BORDEAUX 2013 : THE OUTCOME

Bordeaux 2013: the outcomeReport n° 1 (8 April 2014)- Good to very good sweet whites - An average to good vintage for the dry whites - A very uneven vintage for the reds, ranging from humble to good with a quite unique taste profile; some very good wines and fine accomplishments at this or that estate rather than from whole appellations, due to large proportions of Cabernet in the blends or to clayey soils, when the Merlot did well. And of course, a lot of hard work from the winegrowers and very strict selection when making the first wines. - 2013 is a vintage to drink young in less than 10 years, except for large formats - Production yields were low - Prices should go down even if the vintage was expensive to produceThe significant weather aspects in 2013 Spring kicked off cold after a wet winter. The trend was set: the year was going to be quite late developing, while great vintages are early. After twenty-two days of rain and with temperatures still cold, vine growth slowed down in May and overall development ran later still. June offered very little sunshine, still cold, very wet, beginning to be reminiscent of 1992, the poorest vintage in twenty years. As a result, flowering was two weeks late. Old vines, especially Merlot suffered poor fruit set and irregular grape development (hens and chickens) so their production was hard hit. The Cabernet, which develops a little later, partially avoided these two setbacks. By the end of June, the growth cycle was three weeks behind the last fifteen-year average. July was exceptionally hot and broke records for the last sixty years. It saved the vintage. Hail in the Medoc, in the Graves, Entre-Deux-Mers and around Libourne on 25th and 26th July. On 2nd August, more hail destroyed up to 80% of ten thousand hectares (25,000 acres) in Entre-Deux-Mers. However July remained wet and did not play its finest role; that of stopping vine growth and starting fruit ripening. In August, temperatures remained average for the season with the cool nights that are good for concentrating aromas in the fruit. It needed to be outstanding for “August to make the must” as the old French saying goes, referring to how the month contributes to quality body on the mid-palate. The initial colour change of the grapes (véraison) was slow. By the end of August, the growth cycle was still 2 weeks late. All hopes were on September. Everyone dreamt of a providential Indian summer, like those of 2002, 2004 and 2007, when the fruit could finish ripening properly. The first few days made everybody catch their breath. Then the weather turned cool and wet. It grew warmer again intermittently and with the ambient humidity, grey rot appeared and proved to be pitilessly explosive in places. It was imperative to harvest before losing all the fruit, before optimal ripeness had been reached and by machine for those who did not usually. Conclusion The vines never caught up the time lost in spring and the fruit harvested before it was properly ripe, strained by the strenuous conditions and hit by botrytis, made for light wines. Those, who were able to pick with no rot (and there are some) produced results, which I thought would have been better. The outstanding July and the small volumes saved the vintage; the hand of Man, truly a second terroir, did too. Nothing worthwhile could be achieved without costly green vine management, exhaustive surveillance, properly timed spraying and luck for those who were not wiped out by hail. Many estates have decided not to put their name on their 2013. These include Liber Pater, La Fleur d’Arthus, L’Inclassable and Malescasse. Others will, but only after very stringent selection, putting 30 to 50% of a normal harvest on sale. Profile of the red wines Colour. Overall they have lively, dark and quite intense colour, which is a pleasant surprise. Usually, intensity like this is a sign of an imposing tannic structure. This is not the case in 2013, where the usual connection between colour intensity and intense body has been broken. Nose. Weak aromatically and no complexity. Two positive characteristics stand out. The first is that there are no vegetal aromas. The second is the fruit of these wines, which is clear-cut, fresh, floral, ripe, no-nonsense, but straightforward. Palate. Lightness rules! Very little substance or density, no body. In fact, the attacks seem discrete and the finishes are short or medium. However, because there is no greenness or tannic firmness, the taste on the palate is pleasant and soft rather like it is with young or mid-age red Burgundies. A low alcohol content varying between 12.5° and 13° strengthens these impressions. There are three sorts of wine: - Wines with little attack and little finish with a liquid or tender mid-palate, which is more or less flavoursome and pleasant - Wines with smooth, quite noticeable attacks thanks to the Merlot, which then very quickly disappear progressively in the middle and on the finish - Those with a tender attack, followed by a fruity mid-palate with average volume, but which is