Bordeaux 2017 Primeurs: St Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé
I opened my reports on this vintage with a look at the top left-bank appellations, namely 2017 St Estèphe, 2017 Pauillac, 2017 St Julien and 2017 Margaux. In each case it was remarkable to see, in a vintage which decades from now will still be defined by the memory of its destructive spring frost, how some appellations almost completely escaped frost damage, despite others having suffered extensively.
St Estèphe, Pauillac and St Julien largely got away with it in 2017, while in Margaux the picture was rather more mixed. At first glance we might think St Emilion should line up behind Margaux, because the yields here suggest extensive frost damage. The average volume picked in the St Emilion appellation in 2017 was just 21.7 hl/ha, an incredibly low figure. It is less than half the yield picked in 2016 (46.2 hl/ha), close to half the five-year average for the appellation (40.5 hl/ha) and less even than the yield in 2013 (29.9 hl/ha). Of all the major Bordeaux appellations it is the lowest declared yield in the 2017 vintage (only Pomerol comes close, indicating how severe the damage was on the right bank compared to the left).
So should we all give up on the wines of St Emilion in this vintage, and turn back to the left bank? Not at all. These average, appellation-wide figures hide a lot of essential detail, as not everybody was hit by the frost to the same degree. Within the appellation, some had their 2017 crop completely wiped out, others suffered frost damage on specific parcels (and thus had a battle on their hands), and just as was the case in St Estèphe, Pauillac and St Julien, on some vineyards the late-April temperatures were just not low enough to do any damage, so some escaped the frost completely. Here it was altitude, rather than the moderating presence of the Gironde, that was all important. If your vineyards had a little height, up on the limestone slopes, you were one of the fortunate ones declaring normal yields, as the cold air tended to settle on lower ground. And if your vineyards were lower, at the foot of the clay and limestone côtes, or on the sandy and gravelly plain to the south and west of the plateau, then you were almost certain to be hit by the frost, to at least some extent.
