I am curious about your decision not to share information about the discount code with the community as a whole. I assume that it cost you nothing, yet you are turning it into something exclusive.
An excellent point, one I’ve often wondered about. Has anything, ever, received less than 50? 60? So the 100 point scale has been compressed to probably 30 or so, perhaps? Undrinkable gross swill still would merit a 70 or something, is it not? There’s always been more and more score compression (until now, hopefully, to some extent) and our scale is 18 points for most critics - hope this gets ironed out for those who do use points as guiding their decisions.
As for 82-84 being absurdly high, I would maybe disagree, though I don’t know this particular wine (I have had many in the style described, many Rolland wines) the quality of fruit is still there, there’s no obvious ph balance flaw in it that causes bodily harm, it is likely homogenous in its style, even if one’s style preference is different, etc. Still, brings me back to what the low end of the scale really is…
Mark,
It is exclusive, by design. Monopole Cru has more benefits overall, including dozens of exclusive offers, including this one. None of those offers cost me money either, but it is part of the benefit package for those who join MC. We have three more (including this) coming up very soon, to be launched at the end of May, and we had 3 exclusive offers in April, including Morgan Ranch, Tercero, and a ‘sort of newbie’ feature on Stars and Dust, then May had another Newbie winery feature with some very limited offers in May, and these three more to come including a Burgundy deal.
Rather than just charge for content, I’ve gone with the concept that the higher your subscription level, the higher your range of benefits, and it takes only two or three of the benefits/offers posted to make up for the cost of a MC membership.
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Any chance you can subscribe to James Suckling? For you he might even through in one of those 100 point glasses.
William Kelley as someone who was scared away from Bordeaux due to the style that you term as “old school” and haven’t revisted much lately, I was curious about a couple things: first, are you concerned at all about readers misinterpreting that statement and confusing it with OLD school Bordeaux (the type I think most of us AFWE look on fondly) vs the early 2000s version of old school? second, I was hoping you could expand on what this means for what to expect if dipping a toe back in Bordeaux again? should we expect wines that are approachable sooner, wines that really need more time than 10 years ago? as far as I remember, the alcohols haven’t really come down in the last 5 years or so, are they just more balanced by freshness? I know this requires a good bit of generalization, and varies by vintage, but just trying to decide if its worth the price of entry for some of these wines again!
Not William - I am decidedly taller and better looking ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
- but why not just stick, for now, to Chateau that never played the fashion game. There are some solid ones that stayed true and continue to shine. Some are even showing better due to the vintage qualities like in 2016. Personally, I still avoid, even with the classic Chateau, gross vintages like 2018 and 2015. I mean, when you have 2014 and 2016, why bother?
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Not “old school” but “old fashioned”. Given such statements occur in the context of tasting notes that describe the wines very clearly, I’m not unduly concerned, no; and I think it’s an important point to make. My tasting note on the 2019 vintage of the same estate made it very clearly: “this is a muscular, rather chunky Pomerol that remains faithful to the stylistic fashions of the early 2000s while the rest of the wine world moves on”.
I’m going to write an in-depth article about this at some point this year, but in précis, here is what has happened in the last 10-15 years:
- a lot of work in the vineyards, increasingly involving cover crops, more thoughtful canopy management and de-leafing, with a view to attaining maturity while retaining fresher flavors
- Merlot being somewhat displaced by Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, on both banks (between 1980 and 2000 the percentage of Merlot in most blends on both banks rocketed, so this is not really an innovation), which makes for fresher, somewhat lower alcohol wines in ripe vintages
- greater attention to planting varieties in sites adapted to them (at Gruaud, for example, Merlot was planted where Cabernet should be, simply because those sites were less likely to frost), which results in more optimal maturity for those varieties and thus more seamless structure
- precision viticulture, adapted parcel-by-parcel and indeed vine-by-vine to delivery healthier, more balanced vines that produce better fruit at fuller maturity
- picking parcel by parcel at maturity, with pauses if necessary, rather than e.g. starting at the north and finishing in the south (Figeac took one month to pick the whole estate in 2021 for example), again with a view to optimal maturity and thus more polished, seamless, integrated tannins
- a more judicious approach to extraction
- less oxidative élevage practices: racking under gas for example instead of through the barrel head, and racking less often. Traditional racking still works for some estates, notably the first growths, but in ripe vintages with rather higher pHs and thus less reductive potential, a less oxidative élevage delivers fresher fruit flavors and I’m convinced with deliver wines that taste younger older. Some of the 2009s that taste a bit prune- and fig-like today might well have turned out better had they seen less oxygen during their élevage. (BTW know that the tradition in Bordeaux was a racking every three months, with an egg white fining once a year, and that obviously people started playing around with microoxygenation during élevage [as opposed to during fermentation] as an alternative way to get oxygen into the wines).
