Bordeaux 2018 wines: Our en primeur verdict

I was cynical before I began tasting the Bordeaux 2018 wines en primeur this year, I admit it. But it’s a very good vintage – maybe even great – albeit a little atypical for some appellations.

Quick links:

Top scoring Bordeaux 2018 wines

Margaux 2018 | Pauillac 2018 | St-Emilion 2018 | Pomerol 2018 | Pessac-Léognan and Graves 2018

St-Estèphe 2018 | Sauternes 2018 | Médoc and Fronsac 2018 | St-Julien 2018 

Summary

Scores: Several in-barrel wines make the 98-100 points bracket. 

Ageing: Has the qualities to age, but ‘the high alcohols have in many cases wrapped the tannins up in silk, and the wines feel approachable [now].’ 

Issues: Watch out for overripe fruit. The bold style is not typical of some appellations in Médoc. Mildew hit hard early in the season, although good summer weather and a sunny September led to a wide harvest window.

Comparisons: ‘Perhaps the closest we can come to a definition is 2009 meets 2016 on the Left Bank, and 1998 meets 2015 for the Right Bank.’ 

Overall red wine rating: Pockets of brilliance but not fully consistent. 4.5/5

Full Overview

‘Initial fears… guarded optimism… real enthusiasm.’ That is how the Institute of Oenology (ISVV) at the University of Bordeaux summed up the progression of emotions during the 2018 vintage.

The top line of 2018 is that it was a vintage of two distinct halves. Conditions were extremely wet until early July, and then extremely dry right through until October.

Of the five conditions that are tracked each year to assess potential quality, there was not a clean sweep in this vintage, as there was for 2005, 2009 and 2015. But 2018 did effectively meet four of them, as was the case in 2010 and 2016.

Let’s go through them:

• The first condition of rapid and even flowering was met
• The second of good fruit-set was partially met
• The third condition detailing the onset of water stress was partially met. ‘A little late, but when it happened it was abrupt and complete,’ said professor Axel Marchal, of ISVV.
• The final two conditions of slow and complete ripening and picking under optimal conditions were fully met.

Marchal told me that 2018 was in many cases better than some five-star vintages. His comment immediately lit up my cynicism radar, but I can now see what he means after tasting the wines.

A surprising vintage

It’s a surprising vintage in many ways. Lots of the things that I expected to happen in the tasting didn’t.

I thought it would be tough getting through large horizontal tastings, because the alcohols and the tannic load would be so high. But they weren’t.

I thought that I would find brettanomyces and volatile acidity because the acidities are low. I didn’t, even though ph levels often flirt with 3.9 and four.

And I thought the alcohols would be intrusive after the heat of the summer, but they almost never were.

Comparisons with 2015 and 2016

Last year, with the 2017s, I was more critical than many observers.

I rated the vintage for Decanter as a bronze to silver year (using the Decanter World Wine Awards ratings), with some clear pockets of gold, and said it was not a vintage to buy blind.

I annoyed some winemakers by not going as all out for the vintage as some did, but it was noticeable that no châteaux even mentioned the 2017s during the tastings this year.

All talk was around how the wines compared to 2015 and 2016, both clearly exceptional years and with far more in common in terms of structure and fruit than the 2017.

First impression of 2018

The hot summer left some clear markers, no question. Time and again in 2018 you will find concentration and hidden power. But you will also find a whole lot of seduction.

The high alcohols have in many cases wrapped the tannins up in silk, and the wines feel approachable and appealing.

And I am sure they are still going to age brilliantly, because all the necessary elements are there in abundance.

So what could go wrong? Well, there was the rain and the mildew. To deal with it you had to work evenings and weekends, and ideally not go away in July.

And then there was the drought. If you stripped back the leaves once the rain stopped, hoping to make up for lost time, then you could be punished by the excessively dry summer. Dry soils and young vines had a tough time generally.

Left Bank overview

As ever with a late harvest, 2018 was a great Cabernet year in many instances.

However, some Cabernets got overly ripe, which might be the first time I have ever really seen that in Bordeaux. Alcohols even exceeded those of Merlot in some cases.

This changes the character of the wine and, although it might be impressive in the glass, I question if it is really the signature that appellations such as St-Estèphe and Pauillac are going for over the long-term.

I thought 2016 embodied the essence of what Left Bank Bordeaux stands for: complexity, depth, ageing ability and hidden power. Barrel samples show 2018 is a more extreme version of that, and some wines fall down on typicity. 

Right Bank overview

Over on the Right Bank, Merlots reached depths of flavour that are rarely seen, with thick skins and tons of fruit.

It seemed like St-Emilion handled the excess potential better than the Médoc in many ways.

I have rarely enjoyed the wines from this appellation as much as I did in 2018. They definitely rival the brilliant 2015s in St-Emilion.

Maybe they have become more accustomed to dealing with excess in a vintage, or maybe more châteaux really have changed their winemaking methods to put more emphasis on restraint.

