Bordeaux feature - The ripe stuff
Chris Losh looks back at the winners and losers from a topsy-turvy Bordeaux season.
There's no doubt about it, 2003 was one of the oddest vintages ever for Bordeaux. Not only was it the hottest year in more than a century, it was also drier than average, with far more sunshine than usual. In consequence grapes were harvested with record sugar levels.
In such atypical conditions, the techniques that Bordeaux's growers have developed over the last decade to improve the quality of their wines were rendered useless. In fact, techniques such as green harvesting (cutting off bunches in early summer to concentrate the vines' energy) and leaf-plucking (to expose grapes to the sun) are designed to maximise concentration and ripeness in a cool climate. As a result, they added to the problems of overripeness and sunburn. This was a vintage that favoured either the imaginative grower or the lazy one.
This being Bordeaux, however, there were significant winners as well as losers, which, in general terms, were as follows.
White wines:
Fruit-forward, trade-friendly style The heat of August was so intense that vines raced to sugar ripeness several weeks earlier than usual. For the dry white wines, this meant atypical, more New World tropical fruit flavours for the Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon and a marked drop in acidity. The wines are approachable and flavoursome, but far from being classic, white Bordeaux style - and unlikely to benefit from prolonged ageing.
All of which makes them considerably more on-trade friendly - but paradoxically, not necessarily a good bet for traditional lovers of white Bordeaux, who are used to wines with more freshness and attitude. Fans of Sauternes will, as for the dry whites, find a vintage that has big, ripe tropical fruit flavours. With picking finished by the end of September, botrytis is limited, and it's a year that relies more on "surmaturité" than on noble rot.
While the wines are appealing, the lack of acidity (with one or two exceptions) may stop them from being wines for the very long haul. But again, this could be ideal for anyone looking for a Sauternes for their wine list. And in a year when the left bank reds are likely to dominate, prices could be reasonable.
Right Bank:
Making the best of a bad job 2003 was a difficult vintage for the right bank. To start with, violent hailstorms flattened entire vineyards in St Emilion and Entre Deux Mers in June and July, while the hot weather did few favours for the region's signature Merlot grape. Being an early-ripening grape variety has its advantages when summer finishes early, but it's not so good in a scorching year like 2003. By August, the two-week spell of extreme heat saw many vines shut down with heat stress. Flavours stopped developing and tannins stayed unripe, while bunches of grapes exposed to the merciless sun began to shrivel and "raisin" on the vine.
The problem was particularly pronounced on the fast-draining, sandy benches of St Emilion, though on the clay slopes and the plateau, where moisture was better retained, vines were able to find some moisture, and the grapes suffered less. Pomerol's wines lack their usual intensity and are hollow and unexciting. It is telling, for instance, that Le Pin made no wine at all in 2003. Not that it's all bad news. Cabernet Franc came out of the extreme conditions better than Merlot, and St Emilion's growers with a higher percentage of the former have generally made reasonable wines.
Given the difficult conditions, the wineries deserve credit for the standard of wines produced - so-so to good, rather than out-and-out poor. Prices are likely to drop, but though there could be some reasonable wines at affordable prices, those seeking real quality need to look to the left bank.
Left Bank:
Star of the vintage No question, the left bank fared considerably better than its neighbour across the river. While St Emilions need to be picked with care, the Graves and, particularly, Médoc offer some consistency. Within the overall strength of the Médoc communes, the south (Margaux and Graves) are patchier and generally less impressive than the northern communes. The run from St Julien through Pauillac and up to St Estèphe saw wines of remarkable expressiveness and power that are set fair for medium-term ageing.
The key to the vintage was the cooling presence of the Gironde, which helped provide humidity in the evening for some of the world's most famous vineyards, old vines with deep roots, and Cabernet's ability to ripen later than Merlot. Thus, most of the grapes in the Médoc were still on the vine in late September, a month which saw both a drop in temperatures and the arrival of rain. This allowed a slow ripening to the tail-end of the summer. Fruit flavours matured, as did tannins in the small bunches of grapes to give wines of power and big flavours.
Prices are expected to rise with demand, and the top châteaux are likely to be unattainable. But the less well-known châteaux of the left bank should provide good wines at a decent price, and will almost certainly offer better value than more expensive bigname St Emilions or Pomerols.