- the elimination of brettanomyces at most of the top estates
- much more attention to oak integration
- better bottling practices: much like less oxidative élevage, this helps to preserve fresh fruit flavors in the wine over the long term
- and in some cases, picking earlier than in the past. Bordeaux is clearly less concerned about rising alcohol levels than Burgundy, perhaps because it is not an issue the influential press has given much attention, but people are thinking about this. One well-known estate used to relegate everything under 14% to the second wine not too long ago! That’s changing, and planting more Cabernet, avoiding overripeness or extreme dehydration before picking, and managing canopies differently are among the solutions.
All of this tends (and we are obviously talking about the successes not the failures!) to deliver wines that are suppler and more polished (even while attaining record levels of polyphenols), with more vibrant, pure fruit flavors and a more seamless, balanced, harmonious profile, without an obtrusive signature of creamy oak lactones or animal aromas from brett. As in Burgundy, alcohol levels can definitely make themselves felt in the sunny years, and I will continue to draw attention to that (look at my review of 2019 Calon Ségur), but overall there is an awful lot to like. In many respects, the “traditional vs modern” debates of the past were poorly framed, because some of the things I list above are very much modern approaches—even if they are in the service of a more “traditional” aesthetic. If some of the best 2021s, with alcohols in the mid-12s, turn out as well as I hope and expect them to, I suspect they will provoke further reflection about questions of style and balance in Bordeaux. There are of course many other questions to think about, too, so for me it is proving a very engaging professional project.
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This is well said, to be sure. Now I have only to taste the wines…
A movement I have been thrilled to see these last 5-7+ years. Les Carmes is around 40% Franc now with a goal of 50%. And I think Figeac is adding more as well. Ironically, these two Chateau have also gone more “modern” on me than I would prefer. Perhaps they scale back a touch as we see the pendulum move back. You seemed pretty big on the 2019s for these Chateau. Both remain more glossy than I prefer but I have not tried either since the 2016 vintages. Did not like their 2015s, though did like their 2016s.
I do not recall whether VCC is adding more Franc to the vineyards, but one of the reasons it is a fave Pomerol of mine is the healthy cut of Franc, which adds freshness, red fruit and some herbaceousness.
I also just resubscribed. Not just William, although he was the main factor, but Monica Larner is also a very fine taster.
Frankly, the best way to get more Bordeaux made the way many of us like is for more of us to support William’s work in the Wine Advocate. We are now in a brave new world where it is well made wines that get the highest scores from the Wine Advocate. Historically, Bordeaux producers have altered their styles of wine to try to get higher scores from the Wine Advocate. I expect that to continue.
However, there is a downside to this. For many years, when Pierre Rovani was rating wines at the Wine Advocate, the “wrong” wines got the highest scores and a lot of really good wines remained bargains (like Truchot). Now, with people like Allen Meadows and John Gilman (and now William) reviewing Burgundies, the good wines get recognized and the prices that go flying now are for really good wines. Likely to happen in Bordeaux as well.
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Robert, you just want to turn Bordeaux into the Loire.
Nah. Just into Cheval Blanc! 
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That wouldn’t be a bad thing. Don’t drink Cheval Blanc that often, but it may be my second favorite Bordeaux behind Haut Brion.
Bordeaux should be far more resistant to rocketing prices, due to wayyyyyy more supply… Consider that Lafite’s vineyards span 112 hectares, which is the same size as every 1er cru vineyard in Vosne-Romanee (57 ha) and Chambolle-Musigny (55 ha) combined.
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This actually concerns me as a trend, especially coupled with global warming and naturally higher alcohol levels: “All of this tends (and we are obviously talking about the successes not the failures!) to deliver wines that are suppler and more polished (even while attaining record levels of polyphenols) . . . ”. The jury is out in my mind whether these are good trends for the finished wines.
Thanks William for your lengthy precis! One speculative complaint I sometimes see made is that the new style of wines are less age-worthy than the tannic beasts (old school, if you will) of yore. More commonly the thought is that softer tannins and higher alcohol will make for poorer aging prospects, but sometimes also grousing that without the pyrazine/green flavors and low levels of VA/brett, the wines will be less complex or evocative in maturity.
What say you to that? Are there any objective reasons to believe the new Montrose/Figeac/etc won’t age as well or better than the old?
FWIW I would say that the big, bold, alcoholic and oaky wines could equally be described as well-made - albeit in a style that you and I don’t care for.
It again shows the irony that people following critics, merely end up paying more for the wines they buy… as well as their subscriptions.
