Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs: Château Cheval Blanc
Here at Château Cheval Blanc technical director Pierre-Olivier Clouet gave a report on the growing season that typified the difficulties experienced during the 2014 vintage. April and May were cooler than expected, and budbreak was only two days ahead of schedule. This is obviously very different to much of the information I have been presented with elsewhere. The first flowers were seen on May 22nd, but thanks to the cool weather the flowering was slow; again this is a very different story to that reported by most in Bordeaux, who were on the whole happy with the flowering. Here at Château Cheval Blanc, however, the mid-flowering was June 2nd for the Merlots, and June 5th for the Cabernets, five days later than the average. Already, the growing season was starting to run behind schedule. Despite this, the véraison was more-or-less on schedule, and of course once the cool and wet weather of August had passed, the vines could get ripening underway in the warm and dry autumn weather. Very little rain fell in September, with just a few showers on the 17th, 18th and 30th being enough to tickle the vines along.
Picking was happily a leisurely affair, with a relatively early start for the Merlots which bucks the trend at this level on the right bank, where a number of top châteaux delayed picking the Merlots until late September or even early October. The harvest here started on September 19th, and was finished by October 10th. Pierre-Olivier (pictured) found unsurprisingly that the Cabernet Franc did better than the Merlots this year, with higher sugar levels and greater concentration. The Merlots were more swollen, not having been able to take advantage of the later dehydration enjoyed by the Cabernets, the skins were less rich in tannin, and compared to the Cabernets these grapes had lower sugar concentrations. Drilling down to the specifics of the Merlot with Pierre-Olivier, he thought the quality on the gravel soils was best, mirroring the opinion heard at Château Figeac, surely because of the well-drained nature of the soils, whereas the Merlots grown on heavier, wetter clay and more sandy soils were “more complicated” as he put it. Here it seems there were problems with humidity, and excess water availability to the vines.
Please log in to continue reading: