Bordeaux Advance: The Stunning 2015 En Primeur -- and What This Means

We expect a lot from Bordeaux, and it delivers; we have had excellent vintages recently in 2005, 2009 and 2010. But this April in Bordeaux we had an even more extraordinary experience with the 2015 vintages. Those of us who tasted the 2015 vintage en primeur a few weeks ago are still stunned by the quality of the wines. Even at this young age, many of the wines tasted extraordinarily elegant, polished and balanced. They were bursting with fruit, lively acidity danced on the tongue and the young tannins were the softest I’ve ever experienced.

BORDEAUX AND ITS WINES

We love Bordeaux. We love the wine with its elegant aromas, its leather-tinted flavors of fruit and spice and cedar. These are wines that are wonderful to sip with friends over a special dinner. And they are wines that also improve as they age in their bottles for many years, neatly stacked in cool cellars.

In the enchanting Bordeaux countryside we love the charming, well-kept chateaux encircled by colorful gardens and expansive green lawns -- surrounded by the neat swaths of vineyards which have filled the landscape of this part of Southwestern France for centuries. Bordeaux, to me, is a pleasure for multiple senses.

But for many of us, the words “Bordeaux wine” conjures up worrisome questions. How much do I need to know about Bordeaux in order to choose the right wine? Must I spend a fortune on one bottle? When is it best to drink a Bordeaux wine?

So when we’re in a restaurant or a wine shop it often seems simplest to rely on price and buy the most expensive bottle we can afford. In the case of Bordeaux this can work: paying a high price, we get an excellent wine with a sterling reputation. But why is this? Well, there is a system in place with Bordeaux wine. A system that dates back to the year 1855. (With a few updates in the 20^th century.)

The annual en primeur tastings perpetuate this system. This is the time when a few hundred media and buyers go evaluate the young wines in Bordeaux – and publicize their opinions. Let me briefly explain the en primeur system. Every year, during the first week of April, top wine buyers and wine media traverse the Bordeaux region sampling dozens of wines from the latest vintage at many chateaux. We sip, we contemplate, we search our stores of knowledge, our memories of past vintages. As we spit out each wine sample, we are already making notes on the quality of the wines’ aromas, flavors, finishes and other intangibles such as balance and mouthfeel. 

And above all, we are predicting how this wine will evolve in the future: will it be great, sublime, merely average or damningly “uneven?” Will these wines of the latest vintage continue to be vibrant and wonderful for a few years, a few decades or many decades? Will the wines show us their finest floral nuances, black cherry flavors, their glowing acidity and tenacious tannic structure right away? Or not for ten years? Will this vintage shine brightly at first and then fade in a few years? Or will it continue to grow stronger and more complex in our cellars, until our children are ready to drink it?

The evaluations of the buyers and media are very influential in pricing the wines of the vintage in general, and of many well-known chateaux. For decades now, every spring, the wine world has eagerly waited for release of the expert’s opinions to help set the prices of the new Bordeaux wine. The wine itself is not being released, only the pricing of the wine. As for the wines themselves, those from the top chateaux won’t be released until about two years after harvest, at minimum. That’s when the cases of wine will be sent out to shops and individuals who have purchased the wine en primeur – those who have bought the wines at the beginning, when the prices are first set. Many people want to be guaranteed a supply of their favorite Bordeaux wines so if they purchase en primeur, presumably they will get better pricing. At least that’s how the system has worked for many decades.

 

HISTORY

At this point, you may be wondering: why does the pricing matter now if you can’t get the wine until later? As the reputation of a great vintage grows, the price of the wines increases. Historically, the wines of great vintages cost much more by the time the bottles reached in the shops. Lately, the discrepancy in pricing has not been as great as it was in the past, due to many economic and political factors.  However, annual pricing of the new vintages, as well as pricing tracked over time, does give us an indication of the quality of a particular Bordeaux vintage. And the fact that this pricing is tracked worldwide also confirms the global significance of Bordeaux.

In fact, Bordeaux wines have been recognized outside of France for many centuries -- famously documented by the British Samuel Pepys in the 1660s, and by the American Thomas Jefferson in the late 1700s. In the mid-1800s there was an International Exposition held in Paris, highlighting industrial and agricultural products. The people of Bordeaux were asked to bring their finest wines. So the Bordelais (people of Bordeaux) determined which Bordeaux wines sold for the highest amounts because this was a good indicator of their quality at that time. Of course political in-fighting also contributed to the selection of the wines, but at that time the wines of 58 chateaux were selected and divided into first through fifth classed growths, including a group of the finest sweet wines from Sauternes & Barsac in the southern part of Bordeaux. (Note: Now it becomes 61.)

Chateau Mouton Rothschild was elevated to first growth status in 1973. Other than that, there have been no substantive changes made in the classifications and levels of the wines of the Medoc and Graves since the 1855 Classification.

