St Emilion Grand Cru Classé, 2025: Older Vintages
After working my way though a selection from St Emilion in the 2021 vintage, the wines presented by members of the Association de Grands Crus Classés de St Emilion, I tackled the alternative vintages also on show. The focus here was on 2020 and 2019, backed up by a handful of wines each from 2016 and 2015. And, as already mentioned in my prior report on 2021 St Emilion, a sole representative from the 2022 vintage.
While I advocate tasting 2021 with an open mind, the vintage offering some unanticipated positive findings, I have to be clear about where 2021 ranks in a hierarchy of recent vintages, and that is close to the bottom. Only 2013 and 2024 provide any challenge to this dubious crown.
The 2013 vintage is arguably so long passed we should perhaps consider it as representing a different era for Bordeaux when the work, while of high quality and far superior to the methodologies of the 1970s and 1980s, was still less meticulous than it is today. Certainly the approach to selection in current vintages is even more stringent, as many leading châteaux continue to narrow their their focus onto their historic parcels, producing the highest quality grand vin possible, even if it means a drastically reduced volume. This is especially pertinent in 2021, when many châteaux were already facing a much-reduced crop as harvest commenced, following the season of frost and mildew.
As for 2024, while similarly afflicted by rain and mildew, this vintage looks – at these early stages, at least – to be superior to 2021. While the conditions were miserable throughout, the Bordelais have woken up to the threat of mildew (the alarm sounded loudest in the 2018 vintage) and are now ready to treat proactively and aggressively. The 2024 vintage saw spraying begin in April, before the primeurs tastings of the 2023 vintage had even finished. And of course there was no frost to deal with this year, a surefire advantage over 2021.
For this reason we should perhaps not be surprised that the wines discussed here, when tasted alongside their 2021 counterparts, impressed with their high quality. Generalising, these wines from the 2022, 2020, 2019, 2016 and 2015 vintages display backbones of ripe and harmonious tannins, supporting aromatic and flavour profiles reflecting optimum maturity at picking. They conclude with lengthy finishes which speak with one voice of concentration and cellar-potential combined.
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