▻ Bordeaux 2024 Wines – First Impressions

Let's Talk About

14 Apr

Written By Sarah Kemp

Sarah Kemp is on the road with Jane Anson

Episode Summary:-

Sarah Kemp travels to Bordeaux to join Jane Anson on the mammoth task of tasting the 2024 vintage. Jane has already spent a week tasting the consultants’ wines, and after this week will have a further week of tasting to go. As we record, Jane has tasted over 500 wines and Sarah has tasted over 250 wines, so two-thirds of the way through, it’s time to divulge their first impressions. Jane’s full report, with 900 wines, will be available the Thursday after Easter on www.janeanson.com, and look out for another podcast in a week’s time for her final thoughts.

Sarah, who has been tasting wines En Primeur for more time than she’d like to admit, reveals that this is a vintage like no other, in that it is hard to generalise, even by commune. There is no doubt that it is a “modest vintage” and Jane is happy to hear that no producer is claiming it’s a “vintage of the century”, which is quite refreshing. What they both agree is that there are some lovely wines and some that are simply not good, a huge gap between the good and bad, with little in the middle, Sarah believes. Jane admits, “I feel very bad for some of the winemakers this year, because it was a tough vintage – you had to be responsive, you had to be reactive, you had to keep the morale of the team up because they were thrown so many different challenges.” She reports that despite the hard work, some wines just didn’t achieve ripeness and the malic acid always remained too high, and they never went down, never got that balance. However, there are some lovely wines where the terroir helped and the team made the right decisions in the vineyard.

Was it a Cabernet or Merlot year? Before Jane started tasting, she’d heard the drumbeat that Cabernet had done the best, but now that she has tasted, she’s found a duality: “You either have the Cabernet, which has that lovely fragrant side of Cabernet, which is delicious, that finessed side of Cabernet that will be very pleasurable to drink, but the reality is that but there is a lot of Cabernet where pyrazine (which gives a green flavour) is on full display, so I think Cabernet is the most challenging grape. There may be more dilution in some of the Merlot wines, but there is a lot more fruit… I’ve enjoyed many of the Right Bank wines. It’s not about grape varietal; it’s about terroir and teamwork”.

Sarah was impressed with the typicity of the estates, that though these were slimmed-down versions and not stellar vintages like 2009, 2010 or 2016, they were true to their terroir, “Lafite’s Lafite, Margaux is Margaux, Figeac is Figeac,” she says.

Favouring quality over quantity was a key to success in this vintage, notably with a ruthless selection of grapes. One Left Bank winemaker said, “If you hadn’t sorted sufficiently before the wines came into the winery, you are too late”. Omri Ram at Lafleur said, “If you weren’t able to react and change your plans three or four times a day without panicking, you shouldn’t be doing this job.” Jane adds that it’s no longer the case that you have one type of vintage all the way through. One group of people who were very happy with the vintage were experienced pickers, who saw their pay increase from 20/22 to 35 euros per hour, such was the demand for their services.

Both Sarah and Jane thoroughly enjoyed the whites, with Sarah declaring Ch Mission Haut-Brion Blanc one of her wines of the vintage: outstanding. At a more modest price, Jane singles out Les Hauts de Smith and Pagodes de Cos Blanc. Another positive was that there weren’t too many oaky wines; Sarah felt that 10 to 15 years ago, you would have seen a lot more oak, and was delighted that winemakers had simply “gone with the vintage.”

While only partway through the tasting, Sarah coaxes Jane to reveal a selection of wines which have stood out so far. Jane sticks with the value end, and singles out Chateau la Dauphine, which did an excellent job, and the wines from Nicolas Thienpont’s stable. Sarah and Jane agreed that Châteaux Léoville Poyferré and Léoville Barton had done particularly well. However, Jane cautions, “I just would say that the ones that have succeeded have done really well, but there are some, many more than in a normal year, that you really have to be very careful of, because they don’t have the fruit to give pleasure.”

“I think we should keep a keen eye on prices when they come out because we might be able to get our hands on some of the big names which were out of reach before,” Sarah adds, and singles out Figeac, Giscours, Haut-Bailly, and from Montrose, Terraces (made entirely from vines on Terrace 4), which she claims she is very excited about. Another wine both were delighted with was Brane-Cantenac.

Jane’s biggest worry is that the chateaux will miss what is a good opportunity to sell wines which are not going to last forever. Price this year, both agree, is key. What they also agree upon is that it is certainly not a vintage to buy blind.

Running Order:-

0.00 – 7.18

“This is not a vintage to buy blind.” – Jane Anson

– Two-thirds of way through tasting, Jane and Sarah’s first impressions.
– Cabernet or Merlot year?
– Style of the vintage.
– What you needed to do to be successful in 2024.
7.18 – 16.18

“It’s not about grape variety; it’s about terroir and teamwork.” – Jane Anson

– Pickers’ costs in 2024.
– Wines to look out for.