Later on, in the 1970s, the Union des Grand Crus was formed, an alliance of chateaux which included the 1855 classified wines among its 134 chateau from “the most noble appellations of the Gironde, Medoc, Graves and Pessac-Leognan, Sauternes and Barsac, Saint Emilion and Pomerol.”

 

MODERN BORDEAUX

In modern times, the Liv-ex 100 Index tracks Bordeaux sales prices from the 1982 vintage on, for the following wines: Red Bordeaux first growths, second growths, third growths, fourth growths, fifth growths -- and a few key “second wines” of these classed wines. Also the top classed Sauternes & Barsac wines. The index also tracks Crus Bourgeois from the Medoc as well as top crus from Pessac-Leognan, St-Emilion and Pomerol. According to the British wine magazine Decanter, the Liv-ex “was rebased at 100 in January 2004” and as of April 2016 the Liv-ex index was at 240.87.

Though the wine world in general tends to put its highest emphasis on the grand vin (top wine) of each chateau, these grands vins make up a very small percentage of the Bordeaux wines sold today. In fact Olivier Bernard, the current head of the Union des Grands Crus, told me this spring that there has recently been an increase in the amount of “mid-range” Bordeaux wines sold in China, for example. He attributes this to growth in wine education and in travel to Europe, both of which have encouraged the wine-lovers of China to expand their horizons.

 

THE 2015 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

Bordeaux’s en primeur tastings are still vitally important because this is how the world finds out about the quality of the new vintage. Before the tastings, rumors swirl around the globe. After the tastings we know for sure.

In the case of the 2015 vintage, the summer was very dry. In most areas there was some rain in the middle of August, enough to re-invigorate the vines and propel the grapes toward a wonderful ripeness. Then the mainly dry months of September and October sealed the deal: excellent quality. As the renowned enologist Professor Denis Dubourdieu told us this spring: the rain in August saved the vintage; the weather in September and October made the vintage [great].

In my years of tasting, I have never sampled wines like this, with beautiful flavors and such soft, mature tannins. It made me wonder about the future of Bordeaux 2015: would these lovely wines be best consumed early in their lives? Or would they endure for decades? 

Luckily, I was able to ask some of the winemakers for their opinions. At Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, for example, winemaker Fabien Teitgen thought it was possible this vintage might close for a while, then re-open as it matures. He had treated his very ripe grapes gently, lowering the temperature during vinifcation, using slow extraction, and pigeage by hand only.

At Chateau Angelus where Stephanie has taken over as winemaker from her father Hubert de Bouard, she told me that the wines might (or might not) have a closed period some time in the next five to ten years. In any case, she believes they will certainly be ready to drink by ten years from now. She attributes the soft, integrated tannins and phenolic maturation which are noticeable right now to the grapes’ very slow maturation last September with its warm days and cool nights. In addition, Philippe Nunes, one of the Bouard consulting winemakers, remarked that he had only seen such a balance of tannins once before, in 2009.

Chateau Cantemerle director Philippe Dambrine also mentioned the 2009 vintage in comparison to the opulence of the 2015.

At Chateau Cheval Blanc they called the 2015 vintage “tranquil but powerful.” And the quality of their grapes was so high they put them into their “grand vin” and did not even make a second wine this year. Their process was minimal intervention, minimal green harvest. 

Biodynamic Chateau Pontet-Canet also showed quality and complexity, with little intervention, no green harvest, no hedging and little sorting.

Chateau La Conseillante had very ripe grapes with “more gravitas,” and they told me their wines are “certainly not shy this year. They do think it will take about ten years for the wine “to show its full aromatic expression.”

The wines were also wonderful at many of the other well known chateaux, including Mouton Rothschild, Pichon Baron, Leoville Las Cases, Ducru Beaucaillou -- with slightly more or less fruit and tannin depending on their styles and locations. For instance, at Chateau Latour the tannins were heavier, and needed more ageing while at Chateau Lafite and Chateau Montrose the tannins were already well integrated into the hearty fruit of the wine.

In the Sauternes-Barsac region the wines showed their lighter, softer side in this vintage. This early, instead of a honeyed apricot, the fruit in Sauternes was more tropical and citrus oriented, reminiscent in many cases of pink grapefruit. Chateau d’Yquem floated on the tongue, and paired nicely with an aperitif course already. At Chateau Climens where they don’t make a final blend until later in the year, there are strong structural elements as well as fruit.

Though many people have been speculating about whether the 2015 vintage wines more closely resemble the great vintages of 2005, 2009 or 2010, I think it’s important to recall the caution of expert enologist Professor Denis Dubourdieu when he told us that, though there were elements of these other great vintages in the great 2015 vintage, the “2015 vintage is quite exceptional in its own unique way.”