Bordeaux 2019 Vintage Report

In any other year, late March would have seen us fine tuning our programme for the intensive en primeur tasting week in Bordeaux, juggling visits to illustrious First Growths with small family-owned vineyards whose wines don’t appear at the famed Union des Grands Crus tastings. This week of visits always presents us with the challenge of balancing the requirement to taste as many of the big names as possible with the need to taste widely in each commune to get a flavour of each area and, most importantly, it allows us the opportunity to ask unending questions about the vintage, from anyone and everyone, viticulturalists to winemakers.

With the Europe-wide lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this year is, of course, rather different and we have been tasting wines from barrel samples sent to us in the UK. Of the wines we have tasted, only a tiny percentage did not travel well, and we have been able to build up a picture of the 2019 vintage - wines with generous fruit, suggesting that they will drink early, but with powerful structure too giving many wines the promise of a long life. Allied to sensible pricing from Bordeaux, we are very happy to be offering these wines to you.

The Growing Season and the wines

2019’s growing season was pretty straight-forward, a joy to see after 2017 was marked by frost and 2018 by mildew. Wet at the beginning of winter and dry into the new year, in 2019 winter temperatures were generally on the mild side with no particularly cold periods. Spring saw rainfall and temperatures hovering around the averages, there was a frost in early May but it had very limited scope. Flowering in June took place under cool, damp conditions which meant that the fruit set was quite uneven in some vineyards, and from late June onwards the sun came out and continued to shine, almost unbroken, until the end of September, with some days recording temperatures above 40^oC. Sporadic rain in late July, August and mid-September relieved the pressure on the vines, with only the very young or those on very free draining soil (sand or deep gravel) suffering from the drought. On the whole, nights were cool, particularly in September, which again allowed the vines some respite. The harvest timing ranged from late August for the dry whites, to mid-September for the right bank Merlots to October for the left bank Cabernets – all very classic.

As a result of the heat and drought, the individual berries were relatively small with a very high skin : juice ratio, giving deeply coloured wines with impressive tannin and flavour compounds. As in other hot years, there was an element of concern as growers worried that they would end up with over-ripe fruit, and some therefore harvested before the grapes were ripe in every aspect, whilst for those with patience (or nerves of steel), the cool September nights and sunny days allowed the grapes to reach perfect physiological ripeness with very little pressure to harvest.

Philippe Blanc of Château Beychevelle gave us a very privileged tasting of the nascent 2019s – variety by variety, a sneak preview through a slightly open door; all had wonderfully expressive fruit and supple tannins, with more structure in the Cabernet Sauvignon and amazing spice in the Petit Verdot. A real treat. For Beychevelle, 2019 is a very good vintage, perhaps not as stellar as 2018 (which Philippe rates as his best ever), but seriously good and with good volumes behind it. Justine Tesseron at Pontet Canet was equally enthusiastic, with every tank of every shape and size filled to the brim, a welcome comparison to their 60% reduction in 2018 thanks to mildew.

The Market

Before we realised that the new coronavirus was going to interrupt business the world over, there was burgeoning interest in the 2019s, even though it is the latest in a run of good to excellent vintages. Because it was a generous vintage, there is optimism, perhaps misplaced, that prices might be brought down, and the exchange rate is (currently) looking more favourable for the UK than it has for a couple of years. This situation could have been definitive in re-setting the Bordeaux primeur campaigns for the future – the logical conclusion being to taste and offer the bulk of the 2019s in Spring 2021, when the wines have finished their barrel ageing and are either bottled or close to it. However desirable this might be, it is looking unlikely to happen and we expect there to be staggered releases over the next few weeks, particularly from the top quality smaller growers whose wines sell out every year. Watch this space!

Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW
Director of Buying, Spring 2020

To ensure that we keep you up to date with the releases of your favourite wines, please let us have your wish list for 2017 Bordeaux by calling us on 01353 721 999 or e-mailing finewine@privatecellar.co.uk. .