2023 Bordeaux – The Vintage and The Wines

The Vintage Château Lafleur’s Omri Ram seemed to sum up 2023 best when he said to me last week “it was an extreme vintage with no extremes.” How can we unravel that paradox? The first extreme refers to the sheer amount of work required to get to the finish line in the right shape. A warm year overall, it was also a wet one, making preventative care against mildew and such like essential. “For everyone working in the vineyard it as very tough, high octane, I was never so tired as I was after winemaking in 2023.” But it was also a year that lacked the heatwaves, or drought that has become a common feature of late. With healthy fruit in the vat, 2023 delivers an even temperament, not blockbuster, not weedy. Straight, classic. The downside? A more regular sort of year delivers fewer benchmarks or blockbusters. Not a single wine in 2023 stopped me in my tracks and made me go ‘wow!’, not one did I taste that felt truly exceptional, of the type that stands in decades to come as a true legend. These wines usually come in the more extreme vintages, where either frost, poor flowering, or some other crop-reducing factor combines with a hot summer to produce – when a knife’s edge balance comes right – a wine that thrills. 2023 is not a thrilling vintage. It does what it says on the label – Bordeaux. (For an excellent overview of the vintage weather patterns, see Gavin Quinney’s free report).

For me, and all who really love Bordeaux, that’s actually the upside to 2023. It’s moderate qualities offer a chance for terroirs to shine, and those teams that worked smarter and harder to step out in front, if not dramatically. The vintage plays a supporting role in these cases, not a leading one. Grape variety blends were easy to spot, soil types too. If that sounds like your kind of wine, then 2023 is not to be ignored. And isn’t that a sound reason to buy Bordeaux, rather than one of the many successful global incarnations of its key grape varieties, and blends?

The penny dropped for me at Latour. Tasting ‘23s château to château, it’s easy to become inured to the character of the vintage because that’s the one constant you face all day, sample to sample. The vintage’s personality is hidden in plain sight because all the wines tasted are from the same one. It’s hard, at times, to step back. But at Latour they always show the three wines of the vintage (2023 Latour, Les Forts de Latour, Pauillac), and also these same three labels from their current ex-Château releases  – in this case 2017, 2018, and 2019 respectively. (Latour exited the primeurs system years ago, but still takes the opportunity to show the new wines). Both 2019 and 2018 seemed positively sweet next to 2023 (and for that matter, 2017). Discussing the style of ’23 with Jean Garandeau at Latour he said it reminds him of 2001. I smiled. 2001 was one of those moderate sorts of vintages that produced some lovely wines, some stars even, and very true to Bordeaux style. But 2001 was overshadowed by the widely acclaimed success of 2000, hyped by Robert Parker to his readers, and to a wide audience via a 60 Minutes TV interview, and with something of the “millennium bump” helping sales too. 2001 followed without fanfare. But it is much admired by connoisseurs of Bordeaux.

But there is a limit to looking so far back in time. 2001 predates the watershed vintage of 2003, when heatwaves and drought produced wines of a style not seen before. Many vintages that have followed have produced variants of the very warm to hot vintage expression, and nature, farming, and the vignerons involved have adjusted. If we were to go back in time to the 1990s or 1980s, and slotted 2023 in, it would seem quite ripe. Indeed, I suspect it would be hailed as a great vintage.

What really strikes me about 2023 is that I tasted very little that seemed overripe, and I tasted very little that seemed underripe, and with almost all wines showing very nice freshness on the nose and palate. The style is what I would call fresh-ripe, like a fruit that you’ve picked from the bush yourself that is perfectly ripe to eat. Will I want some in my cellar? Absolutely. I really like this style. You’ll note though that my scores are a little more clustered than in some other years – they are more moderate, reflecting the vintage – fewer big disappointments, and fewer standout thrillers. But make no mistake, if you like Bordeaux, you will want these in your cellar.

To buy 2023 en primeur?
The big question though is when to buy them? The Bordeaux system drives for that to be now. It is important to remember that when you buy en primeur, you are not buying wine, you are buying the promise of wine that is still in barrel at the château. You pay us up front for that promise, we pay the négocient in Bordeaux, and they pay the châteaux. Once the wine is bottled, packed and shipped, the châteaux send the wines to the négocient, and we consolidate, ship, and deliver them to you in Hong Kong. You are providing cashflow to the châteaux. What is your upside for doing so? The upside is if you judge the price we are offering the ‘23s at to be sufficiently advantageous compared to what you anticipate* you might pay in two years’ time when physical stock is on the market. Sometimes that works out well. The 2019s offered in the uncertain times at the beginning of the pandemic proved good bets. (*guess).