flavoursome and pleasant, and then a longer finish than types 1 and 2. These crafted wines are the ones I admire the most, because they respect the three steps of the best tasting model with attacks, mid-palates and finishes that command attention. In 2013, these three episodes on the palate lack the intensity required for it to be a greater vintage. So 2013 is a more modest model. In the best cases 2013 has the tender profile of the wines of 1993, without the greenness, with some of the traits of 1999 and balance that is so agreeable that you want to swallow them. Will ageing do anything for them? At the moment, all I can say is that I hope it will not take anything away from them! 2013, a tough year for Merlot and hip hip hooray for right bank Cabernet Franc and left bank Cabernet Sauvignon, which won my best scores! Merlot vines produced very little because of poor fruit set and irregular bunches (hens and chickens), especially on old vines with more virus-caused disease than younger ones. This economic setback did not therefore affect all estates. Troplong Mondot and Clos Manou, for example, harvested more volume than many of their peers. However some of the greatest Medoc winemakers – Vincent Millet at Calon Ségur and Paul Pontallier at Château Margaux – recount how they were unable to marry the best 2013 Merlot correctly with the Cabernet Sauvignon. They spoke of a kind of incompatibility in mood, flavour and above all texture. Usually expected to soften texture, the 2013 Merlot contributed rougher, grainier tannins than the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon (one of the causes I see of the firmness in Pessac-Léognan wines this year), except for the Merlot growing in the clay soils of Pomerol. Amongst the Medoc classed growths, the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blends has never been so high: 84% at Brane Cantenac, 94% at Château Margaux, 99% at Lafite and 100% at Pichon Comtesse. These circumstances will no doubt spawn new ideas. In the privacy of their cellars, estate owners in the Medoc and Graves are fully aware that their principal asset is their Cabernet Sauvignon or Franc vines depending on the location. Still today they bear the full financial burden of a difficult past, when Merlot vines were planted out of convenience: higher yield, less risk at harvest time, less work, rounder wines at less cost. Clearly, certain Medoc crus classés are destined one day to become varietals, like Burgundy. That’s what’s new with this vintage. At the same time, such high proportions are only viable on truly great terroirs. In no uncertain terms, 2013 has shown us which ones… In Bordeaux in 2013 for the first time, enjoyment scores are equal to scores for potential Remember in 2006, I invented the enjoyment score to complement the score for a wine’s potential and wrote, “I have introduced the enjoyment score for enthusiasts who buy wine to enjoy it immediately. This enjoyment score complements the general score, which assesses the potential quality and/or enjoyment provided by a wine after being cellared. The wine is ready to be drunk when the enjoyment score and the score for potential become closer and finally are the same.” All the Bordeaux enthusiasts are faced with the following paradox: A great vintage is recognised for its density, its substance and fullness. We lay it down hoping that this potential comes to fruition. Furthermore it is not easy to assess as a primeur, because in young Bordeaux fine wines the correspondence between quality and enjoyability is tricky at best to establish. On this, see the chapter entitled “The effect of vintage on the quality of how wines are made and the consequences for keeping and enjoyability” on page 40 of my Quarin Guide of Bordeaux Wines. Why do we wait for wines? To benefit from the effects of time in de-concentrating them. Making their structures suppler, knocking the corners off their tannins, developing their aromas. Gradually wines mellow, making them softer and above all easier to match with the dishes of a meal. However, the difference between a great vintage and a less great one is basically the fact that the more humble one is less concentrated. As long as the wines aren’t green or acidic and display ripe fruit and a certain tannic softness, which is the case of the well-made 2013’s, they have the non-negligible advantage of being ready for drinking early without needing to be kept. In addition, who can guarantee any consumer that his/her enjoyment on drinking a grand vintage twenty years from now will be greater than that of drinking a more modest year in five to ten years? I certainly wouldn’t try! In the latest vertical of Eglise Clinet performed in public, guess which years readers like you, who took part, liked drinking the most: 2007 and 2002; admittedly lighter wines, but not green in the slightest. So all the 2013’s will be ready to drink before 2025, except for those in magnums or bigger. The 85 – 15 rule For a few years now, all producers of Bordeaux wines are entitled to brighten up a vintage by adding a