Bordeaux 2012 at Four Years: St Emilion
I have already written, both in this series of reports and in my original en primeur tasting report, that in the 2012 vintage there was an advantage in having Merlot over the Cabernets, and in having clay and perhaps limestone rather than gravel. In the first instance, the weather deteriorated through the harvest period, and so those varieties that are picked earlier – in other words, Merlot – were advantaged compared to those that needed to ripen further – in other words, Cabernet Sauvignon and friends – a process which was hampered by progressively cooler conditions and rain. Indeed, the Cabernets were picked in something of a rush, the local conditions very favourable for rot. It wasn’t quite the wave of grey rot that was seen in the 2013 vintage, but it wasn’t that far behind it either.
In the second instance, moisture-retentive clay helped to alleviate incipient hydric stress that came with the summer drought, with hardly a drop of rain falling through July and August. In subsequent vintages I have had technical directors on the left bank try to persuade me that gravel is an advantage in drought, provided your vines are sufficiently old, because well-drained terroirs force them to drive their roots deep, which of course gives them access to deeper reserves of water. While this sounds plausible, and there is no doubt old vines do better than younger vines in such situations, in my experience in extreme drought gravelly terroirs never fare as well as more moisture-retentive limestone or clay.
