During 2015 Bordeaux En Primeur, we interviewed a number of leading winemakers and famous Bordeaux négociants for their comments on the 2015 vintage – the best in the past five years. Many already compare it to Bordeaux’s excellent vintages such as 2005 and 2010. See detailed comments below to learn more. And stay tuned for more!
Jeffrey Davies, CEO at Signature Selections
“2015s are riper for whites than the last four vintages. There’s great balance between concentration, alcohol and acidity in best examples.””Right Bank wines are so ripe, a bit like a fresher 1998.” Hubert de Bouärd, owner and winemaker of Château Angélus
“In the Right Bank and due to summer drought, vineyards with good amounts of clay and limestone that acted as a sponge with water performed much better than those with sandier soils.” “2015 offers a large array of colors and refinement as in a painting. The seeds in the grapes were fully ripe and brought another layer of complex aromas such as chocolate and walnut in the wines.” “On the sorting table during the harvest, we had no shrivelled grapes this year! That also explains the purity of the fruit in the wines, and no dried fruit notes such as prune are detected.”Fabien Teitgen, winemaker at Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte
“September was a dry month here, luckily for us. Ripeness was optimal and we had full control on harvesting times for each defined parcel. Therefore, we could achieve what we really had in mind, selecting and fine-tuning all characters that make Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte 2015.”
“2015 vintage can be summarized in three words: powerful, fresh and velvety.””August and September were cooler months that allowed us to make structured whites with bright acidity.” Valérie Vialard, winemaker at Château Latour Martillac
“There’s purity and balance of the fruit in this 2015 vintage. No herbaceous character; we just enjoyed to work with each single lot.””Traditionally we use a consequent proportion of petit verdot at Château Latour Martillac, which also defines our wine identity. Six percent of this grape was added in the blend in 2015. It was harvested ripe and shows interesting notes of blueberry and spice.”Véronique Sanders, general manager and winemaker of Château Haut-Bailly
“After four months of drought, the rain in August saved the vintage, triggering the veraison. Luckily, rainfall dramatically decreased in September and October and offered optimum conditions at harvesting times.”Olivier Bernard, owner and winemaker of Domaine de Chevalier
“A great vintage is when you have the choice of action in the vineyard. 2015 is one of those and probably the most achieved vintage of my career.” Guillaume Pouthier, general manager and winemaker of Château Les Carmes Haut Brion
“There’re 20 to 30 percent of extra tannins compared to that of 2009 or 2010. We could really achieve great ripeness of our predominant cabernet franc that characterizes Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion.” “Precise wines with a good amount of alcohol and acidity that show great aging potential.” Stéphane Derenoncourt, owner and winemaker of Domaine de l’A
“When I taste my wine, I feel like tasting my land; 2015 gives a great sense of origin. It is also a vintage of creativity: we had one month to plan our harvest and could work on our different parcels and extract best terroir identities.”
– Alexandre Centeleghe