But not every offer is like that. On the eve of the campaign this year Colin Hay wrote in the Drinks Business of the woes of the Bordeaux négocients with unsold inventories of 2022s and 2021s, and rising interest rates to finance them. Hay wrote of a Bordeaux system at a financial ‘breaking point’, and speculated that large discounts on 2023 prices compared to 2022s would be needed create a successful campaign.

As the campaign gets underway – early and fast this year, as Bordeaux is keen to create some buzz – indications so far are positive on price. Highly acclaimed wines from 2023 are being offered at big discounts to what the 2022s were offered at – Lêoville Las Cases (-40%) and Lafite-Rothschild (-31%), and Mouton-Rothschild (-34%). There is one wrinkle in this ‘discount’ to work out however. How much and how fast have en primeur prices risen in recent years. Some châteaux have been modest, some have been… ambitious. To muddy the waters further, some have improved also, more than others. In the end you’ll have to work this part out for yourself. But as a rule of thumb, I’d say, do a quick comparison to what it would cost you to buy the same wine from a good recent vintage – say, 2017. Chances are the 2023 is a better wine, perhaps substantially so. But do your research.

Of course there are other benefits to buying en primeur. FOMO is dealt with the moment the order is confirmed, you enter the purchase in your spreadsheet or on Cellartracker, and have that pleasure of ownership and anticipation right away, you can request special bottling formats, and if 2023 was the year you got married, or had a kid, you want to get the right wines secured from the beginning. And you’ll never have to be concerned about provenance.

THE RATINGS

115 wines tasted – a foreshortened report

My report this year is the product of three and a half days’ of visits and tastings on the ground at châteaux in Bordeaux. The day after the paulée-style Gala Dinner that concluded the two weeks of The Fine Wine Experience Burghound Symposium I flew to Paris, took the train to Bordeaux and got straight into the primeurs. But that was already a late start. That, and some unexpected logistical challenges, meant that I missed the UGC St.-Julien, Pauillac and St.-Estèphe tastings entirely, as well as the chance to visit a number of top châteaux. Nonetheless, the days were intensive (thank you Manu and Pierre), and I got the chance to discuss the vintage with a number of châteaux, and I offer my 115 tasting notes and ratings* below. (The Guinaudeau family wines, including Lafleur, and the Jean family’s Couvent des Jacobins and Calicem I exclude from this report as we represent them, and I will write to you about them separately).

As always, I suggest you read widely what your favourite critics have written – not just the scores – but to see if they are describing wines you would like to drink some day. If, like me, you want to taste a fine, fresh, pure expressions of great terroir, then you will want some 2023s in your cellar.

Favourites?
Too much was missed for me to conclude like usual, at least comparatively. But if you want the skip skimming my notes for the top results, here are my top-rated wines…
2023 Château Lafite-Rothschild, 95-97+
2023 Château Canon, 95-97
2023 Château Troplong Mondot, 95-97
2023 Château Angelus, 95-96+
2023 Château La Conseillante, 95-96
2023 Vieux Château Certan, 95-96
2023 Château Haut Bailly, 94-96
2023 Château Montrose, 94-96
2023 Château Smith Haut Lafitte, 94-96
2023 Château Léoville Las Cases, 94-96
2023 Château La Mission Haut-Brion, 94-96
2023 Château Haut Brion, 94-96
2023 Château Cheval Blanc, 94-96
2023 Château Mouton-Rothschild, 94-96
2023 Château Latour, 94-96 …and one or two that stood out in the value range…
2023 Château Clerc Milon, 93-95
2023 Château Berliquet, 93-94
2023 Carillon d’Angelus, 92-94
2023 Château Beauregard, 92-94
2023 Château La Clotte, 92-94
2023 La Dame de Montrose, 92-94
2023 Château Moulin St Georges, 92-94
2023 Château Quinault L’Enclos, 92-94

But again, I missed much this year, so no ‘Top Ten’ tables.