Bordeaux 2024 Vintage Report

Sort, sort, sort!

Click here to view our selection of Bordeaux 2024 available for en primeur puchase.

Much has been written about the 2024 Bordeaux primeur campaign, and plenty of it before many tasters had visited the region, focusing on the far from perfect weather during the early growing season, rather than the vintage as a whole, with entire sunny weeks all but ignored in favour of the more negative picture. Having spent an intensive week in and around Bordeaux just before Easter, we would like to switch up the narrative and bring you a factual, unmelodramatic summary. In brief, there are good wines to be had but also some which did not pass muster, no matter how illustrious the property. This is a year where careful selection in the vineyard,
cellar and, finally, by us, the tasters, is key, and one for objectivity as not all our favourites did as well as we would have hoped. Unlike almost any other vintage, this was a game of both nature and nurture, where human influence was at least as important as that of nature, from the earliest buds right through to the juvenile wines now in barrel. The result is a vintage for drinking, not keeping, and which will give bags of pleasure early on with juicy
fruit, supple tannins and moderate alcohol levels, the lowest for some years; we will only be offering the wines which really wowed us and which are priced sensibly – more of which below.

The Growing Season

Firstly, the weather, which has consumed so many words already. Given the size of the Bordeaux region, there are variations between appellations, however the general outlook remained the same for all: a warm, wet winter was followed by an equally warm, wet spring, welcome after the hot, dry years of 2022 and 2023 and leading to bud burst a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. Flowering was very varied, depending on both grape variety and
appellation, with most reporting a long, drawn-out flowering period beset with storms which caused many flowers to fail with uneven set within individual bunches, therefore reducing the potential yield. Those with later-budding vines enjoyed perfect fruit set with ideal weather during flowering, but these were in the minority. Throughout the spring, and indeed much of the growing season, the wet weather brought outbreaks of mildew which meant that the growers were spraying from very early on to keep it under control. Pontet Canet reported no less than 31 mildew treatments throughout the season and were rewarded by low mildew pressure in the latter part of the year. Some properties abandoned organic conversion altogether, to protect their crop and reduce the impact of multiple passages through the vineyard. July and much of August were dry and warm, with even a couple of heat spikes, allowing the vines to get back on track and
put their energy into ripening their fruit, albeit behind schedule, and many châteaux put additional staff into the vineyard at this stage to carry out green harvesting (removing slower ripening bunches) and de-leafing to encourage better sugar accumulation in the fruit. Rain returned in late August and into September, with storms in the middle of September affecting some appellations; Paulin Calvet at Picque Caillou said that they had rain every day
between 27th August and 15th September, whilst others were less affected. Harvesting varied from commune to commune and grower to grower, with nerves of steel required as properties balanced waiting for sufficient ripeness in their cabernets versus the omnipresent risk of botrytis; those who sat it out certainly saw more generous fruit in their wines.

Sort, sort, sort

The key words to the success of individual châteaux in 2024 are sorting and selection – at every stage. Many properties carried out more than one green harvest, including cutting out underripe fruit within bunches in the run up to picking and discarding grapes during picking, before the fruit even made it to the cellar, where it then went through two or three further sorting processes. Sorting tables, unused in the 2022 vintage, were out in force, with many properties doubling the number of tables and sorters employed before the fruit went into an optical sorter, which uses a combination of high speed cameras and LED lights to analyse the fruit and reject unripe or defective berries. This could be followed by densimetric sorting, where grapes are placed into a sugary solution in which ripe grapes fall to the bottom whilst debris and unripe grapes float, allowing them to be skimmed off. In
some cases, a further hand sorting followed the technical sorting – a huge investment in time and machinery, but one which paid off. As a result, the harvest is one of the smallest on record, with many properties discarding between a third and a half of the fruit picked between harvesting and fermenting. Some areas have almost normal yields of around 45 hectolitres per hectare, but many others are hovering around the 20 - 25 hl/ ha mark.

In the cellar

Everyone we spoke to had moderated their winemaking techniques considerably in 2024 to maximise the juicy, primary nature of the fruit and to reduce the extraction of harsh tannins. Several properties chaptalized the must, particularly their cabernets, to add a potential quarter to half a degree of alcohol and, importantly, contributing to a more rounded mouthfeel. Many reduced the length of time the wine remained on skins after fermentation, key to the density of colour, and also reduced the temperature of these macerations; gentle handling of the must was vital. Most will also be cutting down the time spent in barrel to maintain a balance between fruit and oak – it is worth remarking that the wines we tasted had only been in barrel for between three and four months out of an eventual 16 - 18 months, and many producers noted that with each passing month the wines were gaining in weight and balance.

Stand-out stunners!

And now for the good news – the 2024 white wines are absolute stand-out stunners, both sweet and dry. As so often, what is bad for red grapes is great for whites, and 2024 is no exception. All the dry whites we tasted were superbly aromatic, exhilaratingly fresh and zippy, with bags of fruit and structure, whilst the sweet wines from Sauternes and Barsac were profound with plentiful fruit and a lovely stony freshness behind the trademark
botrytis notes. The dry whites were picked between the end of August and the third week of September, depending on their soils, whilst the grapes destined to become Sauternes ripened early as a result of the dry weather in July and August before a rainy spell at the beginning of September followed by a cool, dry period allowed noble rot to do its thing. Many properties carried out their first trie before 25th September, between the rains, and
then further tries in early October before the weather took a definitive turn for the worse.

The market

Finally, no primeur campaign is complete without a look at the state of the market and a consideration of pricing, and for the 2024 vintage this is more important than ever. Market confidence is low – not just for wine – with political turmoil around the world, and we all now carefully weigh up the pros and cons of any purchase before committing to buy. Bordeaux has made a rod for its own back in past vintages by being tone deaf to market pressures and increasing prices regardless of the quality of the harvest; the 2023 releases saw most properties start to scale back their pricing and we expect more significant reductions for the 2024 wines. The entire market – châteaux, négociants, wine merchants – want the best wines to succeed in 2024, but to do so they must be priced accordingly and no matter how much we like a wine this year, if the pricing is out of kilter we will not be offering it. If properties take that on board and come out at the right level, there will be
plenty of fun to be had for the drinkers amongst us! So what does this all mean for you, the buyer? And why should you buy the 2024 wines? Let
us to refer you back to our second paragraph – this is a vintage for the Bordeaux drinker and there are good (even very good) wines to be had, wines which will drink early and well, with juicy fruit, supple tannins and moderate alcohol levels – there will be no need to wait years for them to come around. If the Bordelais take note of the market and price the wines correctly, then that is the reason to buy.

Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW, April 2025

Private Cellar Ltd

www.privatecellar.co.uk

T: 01353 721 999 or 01993 670 920