Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs: Château Latour
Unsurprisingly the vintage summary at Château Latour kicked off in a very positive fashion, with the warm and dry weather during spring together with the rich reserves of groundwater (topped up by heavy rains during the preceding winter) credited with engendering an early budbreak and subsequent strong vine growth. May was not ideal, with a long period of warm and dry weather followed by storms on May 19th, the clouds dumping 69 mm of rain on the vineyard in just four days. There was also a little hail at this time which caused some damage to the leaves (a number of Pauillac estates recorded some storms and hail damage during the summer).
It is also worth noting that the summer months were perhaps not as dismal here as they were elsewhere; similar to my findings about local variations in the weather at Château Calon-Ségur and Château Montrose. The amount of rainfall recorded in July 2014 was approximately 52 mm, very slightly higher than the average for Château Latour, while in August 2014 the recorded rainfall was 50 mm, just below average. Nevertheless the very persistent drizzly nature of the rain kept humidity levels high, and there was much fear for the health of the vines.
Then September came, and in the warm weather the ripening really got underway, until eventually the fruit was ready for harvest. The Merlot was picked from September 18th, onwards, finishing on September 26th. There was then quite a long break as the team took advantage of the fine weather to ensure optimal maturity in the Cabernets, where picking eventually started on October 6th, and continuing on until October 15th. The major problems experienced by the team at Latour, which affected Merlot and which I have already alluded to in previous reports, were firstly heterogeneity of the Merlot harvest, requiring very particular selection, and secondly the size of the Merlot berries. They were much larger than usual, giving a more dilute juice and a weaker ratio of juice to skins, which brings the inevitable potential for a more dilute wine. To counter this a saignée was carried out on Les Forts, the second wine.
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