Bordeaux 2017 Primeurs: St Estèphe
In each of my regional reports I will try to give some indication of how the relevant appellation (or appellations) faired in the frost, which is one of several important determinants of style in this vintage. As I am starting my regional reports with the leading communal appellations of the Médoc, this task is initially fairly easy. After all, the first three – St Estèphe, Pauillac and St Julien – all largely escaped the frost.
One way of testing this is to look at the yields. The yield for the Bordeaux region this year has been slashed by frost (it is down 40% across the entire Bordeaux region). In the St Estèphe appellation, however, the average yield of 49.7 hl/ha was very similar to the yield of 50.5 hl/ha obtained in 2016, and it was higher than the five-year average of 43.7 hl/ha. Indeed, if we discount the bumper harvest which was recorded here in the 2016 vintage, the yield in this appellation in 2017 is the highest for more than a decade, the only other contender being the matching figure of 49.7 hl/ha recorded in 2006. That is not something which could be achieved if large swathes of the vineyard had been wiped out through frost.
The reason for this stellar success is straightforward, and I have already discussed it in some detail in my introduction to the vintage. The appellation of St Estèphe was protected from the frost by the presence of the Gironde. After this the vineyards enjoyed the long, dry and frequently warm growing season, and as a consequence there is excellent potential for some top-notch wines in this appellation. As was the case up and down the Médoc, the conditions at harvest particularly favoured Cabernet Sauvignon and other late-picked varieties, while the picking of the Merlot suffered a little, coming after or during the September rains, and this shows through in the blends of some of the wines, and also in their quality and style in the glass.