‘These are the years when you need to practise self-control,’ said Omri Ram, of Château Lafleur in Pomerol.

‘There are a lot of tannins in 2018, no question, because the berries were small and concentrated, whether from mildew or due to the heat. The difference between the good, great and exceptional wines is how people have handled them.’

Scores

I don’t give the full 100 points during en primeur tastings. I prefer the range of 98-100 for such young wines, and there were a good number achieving this level.

I found 2018 lacked the consistency of the 2016 vintage as a whole, but the best 2018s are great. It’s really a case of looking at individual estates.

While there isn’t one particular appellation that stands above others, I think the classified St-Emilion wines are better than the 2016s by a long way and are up there with the 2015s. However, that is more due to stylistic changes than intrinsic vintage quality.

Overall, 2018 goes down as a Gold year, with pockets of Silver and also some very clear pockets of Bronze, when winemakers didn’t handle the extreme conditions as well as they might have done.

It’s not consistent enough to be a true five-star year, so you still have to exercise some caution over buying choices. But there are many great wines.

Vintage comparisons

I’ve heard 2003 a few times, and there are some good reasons for this when you think of the hot, dry summer; 2018 was the hottest summer in Margaux since 2003 for example.

 Vines on clay soils generally coped better with the hot summer conditions than those on gravel, which sometimes became blocked. This can cause concentration and elevated sugars rather than normal ripening. Philippe Dhalluin, at Mouton Rothschild, said the berries lost around 1.5% of their weight every day for the last week or so of the season.

But, conditions in 2018 were overall hugely different from 2003, which was hot from March through to October, with day night temperatures that remained the same. This year had a rainy start until June, so there were reserves of water in the soils. That made it more like 2016 in some ways, but with lower acidities overall. I liked the observation of Lafleur’s Baptiste Guineaudeau, who said it would have been impossible to make such good 2018s without the knowledge gained in 2016.

Others have drawn comparison with the lauded 1982s and I even heard a few 1959s. The 2018 wines taste in the main so accessible that you almost can’t believe they will age well, until you look at the tannin counts and the thickness of the skins.

Most châteaux seem to assess the year as somewhere between 2015 and 2016, or between 2009 and 2010 – so with freshness and focus, but with the generosity of a hot summer, and with alcohols and relatively high phs that have wrapped the tannins up in silk. This makes the wines feel deceptively approachable, despite being loaded up with anthocyanes and tannins.

Perhaps the closest we can come to a definition is 2009 meets 2016 on the Left Bank, and perhaps 1998 meets 2015 for the Right Bank.

Both comparisons give you some idea of the potential – and I have no doubt that over the long term many will prove themselves to be truly exceptional.

Drinking Windows

Wines will be suitable for long ageing, but there’s no need to wait too long to approach them. ‘Extended drinkability’ is how Bruno Borie at Ducru Beaucaillou put it, and I think that is a key point of this year.

My drinking dates start earlier than in many vintages. Even for the good wines I often don’t feel that there is the usual 10-year waiting period. So 2018 is more like 2009 than 2010 in this respect, but with better structure than ’09.

Potential 100-point scores

I don’t give 100 points at en primeur, but these all scored 98-100, and will be assessed again when bottled, towards the end of 2020.

• Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse
• Cheval Blanc
• Lafite-Rothschild
• Mouton Rothschild
• Palmer
• Pichon Comtesse
• Trotanoy
• Vieux Château Certan

A deeper look at the vintage conditions

What the weather meant for wine styles

This was the warmest year since beginning of the 20^th century for France as a whole, partially because the winter also was warm, even though extremely wet.

In July the rainfall was variable, with less than 40mm in northern Médoc and nearly 100mm in Sauternes. July saw the highest average temperatures since 1954, with night times warmest for over 50 years.

Then everything changed and the rest of the summer was dry and warm. Hot, dry days and cool nights were perfect for slow and even ripening.

September was one of the sunniest for more than 60 years. This meant that, despite the issues of the early part of the season, there was zero rot during harvest; great for everyone except Sauternes producers, who had some finger drumming to do while waiting for the botrytis to set in.

One of the key features of Bordeaux 2018, then, was a wide harvest window.

In most vintages, as Mathieu Chardronnier at CVBG said, there is an imperative to pick due to something external happening. An example from 2015 would be the northern Médoc getting more rain than the southern part.

This year, there were not the same imperatives for picking, so people were able to more freely choose when they brought the grapes into the cellars.

You find some properties harvesting very early, others finishing very late, and some doing both. It means that you find a lot of appellation signatures, but also estate signatures and winemakers’ choices impacting the styles. This makes it particularly hard to say if it is Left or Right Bank year.

Nicolas Audebert, of Rauzan Ségla and Canon, probably summed it up for the winemakers when he said, ‘there is an extra taste of success in the wine after all the hard work’. I can well believe it, but our job is to see if that sense of satisfaction translates into the glass.

