Vintage Seeks Home: Bordeaux 2017 In Bottle

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 06, 2020

Left Bank: Saint-Estèphe | Pauillac | Saint-Julien | Margaux | Pessac-Léognan and Graves | Medoc & Haut Medoc | Listrac & Moulis

Right Bank: Pomerol | Saint-Émilion | Satellites

Introduction

You can be remembered for the wrong thing. You spend a lifetime doing charity work, then an overdue library book brands you a criminal for the rest of your days. It is no different for growing seasons. Having spent many years analyzing vintage minutiae, sifting through data and trawling through anecdotes, I often find that the underlying determining factor is not necessarily the headline. The 2017 Bordeaux “episode” might be called “The One With the Late Spring Frost.” And yes, it was calamitous for estates denied a single bottle to release, particularly the countless lesser-known châteaux for whom a late frost threatens survival.

But a late spring frost – I mean, it’s so dramatic. The anticipation, the nighttime vigil as candles illuminate vineyards through the night – so pretty, so amazing on Instagram. Winemakers look heavenward and pray with one eye on the thermometer. Tears fall at sunrise as despondent vineyard managers survey blackened young buds encased in ice. Disaster is plastered across social media in real time with dire predictions. Such catastrophic events and their concomitant images create conceptions that stick in people’s minds. Negative news makes deeper impressions on our collective memory than positive news. After the hoopla surrounding 2016, the following year’s frost prompted many consumers to “switch channels” and look elsewhere for potential quality, the whole vintage ostensibly written off at conception.

Bordeaux 2017? Nah, mate. Bit the dust in April. Didn’t you hear about the frost?

In reality, what followed was a decent growing season. Alas, it was one without a meteorological event of sufficient magnitude to steer opinion back in a positive direction.

This report seeks to look beyond the frost that blighted hopes early in April, examining the growing season that followed and how it shaped the resulting bottled wines on the cusp of physical release. The pertinent question is, does anyone want them?

If I remember correctly, I took this photo just outside Yquem on March 31, before the spring frost affected parts of the region.

The Growing Season