Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Sauternes & Barsac Tasting Notes
The 2015 vintage is one all lovers of sweet wine should be interested in. While it does not have the prodigious weight of botrytis that we saw in 2009, or the vibrant cut of acidity that we saw in 2011 or 2014, what it does have is fine balance, great purity of fruit and a healthy dollop of botrytis. Nothing is out of place in these wines; they have sweetness, acidity, flavour and freshness all in equal measures, and as they evolve I believe they will show excellent botrytis-derived complexity. These are not wines likely to disappoint you.
While I would not argue that the wines are a match for the 2001 vintage in Sauternes (my eternal benchmark for the region), they do have that same sense of everything being in the right place. If I may digress for a moment, some have likened the 2015 vintage for the red wines to a mini-2005, an analogy which isn’t really true. I can see what they are getting at, because 2015 is (broadly speaking, perhaps with the exception of St Emilion) not an extreme vintage like 2009 (which majored on extremely voluptuous textures and sweet fruit) or 2010 (which majored on extremely powerful tannins and structure). The red wines feel more balanced, elegant and ‘correct’ than either of those vintages, with the style (but not the quality level) of 2005. The one problem with these analogies is that with great success on the right bank and in Pessac-Léognan, but much more patchy success on the left bank, this isn’t really a vintage one should try to sum up with such sweeping statements.
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