Un precedentedhot and dry conditions in 2022 led to small yields, and consequently highly concentrated wines with big tannin potential. Some vines suffered in the drought but many grapes adapted early on and, with careful and sensitive work in the vineyards, vines were able to stay active and green until harvest, with small but healthy berries. Picking dates were crucial, as was gentle extraction, while strategies for vinifications and preserving acidity varied. Where successful, the best examples show surprising freshness and supreme charm, with a large number of wines that are both immensely appealing and approachable but will also age.
With any new Bordeaux vintage there is the inevitable hype – it’s the most scrutinised wine region in the world, with more than 7,000 people coming to the region this April to taste, rate and give their opinions on the new wines. The year presented never-seen-before climatic conditions, with ‘earliest ever’ harvests, irrigation permitted in places for the first time and nail-biting decisions throughout the year regarding vineyard management, cover crop usage, de-leafing strategies, picking dates, maceration lengths (and temperatures), and ultimately the preparation of primeur samples – many consisting of the wine’s final blend, but not all.
MULTI-FACETED STORY
Invariably the consensus differs among critics, taking into account personal stylistic preferences, the context of improvement at estates and the quality of their wines compared to recent vintages, as well as wine samples possibly changing in character depending upon the point at which they had been prepared and packaged, along with environmental conditions. But 2022 has produced some genuinely unbelievable wines that are worthy of hyperbole.
What fascinates me, having spoken to producers across the region, is that no two estates, even neighbours, describe the vintage in the same way: one may have decided to remove the cover crop to stop water competition with the vines, and another mulched the crop to retain moisture and keep the soils cool. One may have de-leafed on the morning sunshine side of the vines, the other will instead have just cropped the canopy shorter at the top to preserve shade.
One producer may place emphasis on the amount of rain received, the other won’t mention it. The list goes on…
The message overwhelmingly conveyed of ‘surprise’ and ‘success’ for 2022 remains the same, however, and – looking beyond the hype – Bordeaux’s dynamism is alive and well, making this even more of an interesting time to be talking about the wines.
Some en primeur samples are bottled, with labels – this year often in 35cl bottles, given the smaller yields and desire to reduce waste (a whole barrel of wine can be used up for primeur samples alone – there was one winery this year that had up to 2,000 guests registered).
Others are drawn directly from barrels, taking more of a Burgundian approach to proceedings, as at Châteaux Angélus (St-Emilion) and Rauzan-Ségla (Margaux) this year, for instance. Some are racked [taken from the barrel to remove from the sediment] the morning of a tasting, others can be a day or two old (sometimes beneficial for wines increasingly made over-reductively in order to avoid oxidation in the finished wine); many are the completed blend, the rest are approximations. Some wines are decanted from the sample bottle, and a few are sent to my home address to taste at leisure. In total, I tasted 926 wines, sometimes more than twice.
TOP PERFORMERS
As described in my vintage overview and ‘first thoughts’ articles, both available on decanter.com/premium, my en primeur tastings involved more than 60 individual estate visits, plus several négociant and consultant previews, as well as tastings grouped by appellation and classification (cru rankings).
Score ranges, commonly used by other critics, are of course an easier way to approach en primeur samples, since it is difficult to accurately assess a wine at this pre-formative stage.
Decanter only uses single scores – apart from where there are potential 100-point scorers (listed in the notes that follow as ‘POTENTIAL 100’). At any level of scoring, in cases where I might have liked to use a range, I have generally gone with the higher estimate to give a single score.
There are exceptional wines to be found in all appellations in 2022, with particular Left Bank standouts being Pauillac and St-Julien, as well
