Bordeaux 2015: a Right Bank year?

Some of the first impressions of the 2015 Bordeaux vintage have started to come in and are both positive and point to a strong showing from the Right Bank.

The en primeur tasting week is set, as always, for the beginning of April but a few critics have been in Bordeaux already ahead of the pack.

Prominent among them has been James Suckling who noted that the wines showed a combination of “power and precision”, particularly from Pomerol and St Emilion as well as their satellite communes of Lussac-St-Emilion and Lalande de Pomerol.

“It definitely seems to be a Merlot vintage,” he wrote, “where the grape produced the most profound wines with fantastic concentration and richness as well as tannin tension and freshness.”

HE noted too that the dry whites were “equally persuasive” and that he had heard the sweet wines are “amazing”. He added he had not yet tasted them although Château Climens’ own vintage report is certainly positive.

He also noted he had not yet tasted several of the very top names from the Médoc and on the strength of those he had tasted it was certainly not a ‘split vintage’ where one side of the Gironde out-performed the other – he also picked up on the quality of Pessac-Léognan and Margaux for example.

Nonetheless, there had certainly been very heavy rains in August and September in St Estèphe which may have caused some dilution and led to greater astringency.

French critic Jean-Marc Quarin has likewise been tasting early and enthused that the wines are: “smooth, full, refined, very hedonistic and difficult to spit.”

Some of his top wines chimed very closely with Suckling’s observations concerning the top appellations, Cheval Blanc, Haut-Brion, Brane Cantenac and Canon being highly rated. Interestingly, Suckling also picked out Canon – a wine of the vintage perhaps or a best-value nominee?

As Quarin noted, water-retentive clay soils were of a great help in 2015 owing to the near drought conditions experienced during June and July and he agreed with Suckling that Margaux was perhaps the strongest Left Bank commune.

Another example of the quality of the vintage is the news that Cheval Blanc will not be producing it second wine, Petit Cheval, this year.

As reported by Decanter, 91% of the estate’s 2015 production will go into the grand vin, the remainder being bottled and distributed “internally”.

Apparently on two of the estate’s 45 plots were considered unfit for use in Cheval Blanc in 2015.

the drinks business will be closely following the news and impressions from Bordeaux over the coming months, including tastings, scores and release prices.