Bordeaux 2018: Back in Black

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | APRIL 30, 2019 

La version française suit

Left Bank: Margaux | Pauillac | Pessac-Léognan | Saint-Estèphe | Saint-Julien | Sauternes | Satellites

Right Bank: Pomerol | Saint-Émilion | Satellites

Don't Miss & Best Buys | Sleepers

Two thousand eighteen was one of the most dramatic growing seasons in recent memory. Hail, persistent rain and blistering summertime temperatures tested the resilience of vineyard managers and winemakers throughout the entire year. Perhaps most importantly, though, 2018 comes at a significant inflection point in Bordeaux’s history. So, how did the wines turn out?

Protecting the Future of Independent Wine Criticism

Bordeaux is big business. That is no secret. Much of this is facilitated by wine publications that help consumers and trade buyers navigate an increasingly large number of wines. The system mostly works because there is an element of trust…trust that professional opinions are in fact truly independent. However, rampant unauthorized distribution of scores and tasting notes poses a very serious threat to the future viability of truly independent wine criticism.

Of course we recognize that the vast majority of Vinous subscribers act responsibly. However, this past February, at least two courtiers copied and distributed the entire contents of Vinous articles to their mailing lists without our permission. For readers who may not be aware of the structure of Bordeaux, courtiers are companies that manage the relationships between châteaux and négociants. The most egregious of these cases was a firm that copied and distributed the entire contents of my article 2016 Bordeaux…It’s All In The Bottle – including the introduction, all of the reviews and scores – to their mailing list. Upon being informed of their violation of our Terms of Service, this courtier responded by copying and distributing the entirety of Neal Martin’s article: The DBs: Bordeaux 2016 In Bottle to their mailing list using an account not registered to their company.

In the fifteen years I have been writing about wine professionally, I have never seen such a blatant disregard for the most basic professional courtesy. The theft of other people’s work for financial gain is morally bankrupt and a crime against everyone who strives to create high quality, proprietary information. It is simply not acceptable. Scores for the 2018s will be released on May 2, after the French holiday, making an exception for wines that are already being offered in the market. If you receive a complete electronic reproduction of 2018 Bordeaux: Back in Black, you are in receipt of stolen material. Please forward any such emails to info@vinous.com. We will take all necessary steps to protect our intellectual property.

The last few vintages have seen a serious uptick in quality at Laroque, a revitalized property in Saint-Émilion

Vinous readers will have now heard numerous accounts of the 2018 growing season. I will summarize the salient points broadly, but remind readers that conditions vary widely from place to place, especially in years like 2018. As for the wines, the best 2018s are positively stunning. I don’t see the consistency of 2016, for example, but 2018 offers a tremendous amount of choice for the consumer, from everyday gems to the rarest of collectibles.

The year got off to a cool and damp start, which delayed bud break. Flowering and set were largely uneventful. A few properties reported issues during flowering, but for the most part the vines set a large crop, a natural response to the shy crop of 2017. May and June were much more traumatic. Hail impacted the Côtes de Bourg (where most of the crop was lost), Blaye and selected spots in Entre-deux-Meres and the Médoc. La Lagune lost the entire crop, while production was halved at Cantermerle.

Rain was persistent throughout June, although the amount of rain varied quite a bit from appellation to appellation. More than anything else, it was the persistence of rain (rather than just the amount) that created problems. Soils need to dry after rain in order to be accessible to tractors and workers. In 2018, the windows to physically get in and treat the vines were very narrow. Mother Nature does not care about Saturdays and Sundays. In some cases, the weekends provided the best windows to treat the vines, but not all properties had the means to intervene during those days. Tropical weather created the ideal conditions for widespread outbreaks of downy mildew. Properties that farm biodynamically saw their yields decimated. But in many cases, yields were not that affected, as readers will discover in the tasting notes.

Summer was scorching hot. By most accounts, 2018 was the hottest and driest summer in fifty years. The heat concentrated the fruit, in some cases to an extraordinary degree. Warm winds at the very tail end of the growing season further dehydrated the fruit. But the end of the season was generally benign and estates had the freedom to pick pretty much whenever they wanted. For many properties, the harvest was especially drawn out. This is an important point, because the 2018s could have only been made in present day Bordeaux. A generation ago, vineyard managers would have been forced to make much bigger pick calls because the tanks needed to be filled. Today, virtually all wineries are equipped with smaller tanks that, in turn, give vineyard managers the ability to pick smaller parcels with much more precision and flexibility than was possible in the past. This is one of the central reasons that explains why the best 2018s are superb wines.

