Three weeks in Bordeaux tasting nearly 1,100 barrel samples of the 2023 vintage and meeting more than 100 wine producers face to face gives you a broad view of a young vintage whose wines are now lying in cellars. I still remember the smile on my face the first time I tasted a red 2023 on April 4 during a meeting with Olivier and Adrian Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier, the respected wine estate in the Pessac-Leognan appellation.
“This is going be fun and the wines should be excellent quality,” I thought to myself, despite some negative publicity about high levels of mildew last June, which reduced grape yields for a number of vineyard owners but did not affect the quality for the best ones. In fact, many of the vineyard growers I talked to spoke of “large” or even “huge” grape yields, which could have had more of a negative effect on the quality for some winemakers.
This week, Bordeaux is expecting literally thousands of wine trade members and journalists from around the world to visit and taste its best wines from barrel. And they are anticipating a positive response from most of the visitors when they taste the wines beginning Monday.
“The 2023 is really classic,” said Eric Kohler, the technical director of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. “I am very confident. It is really Bordeaux.”
Added Fabien Teitgen, the technical director of Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte: “We have the ripeness from a warm vintage, but you don’t taste it. It remains fresh.”
I have seen a lot of young vintages of Bordeaux in my time. This year was my 41st vintage of young Bordeaux tasting from barrel. The first vintage I reviewed as a young taster for The Wine Spectator was 1982. I have never missed a vintage from barrel in Bordeaux since.
I think a few vintages of the past and present compare to 2023, such as 2019 or 2016 and something older like 2001 or 1996 or 1995. They all had ripe, balanced fruit and firm tannins with slightly lower alcohol and lower pH (strength of acidity) compared with hotter years. But 2023 is different not only because of its special growing season but also the advancements in viticulture and winemaking over the last decade. The top Bordeaux viticulturists and winemakers are much more precise and thoughtful than in the past.
AYMERIC DE GIRONDE OF CHATEAU TROPLONG MONDOT ON 2023
2023 VS 2022: JEAN-CHARLES CAZES OF LYNCH-BAGES
Philippe Bascaules, the technical director of first growth Chateau Margaux, called his 2023 “a classic wine for a vintage that is not so classic… We talk about vintages of the 1980s and 1990s when we make a comparison. But there is more concentration and more tannins with the 2023. We are at the level of tannins and concentration of 1986 and beyond.”
He added that It was easier to make the 2023 than 2022 because “alcohol was lower so we could be slower and more accurate and have more balanced wine. 2022 went so fast with higher alcohol. 2023 was a very gentle process.”
Winemaking appears to have been much less taxing than viticulture in 2023. The weather was very wet during the spring and early summer, although the flowering went very well with excellent berry set for a large crop. The worst mildew came in June, but vineyards with the resources and organization had few problems combating the disease. Some growers who adhered to organic or biodynamic viticulture had more issues, but not all.
‘This was really a vignerons’ [vineyard growers] vintage,” said Pierre Seillan of Chateau Lassegue in St. Emilion, who may be better known as the head and part owner of Verite Winery in Sonoma County, California. “You had to be on top of your vineyards and react at the right time.”
I heard so many winemakers and vineyard managers say during my trip that if it wasn’t for the dry and hot weather during the second half of June through the end of August, the harvest could have been compromised by mildew and other diseases. And it may have been unripe. Some say the dry and hot weather wasn’t much different than 2022, but temperatures were not as hot during the day in 2023 and were cooler at night. The rain at the end of the summer helped revive vines amid the heat.
READ MORE BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR 2022: ‘ASTONISHING’ VINTAGE SETS A NEW BENCHMARK
However, heat spikes before the rains in late August may have slightly changed the character of many top dry whites, giving them a slightly richer character in the mouth than 2022. The colder 2021 vintage is clearly a better vintage for dry whites, and they are in bottle now.
Most wineries started picking grapes for their red wines the first seven to eight days of September and continued until the third weekend, when weather reports forecasted a large amount of precipitation but only about one-third the amount actually dropped. Many of the cabernets picked after these rains had the best structure and fruit concentration for the wines, particularly in the Medoc.
“The secret was to wait,” admitted Julien Viaud of Rolland et Associes, the winemaking consultancy that advises hundreds of wineries and producers in Bordeaux and dozens more around the world. “We had a lot of rain at the beginning of September. You had to wait. It was a cabernet year, both franc and sauvignon.”
He added: “Some people picked too early, and they may have has some dilution in their grapes.”
One good note, however: these rains also set up the botrytis for sweet wine producers, who made some fantastic offerings in 2023. It’s the third top vintage in a row for Sauternes and Barsac, giving them a trilogy of terrific botrytized wines reminiscent of the legendary 1988, 1989 and 1990.
Vigorous grape selection was important in both the vineyard and at the winery harvest reception area to make outstanding-quality wine. Those with the best grapes made the best wines, as always.
Many wine people I met with in Bordeaux spoke of the inconsistent nature of the vintage, with so many different quality levels and personalities to the wine. I am not sure if they tasted more wines that I did, but I found a very high level of quality in the 1,200 or so wines I rated with my associate editor, Andrii Stetsuik. I tasted dozens of wines two or three times during my journey.
LES CARMES HAUT-BRION 2023: ‘ENERGY AND PURITY’
The big differences in wines were due to terroir specificity, viticultural precision and different winemaking methods, particularly macerations after alcoholic fermentation using soft pump-overs or just infusion techniques. There was definitely an almost naked nature to the wines during my tasting, where they were not marked by the hot weather of the growing season (like in 2022) but expressed their unique character at this early period.
“It was a tightrope vintage” said Mariette Veyssiere, the winemaker and manager of Chateau Quintus, the St. Emilion estate with the same owner as first growth Haut Brion. She was alluding to all the problems with the weather and work in the vineyards as well as picking times. “It was easy to fall and make mistakes.”
This made the wines all the more enjoyable and fascinating to taste over the last three weeks. I found them very easy to cope with as a taster, particularly because they had slightly lower alcohol levels and higher acidities, giving them more transparency and freshness. It was the most enjoyable en primeur tasting I have done since rating 2019 from barrel, which was similarly bright.
“People will fall in love with 2023” when they taste it, said Veronique Sanders, the head of Chateau Haut-Bailly. “It’s a bit like 2016 and 2019. They taste it and they want it.”
Whether the wine trade or consumers really want to buy 2023 now is a matter of great debate. Prices are definitely coming down for the 2023, despite the high quality of many wines. All the wine producers I spoke to said they would be dropping prices. Some of the very best wines could see decreases of from 20 percent to 35 percent, or even more, compared with 2022. This, however, may not offset some vintners’ hefty price increases for their 2022s last year.
En primeur, the French term for wine futures, is a long-established event, but as I wrote in my first story on the vintage, there’s a lot working against selling wines before bottling, including bank interest rates, a soft global wine market, overstocks of wine and declining fine wine prices, not to mention two wars and a stress-ridden U.S. election.
The reality of 2023 Bordeaux en primeur will be more than evident in a few weeks because some of the top names will release a portion of their production on the market beginning on April 29, with lower prices expected. I am hoping I still have a smile on my face when I hear the news on prices.
– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman
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