Unusual yields

The typical red wine yield in Bordeaux sees between four to eight bunches of grapes per vine, and is equivalent to around one bottle per vine.

This year, some estates saw yields down to 12 hectolitres per hectare and below, predominantly a result of mildew and also hail.

Think of this amount as just one bunch of grapes per vine, equivalent to perhaps one glass of wine. Good grapes were unevenly spread, too, making precise sorting even more important than usual.

The lowest yields are more typically found in Sauternes. Some unlucky estates were right down to 5hl/ha or less.

Further north, Palmer came in at 11hl/ha, Durfort Vivens 10hl/ha and Pontet Canet 12hl/ha – all biodynamic properties. Others worked similarly but survived better – Haut Bages Libérale in Pauillac is also biodynamic but reported yields of 45hl/ha.

What was certain is that anyone affected by mildew or over-concentration had to be extremely careful about sorting the berries to ensure no shriveled grapes made it into the vats, as this would give a dried leaf taste.

Palmer, for example, had seven different sorting tables, including destemmers and optical sorting, to ensure nothing made it through.

A key point is that mildew affects quantity but not quality, as long as these controls were put in place.

Thomas Duroux, at Palmer, said, ‘[Mildew] sucked, for sure, but it could have been worse. It was followed by an astonishing summer that allowed us to still make great wine.’

Despite the mildew, and the hail that affected parts of the southern Médoc and Bourg/Blaye areas, Bordeaux’s overall yield for 2018 is around five million hectolitres, or 666 million bottles, which is pretty much spot-on the 10-year average.

Even in early September many thought that the total would be higher, but over-concentration from the ongoing sunshine reduced the eventual harvest size by an estimated 10%.

Treatments and the effect on organics going forward

This year will certainly be remembered for throwing organic and biodynamic practices into the spotlight.

Everyone had a different theory as to why. Philippe Bascaules, at Margaux, saw more mildew on clay than on gravels. Right next-door, at Palmer, Thomas Duroux saw no difference between soil types.

Over in St-Emilion, Nicolas Seillan at Lassegue, said that a high canopy cover made all the difference, allowing the team to trim the leaves before the mildew reached the fruit.

Others said that mildew just went straight to the fruit anyway, irrespective of leaf cover.

Some estates gave up their organic certification programme to do just one anti-mildew treatment at the crucial moment of flowering. La Conseillante was one of these, although it said that it still used no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides.

Labégorce and Kirwan also chose to do this one treatment. Both said that they used bio-control substances that stimulate the plants’ auto-immune system. This method is not recognised by organic certifiers in France, but it is allowed in Germany.

It remains to be seen whether the mildew battles of 2018 will prompt estates to give up on organic and biodynamic conversion.

At Pontet Canet, Alfred Tesseron, of the owning family, told me that he still regrets treating the vines in 2007, which reset his journey towards certification at the time.

He said that he was confident he made the right choice in 2018, even if it meant losing two thirds of the crop. ‘We still want to reflect the truth of our terroir, and when you believe in something, you follow it through.’

At Palmer, Duroux was more pragmatic. He said that, given the same conditions and the benefit of hindsight, he would definitely consider applying a treatment. Duroux is not the owner, which may make a difference when comparing these two strategies.

Second wines: Dialling up the concentration

Second wines are sometimes more concentrated than usual, because the over-ripe Cabernets went into them.

Château Margaux’s Pavillon Rouge is a good example of this. At the start of blending, the team expected to use 40% of the harvest for the first wine. But many of the lots were simply too tannic and went into Pavillon instead, with the final first wine percentage at 36%.

Technical director Philippe Bascaules said he had never seen such water stress in the Médoc. He said this affected vines up to 15 years old, where usually it would be just the youngest vines under five years old that suffered.

This is a clear indication that the vintage is not as homogenous as the 2005, 2010 or 2016.

Alcohols

There are definitely high alcohols, more unusually so on the Left Bank than Right Bank, where they are always pretty high.

Seeing St-Estèphe wines at 15%abv is unusual, and both Mouton and Pichon Baron were among the many Pauillacs to record their highest alcohols ever.

Jean Charles Cazes, at Lynch Bages, gave a good explanation as to why this happened.

Lynch Bages was expecting yields of 42hl/ha on the eve of harvest, but this fell to 38hl/ha because of concentration in the final few days ahead of picking. That means the skins were thicker than expected, with less juice in them , he said.

However, as previously noted, the high alcohol enrobes the tannins, which is helping to mask the strength and the amount of them.

Acidity and pH

There is definitely a warning to be given over pH levels, which are relatively high, particularly – and unusually – in the Médoc. Vines on dry gravel soils saw the most concentration build up at the end of ripening.

This helps the wines to taste delicious right now for sure. But when pH levels head towards four or more you might just want to be wary of what it means for long-term stability. For me, this is where the 2016 vintage might be a safer bet.

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