“Instability is the only basis for life. Balance is just a moment, a suspension between two states of disorder.”
Paul Valéry (via Guillaume Pouthier)
The quote above captures the precariousness of the 2024 vintage in Bordeaux, a knife-edge year in which the conditions offered almost no margin for error.
We have just returned from six days of tasting. The field is divided, perhaps more so than ever. The good news is that there are successes — some genuinely exciting wines that will deliver pleasure and, if released at the right prices, deserve to be bought. But there are others that slipped off that knife edge.
2024 is a series of hurdles. Jump them all and you may find yourself with a place on the starting line…
The first and most important hurdle is ‘resource’ — money basically, and the ability to deploy it correctly. In 2024, resource meant having a team of vineyard workers on speed dial, to ensure you could spray when needed and, most crucially, pick at the right moment. Mouton-Rothschild had a small army of 450 pickers across their various estates.
Smaller properties perhaps found it easier to be agile, but it was hugely labour-intensive. Saint-Émilion’s Beauséjour had an impressive 50 pickers to cover its 6.8 hectares, and the outcome was half a crop — just 11,000 bottles will be filled. At nearby Rocheyron (7.4ha), Peter Sisseck sprayed 22 times, with each application taking six hours.
‘Resource’ also meant sorting tables, plural. At the best estates, only the most pristine grapes made it to the press, thanks to multiple layers of vibrating, density, optical and manual sorting. Density baths are this year’s must-have accessory — berries that sink in a sugar solution are waved through; those that float are underripe.
Les Carmes Haut-Brion’s initial yield of 41hl/ha shrank, after sorting, to 24hl/ha. Cheval Blanc rejected 34% of its crop during sorting, Pierre-Olivier Clouet recalling with exasperation the variances in ripeness “in each f***ing bunch.” L’Évangile drafted in 35 extra pickers from Sauternes with expertise in botrytis, whose sole job was to hunt down and eliminate rot from individual clusters. You get the idea — a rich château’s vintage.
One of the few producers who seemed philosophical, in all senses of the word, was our friend François Mitjavile, who commented that at Tertre Roteboeuf and Roc de Cambes, “this rainy weather degraded and tenderised the polyphenols.” His wines will be among the joys of the vintage.
The second hurdle was in the cellar. Although we didn’t ask everyone about chaptalisation (legally adding sugar before fermentation to bolster alcohol and body), no one denied doing it, even if it was “just one tank”. More fundamental was extraction — the force with which you press and the proportion of press wine you use. The conundrum is that if you press too much, the tannin outweighs the fruit. But if you’re too cautious, you can end up with a ‘doughnut wine’ — no personality, with a hollow middle.
Blending and selection then became key. We did not find much pleasure among the second wines in 2024, many of which appeared to have been sacrificed on the altar of their grand vin. As one top estate confided, “To make a good second wine this year, you needed a third wine.”
As élevage begins, so does the next cellar hurdle. Several of our notes speculate on likely outcomes after barrel ageing — more than ever this year, it feels like it could go either way. As Olivier Berrouet at Petrus said, “We are very aggressive with our barrels — I think we will skip one or two rackings and maybe shorten the ageing time.” Being reactive and adapting to changing conditions doesn’t stop once the grapes are picked.
The final hurdle is price. For what is the point of making a good wine if it does not reach the hands of someone who will uncork it? After many conversations on this topic, it does seem that prices will come down, in some cases significantly. There is a consensus that en primeur needs to work. The Bordelais know that they enjoy the most sophisticated and wide-reaching distribution system in the world of wine. There is no wish to kill the golden goose.
And the wines themselves? My colleague Joe Muller summed them up well as “low alcohol, fresh, transparent and stealthily structured.” Although there are plenty of approachable wines to choose from, they won’t all be early drinkers. Thanks to thick-skinned berries, there was a lot of extractable tannin. Provided there is fruit density to match, estates with more powerful terroir and a high proportion of old vines, or whose approach during vinification was more extractive, have long-term ageing potential. The likes of Trotanoy, Lynch Bages and Cheval Blanc will demand cellar time and will age gracefully.
This will be an early campaign — we expect it to begin next week, just after the Easter weekend. The Moueix family’s Pomerols and Saint-Émilions will be amongst the first, so watch this space.
Guy Seddon, Head of Fine Wine Buying
April 2025