vintage with decades of bottle age.

I asked veteran winemaker Anthony Barton, the owner of Léoville Barton and Langoa Barton, if his 2000s would turn out to be as exceptional as his 1945 Langoa Barton. His remark was insightful. "I probably will not be here to know whether 2000 will live up to the 1945," said the 72-year-old, who began his career in the Bordeaux wine trade in 1951 at Barton & Guestier. He later confirmed that he had little doubt that the 2000s would live up to their promise.

Certainly when tasting the 2000s today, the top wines -- and there are many -- come across as extraordinary young clarets. I use the word claret because this is the unique word in English for the red wines of Bordeaux, and the 2000s are quintessential clarets in every way. They are wines that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. Other reds from around the world have similar richness and power, but this character is delivered in a uniquely fresh and refined way in Bordeaux.

In the past, many of the greatest modern vintages for Bordeaux have been considered to be of exceptional quality because they were extremely unusual for the region. The most obvious examples are 1990, 1989 and 1982. These vintages made exuberant, almost international-style wines due to their remarkably hot growing seasons and very early harvests. They produced bold, warm and extravagant reds that verge on the exotic in character.

The 2000s are not that. Instead, they impress you with their classicism. They stir you with their precise definition and grace, their ripe, clean fruit and silky tannins. They are modern classics -- reds that combine the best attributes of a mostly forgotten age with today's dedication to and application of the best methodology and know-how in viticulture and winemaking. Tasting these wines is like walking through the Tate Gallery in London. First you come across the works of 18th century masters such as Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, then, a few steps away, you discover the late 20th century works of highly esteemed painters such as Lucian Freud and Gerhard Richter. The contemporary paintings are the classics of our generation, just as the 2000s will be modern classics for red wines.

The best wines of the 2000 vintage are going to need at least 10 years of bottle age. Fifteen or 20 years would be better. The reserved, firm character of the reds will surprise anyone braving an early taste. The wines show plenty of alcohol as well as a good level of fresh acidity. However, with a little air and time in the glass, the top young 2000s change into opulent yet refined reds. This is why I decanted nearly all the 2000s before tasting them for this report. It was less necessary with some of the better lower-ranked wines such as crus bourgeois and petits châteaux because they don't have the structure for long-term aging and will be pleasant to drink in a few years, but the very best wines need plenty of cellaring.

So a savvy strategy for 2000 is to buy and drink crus bourgeois and petits châteaux over the next three to five years. After that, start popping the corks on more highly ranked wines. Age the top wines for a minimum of 10 to 12 years before trying them.

Some of the longest-lived 2000s come from Lafite, Latour, Léoville Las Cases and Margaux. These are the top wines of the vintage, monumental in structure, breathtaking in shape and form. Of course, I was not around to taste wines from great vintages such as 1961, 1945 and 1928 when they were young, but the 2000s have a fruit and tannin structure that reminds me of the mature wines I have had from those older vintages. Writings on the great vintages of the past suggest that those three vintages were tannic and powerful, in the same vein as the 2000s.

When I first tasted the 2000s in barrel in March 2001, one winemaker told me that the 2000s were a combination of 1986 and 1982, two classic yet different styles of vintages.

The 1986 vintage was a cool, late-harvest year that produced sleek, tannic, austere reds for long aging; 1982 was hot, with an early harvest, and delivered exotic, flamboyant reds that tasted wonderful young and that in many cases also aged well. Indeed, the dozens of outstanding reds in 2000 have the seductive and ripe aromatic and flavor qualities of the 1982s, yet on the palate they are fresh, tannic and very racy in character like the 1986s.

After my barrel tastings, I thought that 2000 was a Cabernet year, both Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, but after tasting so broad a range of outstanding to classic wines from nearly every appellation, it's impossible to make such a generalization. Mother Nature was generous to all grape types, although the vineyards with the best soils and expositions clearly achieved the best quality. This notion of terroir, the word the French use to describe site-specific characteristics of a wine, is more than validated in 2000. All the best wines in my 2000 tasting are from highly ranked or highly esteemed vineyards.

