Lots of them.

Hundreds of owners, or representatives, from all but the first tire of great Bordeaux chateaux, the Union des Grandes Crus de Bordeaux, were in New York last week showing off the 2009 vintage for the trade and press. Though why they bothered I am not quite sure.

Since even before the harvest the vintage had been proclaimed – yes, you’ve guessed it – another vintage of the century. Consequently demand has been exceptionally strong and the wine is sold out, at least at the chateau level, even if it’s only just now appearing in the shops.

It’s appeal is obvious – an almost perfect summer yielded wines that are luscious, voluptuous, plump and ripe. But is it a great vintage, a vintage to keep, to watch as it matures and deepens with time? That’s harder to say.

The people I talked to at the tasting fell into two camps. Those whose job it is to sell wine – sommeliers, retailers, auctioneers – were all adamant that while the wines were certainly very accessible now they also had the potential for long aging. More disinterested observers were less assured though.

One thing is certain – these wines are a lot more Napa-like that I would have thought possible 10 years ago. As Paul Wagner, the organizer of the tour, remarked to me “This is a vintage for drinking, not talking about.”

One of my favorites was the always impressive Chateau Gloria, Saint-Julien 2009 ($45) this week’s Five Star Nick’s Wine of the Week. Soft, juicy and accessible the property seems to have worked the abundant good weather to its advantage, making a wine that’s brimming with ripe blackberries and plums tinged with hints of cedar, licorice and cinnamon. A wine that’s delicious today but still maintains some sense of equilibrium. It might even last a few years, though given it’s seductive drinkability now, it’s unlikely many bottles will be around long enough for us to find out.

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A second recommendation from the 2009 vintage will follow after next week’s Valentines Day Wine of the Week.

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And in the last category one finds this week’s Five Star Nick’s Wine of the Week, the Taylor Fladgate Vargellas Vinha Velha Port 1997 ($220).

Let me explain.

All port is a blend. A blend of different varietals from different vineyards, different estates and, most of the time, different vintages. Only about 5% is deemed good enough to be bottled as vintage Port, and then only in good years. But in years that aren’t declared vintages some estates, or quintas, produce wine of such quality the it is bottled as single quinta vintage port, such as Taylor Fladgate’s Quinta de Vargellas.

And then we come to the rarified world of Vinha Velha, Portuguese for old vine.

Taylor Fladgate’s Robert Bower explains when and why this rare wine is produced. “Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha is completely different product to Quinta de Vargellas Vintage. Firstly Quinta de Vargellas Vintage is blend of grapes from the whole vineyard and is not made in declared years because the juice is in the vintage Port.

“Taylor Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha means old vine, and old vines, 80-120 years old, don’t perform in sync with the rest of the vineyard. What may be too stressful for the younger vines can often be ideal for the old vines with their deep root structure. We have to have a completely separate viticultural plan for our old vines in a vineyard. The net result is that in off years you can produce absolutely stunning wines from the old vines but not from the rest of the vineyard.”

The difference shows in the depth and complexity of flavour. Old vines tend to produce intensely flavoured wine, and this is the case with the Vinha Velha.  Not bigger or more powerful wine, in fact it is surprisingly delicate, but so pure and precise, so shot through with flavour that it leaves the otherwise superb Quinta de Vargellas Vintage looking insipid.

As for food to pair with this special wine, stay away from Stilton, the traditional accompaniment for vintage port, it’s too pungent and is better suited to a Tawny. Rather go with a hard cheeses like good cheddar, pecorino or manchego.

Vinha Velha is made only in years when the wine is not required for vintage or Quinta de Vargellas bottlings, and then only in miniscule quantities. The typically US allocation is 600 bottles, and the wine is so coveted by collectors that it’s extremely hard to find even if you’re willing to pay the mad-money price.

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However, when it comes to the wines themselves my feelings are a bit more ambivalent. The winery is family owned – can you imagine a corporate entity sanctioning such a wacky array of names? – and their wines certainly don’t lack for personality.

However, this stylistic bravura means that you are either going to love them or hate them, there’s nothing bland or mass-market about the portfolio.

