I compared your 2010 to WK’s 2019 because (1) we are talking about the changes in Bordeaux - and your two notes are so polar opposite to suggest a major change has occurred; and (2) you have no notes on the 2019 Troplong Mondot. Check your link.
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Kudos to William. A really fine piece of work, and for me a timely and necessary update as I have not been to Bordeaux for some years. My thanks.
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That would be nice. I moved away from Bordeaux in the '00s because of how I liked to drink them and didn’t need any more to cellar.
Ohhh, my bad. I have been so consumed with first tasting 2020 Bordeaux, and now, publishing appellation articles that this completely slipped my mind. I thought I did this ages ago. I have a bottle and will taste it shortly, dropping it online sooner than later. Thank you for reminding me.
FWIW, the changes at Troplong began taking place with the 2017 vintage. I am a huge fan of what they are doing today at the property. You can see this with my notes on 17, 18 , 20, and 21.
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The 2010 Troplong is a pretty nasty alcoholic monstrosity. Weighing in at 16.2%, I could not wait to spit it out.
I can’t say I loved the much more restrained 2018, but it was much more balanced, if a tad simple.
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Just read the article. Thanks so much William for this perspective. It’s an excellent article.
I do join what may be the minority chorus here though. My immediate reaction was from the perspective of my admittedly classicist palate (some people might say it’s a curmudgeonly viewpoint). As I said to my good friend Dr. K, whom you know, I’m glad we have lived through the era when we could enjoy the great wines of the 20th century that, in bottle, resulted from less precision, less perfect ripeness, less control. There are the downsides of the evolution you describe combined with the limitations of global warming - higher alcohols, higher RS in finished wine, the boring-ness of supple midpalates and smoothed out tannins, and the untested aging and complexity potential of the new chemistry experiment that is high quality conscientiously made modern Bordeaux. On the latter point, time will tell—it’s an empirical question because we are not smart enough and do not have the basis to make predictions 30 years out. But due to the former three points, I’m not sure I personally care about the answer to the aging question (beyond the actuarial challenge for those of us over 50).
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William (or anyone with suggestions), what chateau would you point lovers of traditional, old school claret to in the 2019 and 2020 vintages? I guess I’m looking for chateau you think are making some of the best wine in their history that are still avowedly traditional as well. Is that combination even possible?
The chateau that comes to mind for me is Leoville Barton, but presumably there are others (VCC?).
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IMO, there are no top estates making wine the way no used to. The last 10-15 years have been revolutionary. Because you mentioned them, Leoville Barton and VCC are simply not making the same wines they were producing let’s say 15 years ago. I think both estates are making the best wines in the history of their vineyards today. But to think they are stuck in the past is wrong.
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Ok, good to hear. I don’t mean stuck in past though, but rather a chateau — if they exist, can exist —who manages to combine the best of the old (say the glories of 80’s Bordeaux) and the new,
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BAMA!
I’m actually curious, 2010 is my last vintage.
Great suggestion, but I presume this venerable estate would not be included as one of those making the best of the new and the old, i.e. a contemporary classic, right? Let’s hope at least BAMA is still “stuck” in the 20th (or even 19th) century!
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What about Sociando Mallet? Durfort Vivens? Besides BAMA, are there any old stalwarts left?
I so wish Magdelaine was still around, imagine the wine that chateau would have made in a year like 2019.
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I think that we each bring our own experience, taste preferences, and age-calculus to the table on how we view Bordeaux. For me, these are exactly the type of Bordeaux from recent vintages that I am looking for. I also agree with the point someone made elsewhere that “gentle and pleasurable” does not not necessarily rule out “interesting” or even “complex”.
Thanks for posting & adding interest and value to this thread, Jeff. Can you maybe name some names that in your opinion currently exemplify your statement above. Thanks.
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What is the “true essence of the fruits” Jeff? If the goal was to get closest to the true essence of the fruits shouldn’t we just be drinking grape juice?
Doesn’t the judgment of the “best wine” have to be in significant degree an aesthetic judgement? With no one right answer based on viticulture or technique?
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I wonder a lot about this too (the connection between practices this year and the effect on the wine 20 or 30 years down the road). This is where the producers with long term tenure (either themselves, making wine and making notes for decades, or through family practices of the same type) have the most likelihood of actually understanding these connections and doing something about it. Indeed isn’t this what the best producers do?
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I think they will compare quite favorably, though obviously one has to be quite careful to pick those that are truly balanced for the long haul. A wine such as Canon 2020, for example, for me appears to be the best Canon produced since the early 1960s. Rauzan Segla 2020 is probably their best since the 1950s at least. Giscours today is making their best wines since 1982 and before. And so on. Equally, of course, some estates have lost their way and are making less interesting wines than they were twenty years ago. But overall the tendency is positive, for the reasons cited in my article.
It is important to realize that with today’s climate, simply making the wine as it was made in the 1940s will not reproduce the wines of the 1940s. Things have to change if things are to stay the same. What we have to aspire to do it to preserve a distinctively Bordelais style, and strong individual aesthetic identities for different sites and châteaux. The wines of the 1920s don’t taste like the wines of the 1940s, and the 1950s don’t taste like the 1940s, but guiding thread wasn’t lost; and that’s what we have to either retain or find again. Hence my use of the term “contemporary classicism”. (This is really an aspiration that goes beyond any one region, and has as its antithesis making wines in a “fashionable” style that changes every few years.)
What has not changed in, however, is that the most long-lived wines are balanced wines made from ripe (but not over-ripe) grapes, matured in barrel or other vessels in a way that preserves their flavors intact from oxidation, and bottled with great care and excellent quality closures. All the trends I describe in my article have that in mind, so I am confident that the wines will age very well indeed. The big challenge of the wines of the first decade of this century has tended to be too advanced evolution due to overripe fruit and an excessively oxidative, oaky élevage for such ripe fruit (look at some 2009s such as Troplong that are already quite evolved). That issue is being widely addressed.
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I’m not sure Boyer is still making wine. Quite a few at least of the vineyards have been put in a fermage.
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This ‘broad agreement’ is something that changes all the time as tools, metrics, climate, and taste evolve. Producers also have their own ideas about methods are best, and what style of wine they are trying to make. There is no ‘one size fits all.’ Instead it’s a broad set of approaches that every producer must choose from. I think I’d call this craft rather than art, but it still seems really far from engineering.
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What a shame, he had no successor?
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Great article! It is very interesting even though i have very little interest in Bordeaux personally.
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