Bordeaux 2017 Primeurs: Pauillac
As was the case with St Estèphe in this vintage, the appellation of Pauillac was also largely spared any frost damage. In this appellation the average yield was 46.2 hl/ha, which was not only higher than the five-year average of 39.1 hl/ha (the five-year average is not helped by a dismal yield in the 2013 vintage), but it was even higher than the yield in 2016, which was a bumper 44.9 hl/ha. Indeed, you have to look back to 2009 to find a comparably bountiful harvest (46.6 hl/ha in that year). This shows just how convincingly Pauillac has bucked the frosted, low-yield trend this year.
In other words, the frost can effectively be discounted for the majority of the domaines in the Pauillac appellation, just as it can in St Estèphe.
There were of course a few vineyards in western corners of the appellation, well away from the protection offered by the waters of the Gironde, that were affected, but the area touched by frost was very small. Local estimates suggest just 16 hectares of the Pauillac vineyard were damaged, barely more than 1% of the appellation, which has more than 1,200 hectares planted to the vine. Whichever way you look at it, the damage has certainly been limited.
Even without a major frost effect though, tasting the wines, those estates that hug the Gironde seemed to offer forth more convincing barrel samples than many other domaines located further to the west. But then, this would not be the first time this has happened, would it? It has long been acknowledged that the very best wines come from those vineyards with a view over the estuary.