One wine that happily falls into the former category is the latest Five Star Nick’s Wine of the Week, the d’Arry’s Original Shiraz Grenache 2007 ($18)

Introduced more than 40 years ago and named for the winery’s principal, Francis d’Arry d’Arenberg Osborn – what a magnificent handle that is! – it’s nimble, fresh and juicy, with plenty of muscle while avoiding that leaden, over-ripe opacity that’s the curse too many Australian reds.

There’s also the typical Oz hint of mint though here it’s restrained enough to serve as an appealing accent, not, as is so often the case, a glaring defect. It blends naturally with the aromas of violets and lavender along a meaty, red-fruit quality made even more interesting by the addition of gentle peppery spice notes.

This is not a particularly subtle wine but it was robust enough to not give up and roll over when confronted with the slightly sweet barbecued Asian ribs I drank it with one night, or the spicy Bolognaise sauce the next.

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Not sure I want it every day but definitely worth exploring, if you can find it.

Today the company is presided over by Marchese Piero Antinori with day-to-day operations overseen by his three charming and capable daughters, Albiera, Allegra and Alessia.

Allegra makes her home at Guado al Tasso, an estate on the Maremma coast where she breeds horses along with rare Cinta Senese pigs, and grows a range of agricultural crops including, of course, wine.

The wines are all red with one exception, this week’s Five Star Nick’s Wine of the Week, the Bolgheri Vermentino 2010 ($25).

Vermentino is grown in Corsica, Sardinia and southern France  – where it’s known as Rolle – as well as Italy’s Tuscan and Ligurian coasts.

Until recently it wasn’t exactly afforded a lot of respect, but modern viticulture and improved winemaking techniques

Guado al Tasso

have raised it’s standing and visibility considerably so today, if not exactly a noble varietal, it’s a charming and most appealing white wine.

The Antinori’s version is gently aromatic, soft and mellow, redolent of summer apricots and white peaches. It’s not a complex or sophisticated wine but is bursting with personality and immensely likable. It’s a delight to drink.

The Antinori’s are fastidious about every aspect of their business. I don’t mean just the winemaking, which is impeccable, but the face they present to the world, the look of their brand. This manifests itself in everything from the simple charm of the guest rooms at their various properties to their website, the design of their labels and even, in the case of the Vermentino, the shape of the bottle itself.

The difference is subtle but the reshaped lines give the suggestion of a curving sensuality that sets it apart from the generic functionality of your standard container.

Custom-made bottles like this are expensive but I suspect someone derived a great deal of pleasure from its conception and execution. This is not just about marketing because no one could claim such a whimsical indulgence was a necessity.

But then, perhaps, if you’re an Antinori, it is.

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So I put a stopper in it, pumped it out and left it. It then took two days to open up but when it did, it was magnificent.

This is why, despite the oceans of cocktail wine California produces, I am an eternal optimist, pulling cork after cork, because I know, every once in a while, I am going to discover a glorious wine like this.

It’s possessed of that hallmark Pinot Noir magic, that elegant ethereal fruit-laced delicacy combined, without a hint of contradiction, with a profound, pagan fecundity.

A perfect winter wine. To accompany a hearty Boeuf Bourgignon perhaps?

To learn more about this special Pinot I talked to winemaker Jon Priest. He explained that Heirloom is not a single vineyard wine but a special cuvée made from a particular strain of vines bread over decades to produce a small number of tiny, intensely flavored grapes. Hence the name.

“Because of the low yields and small berries these grapes tend to have the structure, the tannin to be able to hold these wines up over age. There’s also a different sense of acidity, they seem to have a brightness to them and that can add to the longevity of the wine.”

Such low yields do not exactly constitute a winning business plan though, and at one point this lack of financial viability threatened Heirloom’s existence. “They found these selections to be very maddening because they do produce a very small yield so from a grower’s standpoint, trying to maintain his financial stability, it really didn’t make much sense to have them in the ground. The growers just wanted to plough them under but it was important to us that we kept these because we can make a very, very substantial and special wine out of them and they are very important to us.”

So Etude came to an arrangement with the growers to pay by the acre rather than by the ton, hence the high, but totally justified price of Heirloom. Such commitment to a unique but financially challenging wine like this is unusual in the jet-fueled environment of Napa, so bushels of well deserved kudos to Etude and its corporate parent, Treasury Wine Estates.

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