Bordeaux 2016: ‘unequivocally great’ says Martin

In his recently released annual report, The Wine Advocate critic, Neal Martin, has said the best wines of Bordeaux 2016 “send tingles down the spine” in a vintage he says is defined by precision and fully lives up to the hype.

Released at the end of last week, the report covers the vintage in great depth and with Martin’s usual nods to pop culture – in this case an unlikely pairing of Donald Trump and Kylie Minogue due to the vintage’s ‘greatness’ as well as how lucky the Bordelais had been with the weather bearing in mind what happened elsewhere in France that year.

His overall thoughts on the vintage’s character and how the wines were affected by the growing season, strongly chime with the verdicts given by other critics and merchants – a wet then very dry growing season, ripe yet fresh wines that are strongly terroir driven and “classic” in style, will likely prove excellent to drink reasonably early and yet also keep.

“2016 is unequivocally a great vintage in Bordeaux,” he wrote in his summing up although he did also note there were some caveats to bear in mind as well: “Properties with younger vines or less propitious, sandier soils whose fruit was unable to reach full phenolic ripeness levels, also the occasional hardness of tannins.”

He too, as others have, made the point that dry whites are “the one weak link in the 2016 vintage,” largely thanks to the hot summer denying the wines the acidity “and tension” of the 2014s and 2015s.

Overall though, “we are looking at a vintage that can send tingles down the spine and back up again.”

He noted a slight tendency among some winemakers to say that the 2016s were the “best we have ever made” and even to play down the quality of the 2015s, something he thought unfair.

“The two vintages are different, but there is no gulf in general quality between them,” he wrote. “The differences are stylistic and in terms of performances of each appellation, and here we are only talking nuances.” As Liv-ex has already noticed, however, Martin’s own scores for the 2016s are, on average, 94.7 while for the 2015s it was 93.8.

In terms of the wines he was not as emphatic as US critics James Suckling and Antonio Galloni in acknowledging one bank as being more ‘successful’ than another.

Both banks had produced high quality wines he wrote although he did concede that “exceptional” Cabernet Sauvignon in Saint-Estèphe, Pauillac and Saint Julien perhaps gave the Left Bank a very slight edge.

The best reds on the Right Bank, he said, were from the Pomerol plateau and limestone soils of Saint Emilion. He also added it might be slightly more of a Saint Emilion year on the Right Bank if 2015 was more favourable to Pomerol. He thought that the lack of Cabernet Franc in some Pomerol blends because of the hot weather in 2016 might just prove to hold the wines back in comparison to the 2015s in future.

In terms of his scores there were a clutch of potential 100-pointers including Cos d”Estournel which is one of the few big name estates to have released so far this campaign. Released at the same price as last year ex-négociant, Martin’s score means that using Liv-ex’s ‘fair value’ method, the 2016 vintage is firmly in the undervalued category.

The other top-rated wines with 100-point potential were: Ausone, Figeac, La Mission Haut-Brion, Latour, Léoville Las Cases, Mouton Rothschild and Pavie.

In his conclusion he said: “The 2016 vintage is the first Bordeaux vintage defined by precision. Even compared to 2009 and 2010, the tannic profile of 2016 feels so different that the wines could originate from a different wine region. There seems to be consensus that as a region, they have moved towards a fresh, elegant and purer style of Bordeaux than before – whose virtues of freshness and detail are just as important as fruit intensity, which is naturally bestowed by terroir rather than winemaking techniques (in part due to global warming). Even a cynic, and trust me to review Bordeaux it is always best to be cynical, must admit that these 2016s live up to expectations. The pleasure they will give Bordeaux lovers is immeasurable.”

For the full report click here (£)