Weekly Tasting Report (Jan 12-18): The Evolving Story of 2019 Bordeaux, Plus 2018 Barolos and Some Eye-Popping Rieslings
Paging Dr. Heger fans: their 2020 rieslings are not to be missed.
We are finally hitting some benchmarks for all the tasting we have done in the last five weeks for our 2019 Bordeaux report, including such names as Ausone, Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux and the stable of Right Bank wineries from the Moueix family, including Lafleur Petrus, Trotanoy and Chateau Belair-Monange.
Our 2019 story, which is Bordeaux’s most recent vintage in bottle, is evolving all the time with more and more of the wines we taste, but I can say that the Right Bank is looking more consistent than the Left, and the best terroirs and the best winemakers are making the best wines. We have ratings for more than 300 2019 Bordeaux in this report
Meanwhile, we reviewed a few dozen Barolo, mostly from the very good but less structured 2018 vintage, as well as some excellent Beaujolais, the 2020 vintage from Burgundy and Germany, and various other wines from around the world.
“I love the vintage because it was always, always delicious,” Eric Kohler, the technical director of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and Duhart Milon, said during a Zoom interview (at left) about his 2019 wines. “The fruit was delicious before the harvest. The juice was delicious before the vinification, during the vinification, after malolactic, beginning aging,” he said. “You remember en primeur? This vintage always had a great harmony, a perfect balance, freshness. It has an incredible concentration but no aggressivity at all. And it continued like that.”
I can certainly vouch for what he is saying in regard to the Château Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 2019. It’s sensational and, for the moment, one of the wines of the vintage. The depth of fruit and flavor, as well as refinement in texture and length, make it ethereal in nature. It is the essence of Lafite. Two other essence wines were the great St. Emilion estate of Chateau Ausone as well as the First Growth, Chateau Margaux.
“The vintage is more classic,” Philippe Bascaules, the managing director of Chateau Margaux, admitted during a Zoom (below left). “This wine is more open with a lot of charm.” He compares the 2019 vintage for Margaux to equally open and attractive years like 1982, 1990, 1996 and more recently 2015.
Edouard Vauthier, whose family owns Chateau Ausone, said in a Zoom that he was very careful in his winemaking and in keeping extraction relatively short during the maceration after the fermentations. He said extraction in 2019 was only 27 days, compared with the normal 32 to 33 days. “The terroir is really represented, but the actual main work was in the cellar and we had the option and the choice to make and to decide how we extracted.”
I am trying to get my head around comparisons to other vintages but I must say that the majority of the wines are very open and attractive to taste now, as both Bascaules and Kohler pointed out. This is a not a deficiency, and some of my favorite vintages for Bordeaux had the same quality as Bascaules pointed out – such as 1982 and 1990.
FRESHNESS FIRST
Vintner Edouard Moueix, who lives in St. Emilion at Belair Monange, said during another Zoom (above right) that a lot of the beautiful and open character of 2019s is down to freshness.
“The 2018s are very opulent and very energetic but not as settled as the 2019 can be,” he said. “With the 2019 we have managed overall to have wines with beautiful maturity yet with a certain freshness. That’s the great element of 2019.”
This freshness was due in part to rains at the end of July and September, which helped refresh the vines from the drought conditions, he said. The summer rains were quick and furious, so some vineyards didn’t have the capacity to maintain humidity, and the rains during the harvest may have diluted some goodness in the grapes.
Rain was also factor in Italy’s Barolo region with the 2018 vintage, which we have written about a number of times. We find the wines do not have the density or structure of the previous three vintages. But there’s a seductive brightness and delicacy to the 2018 Barolos. And some producers made exceptional wines through hard work, like those we rated from Pio Cesare and Poderi Aldo Conterno in this report.
Meanwhile, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted our first 2020 Burgundies in bottle, from Edouard Delaunay. He said they were bright and very fruity with the wines from lesser appellations already delivering drinking pleasure. We look forward to tasting hundreds more Burgs from the 2020 vintage.
He also rated some wines from Germany’s Dr. Heger winery, which has a longstanding reputation for wines from the pinot family of grapes: weissburgunder (pinot blanc), grauburgunder (pinot gris) and spatburgunder (pinot noir). Stuart first encountered them and Joachim Heger, the grandson of the founder, Dr. Max Heger, at the end of the 1980s, and Dr. Heger is now probably the most highly regarded producer in Baden today. Stuart said that he did not expect to be excited by their rieslings, though, like the Riesling Baden Vorderer Winklerberg GG 2020, so he was really astonished by what he tasted over the past week.
In addition, don’t miss Stuart’s ratings of the recent releases from one of the best producers in Beaujolais: Chateau des Bachelards in Fleurie. Their 2019 Bojo, all from biodynamically farmed vineyards, are sensational. Owner Alexandra de Vazeilles seems to be able to bring the quality of Beaujolais to great heights almost every vintage.
There’s plenty of intriguing wines in this report especially if you love Bordeaux, and more to come…
– James Suckling, Chairman/Editor
The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.
Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.