Bordeaux 2021 at Two Years: Pessac-Léognan, White
Having dealt with the red wines of Pessac-Léognan in the 2021 vintage, I now move onto the whites. And, it has to be said, some of the most desirable and exciting wines of the vintage.
That the 2021 vintage favoured the white wines of Bordeaux (from across the region, and both dry and sweet, but let’s just stick with the whites of Pessac-Léognan for the moment) was immediately apparent at the primeurs. While the 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages have given us a slew of high-quality red wines in a variety of styles, I have tended to find the whites a little lacking. While the warmer conditions in these prior vintages brought the crop to a fine state of maturity, with wonderfully expressive aromatic profiles bursting with rich fruit fragrance, the composition on the palate was often a little too softly defined for my liking.
You can say much the same for the Loire in the same three vintages; the last time I got really excited about a Loire vintage in white was 2014, and returning to this vintage now, from my own cellar, at ten years of age, I was right to be so thoroughly exercised about the vintage (and to make sure I stocked my cellar with the wines).
Anyway, I digress. Coming back to the matter at hand, along comes the 2021 vintage in Bordeaux, and all of a sudden visitors to the primeurs were confronted by whites rich in delicious acidity. Perhaps a little too much acidity in one or two of the lesser cuvées, the fruit perhaps a little too green in some, but on the whole the style was bright, balanced, lively and refreshing. Exactly as it should be.
In this report I take a look at thirty wines from the Pessac-Léognan and
Graves appellations, revisited in late 2023 and early 2024, after bottling. I will of course return to the white of Bordeaux with in my 2021 Appellation Bordeaux report, which will include plenty of entry-level wines as well as cuvées from more famous names such as Château Margaux, and there are some tasting notes and score on the sweet wines to come in my 2021 Sauternes and Barsac report.
