Weighing Up Bordeaux’s 2021 Vintage

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| The wines are good, but the success of the vintage will rely on release prices.

It took me a few days of tasting and talking to producers to get my head round the 2021 vintage in Bordeaux – it didn’t fit easily into any of the boxes I had pre-prepared to shove it into.

But having tried 210 wines from most of the top châteaux, let me try and share my impressions of this vintage.

So is it a good vintage or a bad vintage? On balance I think it was a good vintage, but it is by no means a great classic vintage. It is certainly not a “must have” vintage that collectors and investors will flock to buy; 2021 is a “take it or leave it” vintage. If the wines are well priced the market should buy them eagerly as they are eminently drinkable. If not, they will sit around in merchants, negociants and producers cellars until the world wakes up to exactly how attractive they are to drink. Purchasers will enjoy drinking these wines.

(The first wine to be released from the vintage was Château Batailley, at a remarkably good value price of €26.50 [$27.75] a bottle. For context, the global average price across all vintages for Batailley is $63. Hopefully, the others will follow a similar price path.)

For me, when tasting there were three points that stood out pretty much across the board about the 2021 Bordeaux wines. First, the wines had fresh acidity. The word mouthwatering appears in my notes quite a number of times. Second, the wines have plentiful fine soft tannins. Third, the wines had, what were for modern wines from Bordeaux, very low alcohol. With alcohol levels between 12 and 13 percent, the wines were able to express themselves aromatically.

These facts I could follow, but the outcomes messed with my preconceptions of how Bordeaux should taste. In my experience, a wine with high acidity and low alcohol should taste leafy and unripe; there was little or no leafy character in these wines and – where it existed – it complimented rather than dominated the flavors. From my experience, I also expect wines with high acidity and plentiful tannins to be angular and astringent, with drying cedary tannins or unripe green tannins overpowering the fruit and closing up the mid-palate. Few of the wines I tried did that. The tannins in most wines were ripe, fine and supple. If anything, some wines lack grip.

In 2021 the Cabernets fared better than Merlot. Frosts on April 6-7 prompted a couple of exhausting nights’ work for vignerons in all but the best sites close to the Gironde. Frost damage was greatest in the earlier budding Merlots. Frost also contributed to a higher than usual incidence of coulure (shatter), reducing bunch weights for Merlot.

Cool conditions in July and August slowed ripening. Heavy rainfall in early September left Bordeaux’s vignerons having to deal with widespread outbreaks of mildew – again the Merlot suffered more than the slower-ripening Cabernets, especially Cabernet Sauvignon. Repeated spraying was required, especially from those using milder organic or biodynamic treatments. Late September and early October were dry and October was unusually sunny allowing grape ripeness to catch up. Once the humidity and the mildew pressure had passed the best estates worked very hard in the vineyards, dropping damaged fruit and leaf plucking to ensure open canopies and to encourage ripening. Vignerons had to work hard to make good wines, but those that did were able to pick fruit with ripe skins.

For many estates, ripening the pips proved more difficult – these producers practiced shorter macerations in 2021 to avoid extracting green tannins from unripe pips in the fruit. As a result many wines lack the levels of gripping, condensed tannins usually found on the finish. This seems likely to make these wines accessible at an earlier stage of their maturity. It may also make them less suited to longer-term (i.e. 20-plus years) aging.

Some of the first comments I heard made about the 2021 vintage suggested it was an a more traditional, old-fashioned vintage. These comments related to the wines’ alcohol levels, and in that respect they are fair. I disagree however with the overall premise – these are not traditional, old-fashioned wines. Rather they are modern wines made possible by careful oversight in the vineyard and cellar.

Thirty years ago, frosts and humidity destroyed the 1991 vintage. While conditions in 1991 were clearly abysmal at harvest time and worse than conditions encountered in 2021, Bordeaux’s current generation of winemakers has, nevertheless, shown it can better deal with suboptimal conditions than was the case 30 years ago.

The appellations that produced the most excitement for me were the communes of the Haut-Médoc. It was striking how many wines from Margaux, Saint-Julien and Saint-Estèphe were balanced, attractive, lively and highly aromatic. Below is a list of my standout wines from each appellation. They are listed in the descending order of preference within each appellation.

Margaux

Château Rauzan-Ségla

Château Margaux

Château Siran

Château d’Angludet

Château du Tertre

Château Dauzac

Château Desmirail

Château Malescot-St-Exupery

Château Marquis de Terme

Château Monbrison

Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux

N.B. Palmer and Brane-Cantenac were not tasted.

Saint-Julien

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou

Château Léoville-Las Cases Grand Vin de Léoville

Château Léoville Poyferre

Château Beychevelle

Château Léoville Barton

Château Saint-Pierre

Château Gruaud-Larose

Château Léoville-Las Cases Clos du Marquis

Château Talbot

Château Gloria

Pauillac

Château Mouton Rothschild

Château Lafite Rothschild

Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande

Château Pontet-Canet

Château Batailley

N.B. Latour does not sell en-primeur so was not tasted.

Saint-Estèphe

Château Calon-Ségur

Château Cos d’Estournel

Château Phélan Ségur

Château Montrose

Pessac-Léognan Reds

Château Haut-Brion

Château La Mission Haut-Brion

Château Smith Haut Lafitte

Domaine de Chevalier

Château de Fieuzal

Pomerol

Vieux Château Certan

Château Trotanoy

Château La Fleur-Petrus

Château Nenin

N.B. Petrus, Le Pin and Lafleur were not tasted.

Saint-Émilion

Château Angélus

Château Pavie

Château Trotte Vieille

Château Canon

Château Belair-Monange

Château Bellevue-Mondotte

Château Pavie Macquin

Château Valandraud

N.B. Ausone and Cheval Blanc were not tasted.

Pessac-Léognan Whites

Château Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc

Domaine de Chevalier Blanc

Château Haut-Brion Blanc

Château de Fieuzal Blanc

Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc

Sauternes

Château de Fargues

Denis Dubourdieu Château Doisy-Daëne

Château Sigalas Rabaud

Château Rieussec

Château Suduiraut

N.B. d’Yquem was not tasted.