Bordeaux 2014 at Four Years
After a run of vintages which ranged from challenging (proof that I can from time to time deploy a suitable euphemism) to simply awful (but not reliably so, it seems), the 2014 vintage in Bordeaux was certainly a step up in terms of quality, bringing relief to thousands of embattled proprietors. The 2011 and 2012 growing seasons had been frankly less than ideal. Looking back to 2011 Bordeaux first, this was nicknamed the harlequin vintage by Jean-René Matignon (pictured), technical director of Château Pichon-Baron, a reference to the ‘harlequin’ bunches he found at harvest, where there were ripe blue-black berries, half-ripe pink berries, and green berries where the ripening had been completely blocked by harsh conditions earlier in the growing season, all sitting side-by-side in the same bunch. As you can imagine, this was a nightmare when it came to picking and sorting, and no doubt those who had invested in optical sorting technology ended each day of the harvest with a prayer of thanks to its inventor. The quality of the wines tended to vary from one vineyard to the next, from one appellation to the next, a patchwork pattern which only served to reinforce the ‘harlequin’ analogy.
Moving on a year, the 2012 Bordeaux vintage was marred by a more traditional malady, bad weather during a late harvest which threatened grey rot, and necessitating a hurried picking. Some of the wines have attractive character, but they were often deficient in substance and weight, the overarching style a little more pointed and delicate than I would have preferred. Although, having said that, there were some rather good wines produced in Pessac-Léognan and on the right bank, which – thanks largely to their greater reliance on Merlot – were slightly favoured compared to the appellations of the left bank, where the technical directors were still hanging on trying to get their Cabernet Sauvignon to ripen when the rain and the rot descended.
And then came the 2013 Bordeaux vintage, and perhaps the less said about this vintage, the better. It was like a really bad version of 2012, a complete washout, the wines pale imitations of what they should have been. Indeed, it was the worst vintage in the region since the early 1980s. Some time ago a well-meaning pal gave me a bottle of a minor St Emilion from the 2013 vintage as a gift. “Thank you”, I said, through gritted teeth, while inwardly I posed questions to the wine gods along the lines of “what have I done to deserve this?”. I still haven’t had the courage to pull the cork.