Tiny, super-concentrated berries required gentle handling in the cellar. Winemakers spoke of fermenting at lower temperatures than normal, with extended time on the skins, but much gentler extractions. Sugars were high and the fermentations were often lengthy, partly because Bordeaux yeasts are not accustomed to working with grapes that carry high levels of sugar. And that takes us to where the wines are now, aging in barrel.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the 2018s is that, with a few exceptions, the wines do not taste at all like what the analyses look like on paper. The numbers show wines with high alcohol, off the charts tannin and, in most cases, low acidities. It may seem hard to believe, but the wines don’t taste like that all. The best 2018s are aromatically intense, deep, dark wines that beautifully marry fruit intensity with structure. Of course there are some disappointments, but that is to be expected in a vintage that presented so many challenges.

Co-owner Valmy Nicolas and Technical Director Marielle Cazaux at La Conseillante, one of the stars of the vintage 

The New Bordeaux

Two thousand eighteen comes along at a fascinating time in this history of Bordeaux. We are very clearly at an inflection point that may very well one day be regarded as a seminal moment for Bordeaux. Everything is changing.

For starters, the number of châteaux that have undergone a change in ownership and or technical direction over the last five or so years (but less than ten) is just staggering. These include: Beau-Séjour-Bécot, Bellefont-Belcier, Berliquet, Beychevelle, Calon-Ségur, Canon, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, La Clotte La Conseillante, Figeac, Fonbadet, Laroque, Léoville-Poyferré, Montrose, Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Petit-Village, Le Prieuré, Prieuré-Lichine, Rauzan-Ségla, Tour Saint Christophe, Troplong Mondot and Vray Croix de Gay, among others.

The intense ripeness of 2018 notwithstanding, there is a very clear and conscious move to harvest earlier than in the past, which is resulting in wines of greater freshness. Extractions are generally gentler, while the impact of new oak has come down markedly in many wines. Terra cotta amphoras, casks and other fermentation/aging vessels that are not traditional in Bordeaux are present in an ever-growing number of cellars. I am seeing an increase in trials with whole clusters in fermentation, another technique that is not at all common here. Quite a few winemakers are experimenting with no S02 during crush and the early stages of aging, which they believe increases aromatic openness in the wines. The challenges of 2018 aside, the move towards sustainable farming and biodynamics – which is relatively new to Bordeaux – is increasing. Just five or six years ago, I could not have written this paragraph. Today, the pace of change in dizzying, which now makes Bordeaux one of the most dynamic and exciting regions in the world.

Technical Director Vincent Millet and Estate Manager Laurent Dufau at Calon Ségur, where both wines are stellar in 2018

The 2018s By Appellation

Saint-Estèphe

Saint-Estèphe is one of the unquestioned overachievers in 2018, the best and most consistent vintage here since 2014. So many wines are brilliant. Cos d’Estournel and Calon Ségur, in particular, are extraordinary. Montrose and Lafon-Rochet aren’t too far behind. But it isn’t just the famous wines that shine in 2018. Phélan Ségur is gorgeous, Haut-Marbuzet is arguably the sleeper of the appellation, Meyney is more nuanced than it has been recently, Lilian Ladouys is likely to be a fabulous value and the second wines (Les Pagodes de Cos, Le Marquis de Calon Ségur and La Dame de Montrose) are all superb.

“What looked like a late harvest turned out to be precocious,” Cos d’Estournel proprietor Michel Reybier and Technical Director Dominique Arangoïts told me. “Harvest stated on September 19 and wrapped up on October 6. Merlot and Cabernet both came in at 14.5% alcohol, which is unusual. Merlot had the tension of Cabernet, and Cabernet had the sweetness of Merlot. It’s something I have never seen before. Vintage dominates over variety. Dry winds at the end of the season concentrated the fruit. Yields were just 30 hectoliters per hectare, which is down sharply from the upper 40s that are more typical. The grapes were very ripe, so we opted to vinify and lower temperatures than normal,” an approach most winemakers shared in 2018. “It is a very unique year,” Estate Manager Laurent Dufau and Technical Director Vincent Millet relayed at Calon Ségur. “Alcohols are about 0.5% higher than normal, but so are acidities - pHs are lower than normal across the board. The musts were rich. We knew the cuvaisons would be long and that the wines would extract easily on their own. We did almost no punchdowns and kept temperatures on the lower side.”

