By Aaran Eccles
Approx. Read Time: 5 minutes
Aaran Eccles, Fine Wine Sales, recounts his experience of tasting the Bordeaux 2023 vintage out in the region during April.
“Ah yes, we saw the A-Team earlier in the week. Welcome B-Team.”
It was a familiar welcome that played out throughout our few days in Bordeaux for en primeur week. Our boisterous Head of Fine Wine, Will Hargrove, ensured that all the other wine merchants and châteaux owners we may bump into knew who was in charge of the real work this week. Ever the joker, he introduced us as reinforcements when we arrived at Château Calon Ségur on the Monday morning, having just flown in. I should have noticed the glint in his eye.
During the famed Bordeaux en primeurs week, there are a couple of ways to taste your way around the new vintage, and both approaches allow the taster to gain a great perspective of what has happened the year before.
Firstly, you can make private appointments at prestigious addresses throughout the region and taste each wine in isolation. It is a great chance to understand directly from the winemaker pouring their cask samples exactly why their wines taste as they do. It is also a source of rich insight with unguarded comments made safe in the knowledge that a wider audience will not hear them. On a previous trip to taste a former vintage, a respected winemaker once told me everyone else was a bare-faced liar if they said they hadn’t added sugar to up the alcohol levels at fermentation time; it helps to get an inside view!
The second way to taste en primeur in Bordeaux is to attend the many tastings organised by the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. UGC week attracts thousands of people from the wine trade worldwide and offers a unique chance to taste wines against the peers of their commune. At tastings throughout the region samples are poured and within a couple of hours, the taster can make their way through the wines on show to get a grip on the vintage. Of course, all the while being able to see which wines shine compared to their next-door neighbours, and who hasn’t quite made the grade this year. It can be a harsh spotlight!
Joe Muller & Marc Ditcham
This year we went for a divide-and-conquer approach at C&B. The A-Team would take on the majority of châteaux visits for a full week, while the B-Team (consisting of myself, Joe Muller and Marc Ditcham) would provide the reinforcements to tackle the UGC tastings. This double approach ensured that we could taste as many wines as possible and therefore provide a clearer picture of the youthful 2023s’ overall quality. We did invariably cross paths with our colleagues during the week (most memorably when tasting a delicious Lynch-Bages 2023 with Jean-Charles Cazes), but the majority of our tastings were centred on each commune, leaving the glamourous work to the A-Team.
What transpired from tasting the 2023s was most welcome. Before we travelled out to Bordeaux, the reports had been mixed, focussing on the attacks of mildew that had beset vineyards throughout the region in what had proved to be a humid growing season. We shouldn’t have been surprised that what was in the glass reflected none of the early murmurings though. The chais of Bordeaux have some of the highest quality winemaking equipment in the world, and therefore, any mildew-affected grapes or underripe bunches would have never made it anywhere near a fermentation vat. The season was still warm, not on the level of the baking heat of 2022, but certainly hot enough with a glorious September to ensure that the primeurs showed a lovely mixture of red and black fruit, balanced by deliciously fresh acidities that made for mouthwatering wines. In many cases, precise winemaking has meant that the brightness of the fruit profiles shines through. There were only a couple of examples where extraction felt pushed, and tannins were hard rather than the general crunchy fine tannins we had tasted.
Branaire-Ducru
Having tasted at the various UGC tastings, I can quite happily recommend every commune in 2023. but, as ever, there were some standouts for me and, within those appellations, some truly enthralling wines. In the Médoc, Saint-Julien and Pauillac were particularly impressive. Saint-Julien is a commune with a concentration of top-quality châteaux, and I can’t help but point out how much I enjoyed Branaire–Ducru and Beychevelle, whilst the Barton wines, Langoa and Léoville, provide great value year on year without fail. These Saint-Juliens have everything I look for: pure blackcurrant fruit that runs the supreme balance of fruit intensity and tannin structure to age magnificently. Likewise, Pauillac boasts a full complement of cassis-driven fruit that has power in spades. Lynch-Bages and Pichon-Lalande are the archetypal Pauillacs that should be in every cellar.
To the east of Bordeaux city, the vineyards closest to Libourne ruled supreme. Pomerol held a couple of showstoppers for me, with La Fleur-Pétrus the standout; when Merlot is this perfumed and textured, it really does hit the heights. Château La Grave would be a wine I would encourage you to buy to discover what the magic of Pomerol is all about. Saint-Émilion also impressed with red fruits and persistent fine chalky tannins all in abundance in my tasting notes. It is clear to see the dramatic increase in quality at Bélair-Monange, which is undoubtedly impressive, but I will be stocking up on Peymouton, a wine of this quality at such a generous price means it is one to have in the house for mid-week!
It was a wonderful few days to be back in Bordeaux, and the A-Team mostly treated us well, even though they had to do the majority of the work. Maybe next year, there will be a graduation to taste alongside Will Hargrove… But for now, it’s been a delight to taste the 2023s and they represent a lovely vintage to get stuck into!