Bordeaux 2019: The Southwold Tasting

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 28, 2023

A vintage becomes entwined with our personal lives, sharing the same twelve months. Concerning 2019, well, that’s a strange one for this writer. As the vines flowered full of expectation, I was a guest at St. George’s hospital, wondering what my future held. I had recovered sufficiently to taste the 2019 barrel samples belatedly that September, my first notice that this season was top drawer. When appraising the 2019s from barrel the following spring, the gravity of a global pandemic was beginning to dawn, the shutters of daily life closing, en primeur presumably canceled… 

Or was it?

At that moment, we began to seek signs of continuity. The unexpectedly successful campaign that ensued was a salve amongst the turmoil. A few months later, when the 2019s were in bottle, the world remained upended, though now vaccines offered light at the end of the tunnel. Relaxed travel restrictions meant that the vintage could be assessed in Bordeaux instead of the outskirts of Guildford.

And now?

Now, the world has mostly moved on from the pandemic. Instead, we endure sleepless nights over saber-rattling superpowers and economic stagnation. That should not preclude reappraising the 2019 vintage a second time, crucially, lined-up blind at the annual Southwold tasting.