Omne Trium Perfectum: Bordeaux 2019s in Bottle

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 17, 2022

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

Right Bank: Pomerol | Saint-Émilion | Right Bank Satellites

Omne trium perfectum, Latin for “good things come in threes”: Star Wars (the original trilogy, of course), Bacon’s triptychs, The Ronettes, Guigal’s La La’s, French hens, little pigs, wise men and dimensions. The Bordelais will point to another: the 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages. In the future, wine lovers will compare this triumvirate and debate which takes gold, silver and bronze (unless you are a Bordeaux winemaker, in which case they will all receive gold). Though points can be compared and conclusions drawn, it is too early to predict what pinnacles these vintages will ultimately reach. When tasting the barrel samples, my gut feeling was that 2019 edged out 2018.

As COVID-19 began dismantling life in the spring of 2020, châteaux sent samples to housebound critics like myself. Now it’s time for a second snapshot of those finished wines in bottle. At least this time I didn’t have to conduct tastings in my back garden, surrounded by a mountain of polystyrene and cardboard. Instead, I spent a fortnight tasting the vintage at various châteaux, négociants and consultants… just like I did in normal times.

A mirror-like Gironde Estuary from the Pauillac quayside, taken during my first week of visits to taste the 2019s, which coincided with the harvest.

The Growing Season

For the minutiae of the 2019 growing season, I refer to my original en primeur report. The main points were a relatively warm, short winter followed by a rather inclement April and May that predicated inter-plot heterogeneity. A rainy, cool May impeded growth, and despite the changeable conditions continuing into June and during flowering, the vines escaped serious millerandage and coulure, except for the Right Bank, where some vineyards lost up to 20% of their production.  

Everything changed on June 23, when warm air was sucked up from the south; the mercury reached 35°C in the last week of that month. Localized storms relieved some of the parched throats. In Sauternes, instead, rain caused outbreaks of acid rot. But overall, Bordeaux enjoyed the most sunlight hours in 30 years, and apart from a brief cool spell around August 10-11, it was sufficiently hot and dry to even out véraison. Though winemakers denied there were heat spikes, when I was vacationing in the region toward the end of August, I had to seek shelter in a supermarket to escape the heat. Having inspected vines close up at the time, I am convinced that the high temperatures impacted some of the 2019s. September started off cooler before a stable period between September 11 and 20 allowed the reds to gain tannins and color. Rainfall was 20% below average (though higher than in 2014 or 2018) and largely arrived in the last 10 days of the month. Winemakers are adamant that it was too late to affect final quality.

Sauternes received significantly higher rainfall in the summer, around 100mm compared to 30-40mm on the Left Bank, thanks to a storm that deluged the region in August and weakened the grape skins. In early September, this caused some acid rot, even as berries on vines planted in free-draining, arid soils began to shrivel. It was therefore necessary to undertake a labor-intensive nettoyage to eradicate affected fruit from the vineyard before the development of pourriture noble. After mid-September rains, noble rot began to form, and a fortnight of warm weather at the beginning of October concentrated the berries further, although it tended to be too dry for botrytis. Much of the harvest was conducted October 10-14, after damp conditions and before heavy rain forecast on the evening of October 14. There was a second window of picking from October 18 to 23, but after this, producers were unable to use the fruit for their Grand Vin. Hence yields for 2019 in Sauternes are extremely low. Plus ça change.

Primeur as It Should Be

Due to the pandemic, the 2019s were denied their primeur fanfare, and cautious châteaux, wary of an unknown future, kept release prices moderate. As it turned out, wine lovers, incarcerated in their abodes, did not reduce consumption; on the contrary, many merchants reported record sales. How else could we enjoy ourselves apart from a bit of cheeky libation? Buying en primeur was the one habit that could continue unaffected, and, denied alternative avenues of pleasure, not least frequenting restaurants, there was more disposable income to splash out on the new vintage. In hindsight, those who bought 2019s were rewarded with high-quality, well-priced wines that have since increased in market value. It was a pertinent reminder of what en primeur should be about.

One of several tastings examining some of the less familiar but often just as worthy names was this lineup at Oenoconseil’s laboratory in Pauillac.

The Wines

Tasting almost 900 samples enabled me to form a broad picture, not just of the Grand Cru Classés, or whatever classification is causing a kerfuffle in Saint-Émilion at the moment, but of Cru Bourgeois, Petit Châteaux and satellite appellations - in other words, wines that ordinary people can afford. Perusing my notes, there are even more stellar showings in bottle vis-à-vis barrel, since some top estates opted not to send barrel samples during lockdown. Those names include Montrose, Lafleur, Petrus and Palmer, to name a few off the top of my head. (Incidentally, the strong correlation between barrel and bottle is a testament to the efforts that châteaux, organizational bodies and consulting companies made in dispatching samples as efficiently as possible.)