Do we want critics to laud the styles we like, or trash them?
- Lauding them means the prices go up, but perhaps others adapt to move closer to that style
- Trashing them means cheaper prices, but over time there will be less producers sticking to that style.
Perhaps the ideal is to have a rank incompetent in the role of leading critic (which appears to be your assessment on Rovani). There’s then no ‘critic approved’ style to follow, and producers thus simply make the wines they’d like to drink themselves / that they think suit the terroir. If we’re lucky they trash individual wines we like.
There is certainly great joy in finding enjoyable wines that are off the radar of the critics, and when they eventually do ‘discover them’, great wonder at the way the price goes from bargain to ‘meh’. It’s not difficult to move on to other wines.
Of course, until the wines have actually aged for 50+ years, it’s always going to be an open question! I think the answer will really depend on which estate and what ensemble of practices they have adopted. I can see a wine such as the 2021 Léoville-Las Cases, for example, aging longer and better than e.g. 1988/89/90. When you have high levels of polyphenols, comparatively low pHs, careful élevage and impeccable bottling practices with good closures, the longevity of the wines shouldn’t be an issue for anyone in their 30s or older today.
A lot of the explanation for why the wines of yesteryear were so austere had to do with viticulture and picking decisions. The really of a 100-hectare vineyard is that you have a lot of heterogeneity and you need to pick block by block, by site and variety, and not always in the same order every year. Ideally you then vinify block by block, adapting according to the potential of the fruit. In the old days, for reasons of convenience, you would start in the north, work south, and carry on picking until you were done; and the fruit would go into the big vats as it came in. The result was plenty of stuff picked at marginal levels of maturity, and winemaking that wasn’t optimized (you don’t want to go hard on extraction in a vat of marginally ripe fruit). While some wines made this way have aged well, in general the approach tended to favor very ripe vintages, when everything was more or less ripe and where all the tannins were more or less supple, making for very big vintage variation depending on levels of maturity. Some winemaking gurus, rather than changing much in the vineyards, tried to solve the problem by simply picking very late, so everything was at least ripe and plenty overripe, and “correcting” any imbalances in the winery.
Today, precision viticulture and winemaking begins to liberate even the biggest estates of the Médoc from this dynamic, and I am all in favor of it.
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Actually this is a good point! The Loire was definitely influenced by Bordeaux - even someone like Thierry Germain started out making wines following the Bordeaux fashion of the time, and when I drink some Loire 2005 reds they taste a lot more like Bordeaux than something we would think of as typically ligerien (eg Jacky Blot). The cross-pollination then went in the other direction (eg Clos du Jaugueyron) and today I would say that the modern, organic and bio-dynamic Loire methods are at least the inspiration for many Bordeaux producers, such as Gonzague Lurton and Claire Villars-Lurton, previously shunned, whose wines are back in the spotlight.
Yes, I completely agree. Just because fashions and tastes change, all those Monbos, Lascombes and Co haven’t suddenly turned into ugly ducklings. Each to their own. We have just emerged - at last - from a period when one size was supposed to fit all and if you disagreed, you were branded at best an AFWE, at worst a dullard. There is no reason to replace one straitjacket with another.
Ironically, I’m reminded of a short piece I wrote on Ebob, back in 2011. RMP had organised a competition, asking for contributions on the theme “The Golden Age of Wine?”. Basically, I argued that although quality had increased, technique had dominated terroir and that taste had become uniform, but that with the democratization of wine and the development of individual palates, people like us would exchange experiences, breaking the shackles he himself had imposed (this was implied, not written). However, to break the quality glass ceiling, wineries would need to rediscover the originality of terroir to remain competitive.
Eleven years is a long time and a lot has changed, but I think some of this remains relevant. WB is only a microcosm of the wine market but wine fans do indeed exchange opinions and I for one use other opinions here as much or more than any of the critics I subscribe to. Wineries are certainly focusing more on terroir than before.
But I do still subscribe, because however much I value certain palates here and elsewhere, we are all still “civilians”. We don’t taste thousands of wines a year and we need someone who does.
Nobody would have predicted that Parker’s legacy would be the plethora of critics we have today, all scrapping for a share of the market, but one big advantage of the competition is that it is healthy, like all competition. Long may it last.
Of all the new voices, William is certainly the most interesting, because he is so different - better technical training, so better insight, better writing ability than most, better attention to detail, a more open-minded approach and apparently not afraid to ruffle the feathers of those producers with 96 points on the brain and in the adverts. It’s all the more ironic coming from TWA.
But I don’t imagine, for now at least, that William will eliminate all the competition, and I hope he doesn’t because dissent is essential.
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