“In terms of rain, heat and sunshine, 2018 is very similar to 2009,” Montrose CEO Hervé Berland recounted. With 75-80% of the property now farmed biodynamically, Montrose had its challenges with mildew in 2018. “Ultimately, dehydration in summer was a bigger factor than mildew when it comes to yields. Our production at Montrose was 25 hectoliters per hectare opposed to our recent historical average of about 35,” explained Technical Director Vincent Decup.

Phélan Ségur is one of the overachievers of 2018. "Rain was about 20% higher than normal," Technical Director Fabrice Bacquey explained. "The vines held up well during the summer, although we started seeing the signs of heat stress in early September. A brief but intense storm on September 6 was helpful in restoring balance."

Pauillac

Pichon-Comtesse, Pontet-Canet and Latour are the most exciting wines in 2018, while Grand Puy Lacoste, Pichon Baron and Lynch Bages are just behind. But Pauillac is littered with superb wines, across all price points. Readers will find plenty to like in some of the appellation’s less prestigious châteaux. These properties, which are often in less favored microclimates that can produce leaner wines, actually benefitted from the extra kick of richness from the summer heat. I am thinking about wines like Pibran, d’Armailhac and Clerc-Milon, all of which are promising. Fonbadet is the sleeper of the appellation. Lafite-Rothschild and Mouton-Rothschild are both very good, but they are neither standouts nor are they viscerally thrilling.

“I have not seen this kind of mildew pressure since 1988, but I am old-timer now, and I was not too worried,” Managing Director Philippe Dhalluin told me at Mouton-Rothschild. “Yields were down 2-7% across our various châteaux. Flowering was very early. We had pretty severe coulure in Cabernet Sauvignon at Mouton and d’Armailhac, both of which are on deep gravel soil and flowered during a very unstable period in 2018. Clerc-Milon, which is right next door (to Mouton), but sits on much cooler soils, flowered four days later, and did not have any real issues.”

Few winemakers can match Nicolas Glumineau at Pichon-Comtesse when it comes to pure passion and a total dedication to making the very best wine possible. “I’m just a second growth,” he says with typical modesty. “For many people Pichon-Comtesse will never be as highly regarded as the First Growths.” I am not sure I agree. The 2018 Pichon-Comtesse is one of the wines of the vintage and is shaping up to be very close to the 2016 in terms of quality. “The biggest difference between 2018 and 2016 is not the Cabernets, but the Merlots, and we are on the Left Bank,” Glumineau added “I think 2018 is more heterogenous than people expect, because as winemakers we had to ask ourselves ‘What kind of wine do I want to make?’”

“I can’t say I really understood the vintage. At the end of the day, I lost 2/3rds of the crop for my boss,” Technical Director Jean-Michel Comme told me with an understandably somber tone when I visited him at Pontet-Canet. Yields were just 11 hectoliters per hectare as opposed to the 30-35 that are more typical. “The effects of mildew were just devastating. On July 14th we were fine, but that weekend was dramatic. By July 16, we had lost 30% of the Merlots,” Comme elaborated. “All of the grapes were whole cluster pressed. Because of the small crop, we were able to vinify the entire production in our new concrete tanks, using no electricity, just manual pumpovers. The 2018 is aging in 55% new oak and 45% terra cotta amphora, in other words more amphora than typical and no used oak.” As for the wine, it is one of the most freakish, super-concentrated wines of the entire vintage.

“Yields were 24 hectoliters per hectare, which is down from the 35 that are more typical here,” Technical Director Hélène Genin explained at Latour. Yields were extremely uneven, however, with some parcels not touched at all by mildew , and others that produced almost nothing. We also noticed that vines planted with massale material proved more resistant to mildew owing to their diversity, while in rows planted with clonal selections, the vines all suffered the same level of losses. One of the challenges was keeping all our lots separate, so we opted for smaller fermentation vessels to make that happen. Our approach was to work with gentler extractions and try to preserve as much oxygen as possible. We did fewer délestages than normal and limited them to the early part of fermentations,” she explained.