Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: St Julien Tasting Notes
So this isn’t a great vintage then? No, not at all, in my opinion, because while some appellations certainly give us truly great wines, here on the left bank the story is much more patchy. Looking specifically at St Julien for the moment, we have some very good although otherwise unremarkable wines, with two outstanding exceptions. Indeed, putting Château Ducru-Beaucaillou and Château Léoville-Las-Cases to one side for a moment, the other wines of this appellation in 2015 are barely superior to those of 2014. Indeed, comparing my scores, I have scored all but perhaps three wines (and this trio includes the two already mentioned above) at the same level. While 2014 was a good vintage, it was very much a ‘saved’ vintage, when an impending viticultural disaster consequent upon a rain-soaked summer was averted at the last minute with six weeks of warm and dry weather in the run up to harvest. The difficulties faced by the winemakers in 2015 were perhaps similar, albeit somewhat in reverse.
Are they bad wines though? Not at all. These wines are better then those we find here in St Julien in 2013, although I suppose that is not really saying very much. They are comparable to the wines of 2012 and 2011, other decent vintages which, although hardly the most exciting of recent years, have given us lots of decent drinking. Remaining focused on all but Château Ducru-Beaucaillou and Château Léoville-Las-Cases for the moment, the wines of 2015 St Julien tend to show rather lighter and more delicate substances, and tend to be medium-bodied at best, and they lag far behind the voluptuous fruit, texture and velvety tannin seen in St Emilion.
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