proportion of the following harvest, which must not exceed 15%, which is massive and changes the natural profile of a year substantially. Who uses this entitlement? What do the estate owners think about it? What do we think about it? I asked a number of them and you can read how they answered in my coming reports. My reserves about 2013 In my discussions with the owners I met, I tried to understand how the 2013’s would be aged. The balance and softness of the fruit in the samples they presented already seemed so well tuned, even fragile, that the question is perfectly valid. Ageing a wine involves manipulating it, running it through pipes, barrels that are emptied and re-filled, oxygen that gets dissolved in it, sulphur, oxidation and so it goes on. Fifteen years ago, Bordeaux would not have been capable of producing wines in such unfavourable weather conditions as these. The progress made in vine husbandry and especially a better understanding of what contributes to a good taste, have influenced new ways of assessing things. However, I don’t want to jump to hasty conclusions. After all the work in the vineyard, the very careful winemaking, the skill in presenting the samples, there are still the operations to be performed in the barrel cellar. In large organisations, where everything is delegated and institutionalised, it is not easy to change the habits of cellar workers, whose repetitive actions are more adapted to harvests as they used to be, a little more acidic, a little greener, not really like they are today. In a word, I’m afraid the wines will become too woody and tannic. And you’ll see how the estates responded to my questions on this in my next reports. Buying a great vintage as a future is not like buying a modest vintage and can be like buying a pig in a poke. The chateaux should be more reassuring about this to try to gain drinkers’ trust. 2013 pricing More than ever in these difficult times, pricing is the key to the vintage, which will open up the interest of buyers or make it abort. So in fact, who will buy 2013? Not the major enthusiasts, who already have everything. Nor the Americans, who were practically absent from the primeurs events in the first week of April in Bordeaux. Nor Asia. Not the Chinese either. So who? The Europeans say they are the merchants. Something has to give and it needs to be a significant drop in price. Only then would the restaurant trade get the best out of the vintage and the consumers, who haven’t been able to buy into all the price hikes since 2005, could finally start to fall back in love with Bordeaux. 2013’s taste profile, its high enjoyment score and its eminent drinkability young make all this flagrant common sense. However, the goal of the owners is to protect the interests of their own brand, rather than to defend the Bordeaux community. The situation varies from one estate to another. For everyone the decision is made taking into account the stock levels on the Bordeaux local market and the prices of the last vintages still available. This attitude was less prevalent before prices started going through the roof in 2005. In other words, the primeur price is now to all intents and purposes the actual price. It no longer allows, as it used to in the beginning, for the risk taken by the buyer, who commits to an unfinished product, which will only be delivered 24 months later. What’s more, this year, the low volumes are not particularly conducive to careful pricing. They make scenarios unlikely in which a player in distress and unfavoured, drops price to the discomfort of everyone else and disturbs the market. If they persist with this rationale, which can hardly be called “strategic”, the estates could well strangle the distributors, their best sales reps, by forcing them to carry stock for them. How many will accept to do this again this year? We should see the answer to this question very soon. The enthusiasts of course will look beyond the local Bordeaux market prices. There are still plenty of wines in the various channels. All the 2013 prices will feature on my website by the end of the month. You can already find the scores and prices of previous vintages there. The best whites in 2013 scored around 16/20 or 90/100, while the best reds obtained 16.75/20 or 93/100. D’Yquem and l’Extravagant de Doisy Daëne scored 17.5/20 or 95/100. Enjoy! The next report will follow on Friday. JM Quarin _______________________________________________________________________© Copyright 2010. This publication is the original work of Jean-Marc Quarin Sarl, 10 allée de Ginouilhac, Le Taillan-Médoc. France. - E-mail : jmquarin@quarin.com The news media and subscribing wine distributors, importers and retailers may use portions of this material (such as tasting notes, ratings or quotes) provided that it is not distorted, the proper wine and vintage are stated, www.quarin.com is given credit for the material utilized, and Jean-Marc Quarin (JMQ) is shown as the Copyright holder.

2013 Futures live

BORDEAUX 2013 : THE OUTCOME

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