An indication of the consistent quality of the vintage is that I scored no fewer than 23 wines 95 to 100 points, a classic rating on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale. I found 189 outstanding wines worthy of 90 to 94 points -- that's about 36 percent of all the wines I tasted. I have never found this many outstanding wines in a tasting of young Bordeaux during my 20 years of tasting young vintages for the magazine. It's amazing to think of the sheer volume of excellent wines coming out of Bordeaux in a year like 2000. The average quality Bordeaux estate produces between 5,000 and 10,000 cases a year of top wine. That means the total production of all the outstanding wines in my tasting would equal between 1 million and 2 million cases.

"In 2000, even the bad made good wines," says Stéphane Derenoncourt only half joking. The 36-year-old winemaker is making some of the top wines of the Right Bank (such as La Mondotte) as well as helping small growers in less fashionable appellations. "The 2000 vintage will be a year for Bordeaux to show the world that it can produce reasonably priced, very good quality wines -- wines for drinking and not investing."

Just 10 years ago, this would not have been possible, even in great vintages such as 1990 and 1989. The level of professionalism in viticulture and winemaking is at a new high today. Moreover, 2000 is the first great vintage for a new generation that has taken control of many vineyards in Bordeaux. Modern know-how in both viticulture and winemaking has never been so entwined with Bordeaux's centuries-old traditions; never have its vineyards been so well-tended, its cellars so well-equipped.

Bordeaux winemakers had to be extremely attentive and meticulous to get the most quality out of the 2000 vintage. It was a difficult growing season in the beginning, with most of the vineyards severely affected by mildew in the spring. Growers needed a high level of expertise to combat the disease, but after careful vineyard management was aided by a small heat wave in mid-June, the fungus dissipated. Many growers considered the difficult spring a natural way of reducing their crop; it left fewer bunches on their vines and assured better ripening.

However, it was the weather that began in late July and lasted through the harvest into early October that made the 2000 vintage. It was bright, dry and extremely warm for close to nine weeks, with only an occasional thunderstorm. Some vines even suffered from drought, particularly those in very gravelly soils -- which is perhaps why some areas such as Pessac-Léognan were slightly less successful. In any case, the reds of 2000 were dark-colored, rich in alcohol and extremely tannic from an early stage. And they have a good amount of acidity as well.

A few weeks after the harvest, many winemakers in Bordeaux had the same impression of the wines of 2000 as Jean-Michel Cazes, the veteran winemaker and owner of Château Lynch-Bages. "When I saw the analysis of the fruit and tannins of the wines a short time after the harvest, I was worried we made wines too concentrated and that they might be too tannic," Cazes said in March 2001. "But after a short time in wood, the wines showed really well. The vintage is a small miracle. It is really great."

The market quickly picked up on the greatness of the vintage, and many of the top estates took advantage of the hype. When they released their prices in May and June, the biggest names took healthy -- sometimes greedy -- price increases. Some estates even doubled their prices. On the whole, prices increased anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent. Regardless, consumers around the world bought and bought and bought. The wines were sold widely as futures, or en primeur, meaning the wines were sold as they aged in barrel to guarantee the price and the quantity for the customer.

However, many estates in Bordeaux -- and there are thousands -- only increased their prices by a few dollars. In fact, estates that sold their wines for $10 to $15 a bottle to the trade increased their prices only by about 9 percent to 15 percent on average, according to Patrick Maroteaux, president of the Union de Grands Crus, an association of some of the leading estates in Bordeaux. This is why there are literally dozens of very good to outstanding quality wines at reasonable prices.

It's going to pay to shop around when buying 2000 Bordeaux in America. Prices are extremely variable. Some wines may vary in price by $50 or $100 a bottle. However, prices for the better value wines, those that sell for $30 or less, should not fluctuate as much. The prices listed for wines in my tasting are only estimates, and they could differ from what consumers may have to pay in a given market.

But wine lovers and collectors will not be deterred by prices. Andy Lench, owner of Bordeaux Wine Locators in Seattle, one of the biggest suppliers of Bordeaux in the United States, calls demand "phenomenal." In the past fepw years, Bordeaux has taken a back seat to wines from Piedmont, Tuscany and Napa Valley. With the 2000 vintage, however, it is Bordeaux's time to shine."

European bureau chief James Suckling is Wine Spectator's lead taster on the wines of Bordeaux.