Category Archives: Bordeaux Vintages

Bordeaux 2020 yields – quality over quantity?

February 22 2021

This article was also published on JancisRobinson.com and by Liv-ex.

Here is my detailed report on the amount of wine produced by the whole of Bordeaux in 2020. Each year I pull together the latest figures after they are released in February, and update my tables, charts and maps before the ‘en primeur’ tastings of the new vintage in the spring.

Regular readers will be delighted that I’ve added some new, thrilling graphics for 2021, so this deep-dive analysis has now sunk even lower: if the wines of Bordeaux and/or data crunching aren’t really your thing, you may want to scroll swiftly along.

This review of how much wine was made, and where, should be seen as a follow-up to my detailed 2020 harvest and weather report from last October, published soon after the crop came in. The weather and growing conditions, naturally enough, go hand in hand with the volume and quality of wine produced. “There’ll be some terrific wines from 2020,” I wrote. “Yields for many estates are lower, with less juice due to heat and drought, but the quality is high – albeit variable.”

I also put together a photo journal of the red harvest in 2020. They’ve been harvesting grapes like this at Château Lafite Rothschild – in this case, Merlot – for many years but there are some clues that date certain images.

2020 Bordeaux production compared to previous vintages

Bordeaux produced 440 million litres of wine in 2020, the equivalent of 587 million bottles. This was around 10% less than 2019 and 2018 (486ml and 499ml respectively), which were both close to the 10-year average.

Keep reading

A vintage revisited – in pictures

November 26 2020

This week’s photo journal is part Throwback Thursday, part Black Friday offer.

We sold out of our popular 2014 red in the UK over a year ago, though we still had some stock in our Calais depot. It may not surprise you that collections from there have been a little slow in 2020.

So we’ve shipped the last of the 2014 Merlot Cabernet over to London City Bond, paying UK duty in the process, and are keeping it to the same price as its launch price in early 2016, while stocks last.

Keep reading

2020 Bordeaux red harvest, in pictures

October 07 2020

For the last four weekly missives, every Wednesday throughout September, I’ve posted a photo journal of our harvest at Bauduc (bauduc.com/news) for crémant, dry white, rosé and red. It’s high time we looked at what’s been happening across Bordeaux so here, again, is a long stream of images with a few comments.

All being well, I’ll be publishing my infamous ‘weather and harvest report’ on the vintage next week, and this will be stuffed full of fascinating data and charts, with objective analysis and the occasional opinion. 2020 saw an early season and harvest, with nearly all the red grapes being harvested in September.

For now, here are some photos of a few of those grapes coming in.

Keep reading

Bordeaux 2019: a fine crop at the top – report

February 28 2020

This was published on Jancis Robinson’s fine wine site here, and by Liv-ex, the fine wine trading site.

As a follow up to my ‘Bordeaux 2019 weather and harvest report‘ last autumn, here’s an update of the production statistics. These somewhat nerdy articles, shamelessly illustrated with detailed graphs and tables, serve as a backdrop to the ‘en primeur’ tastings which take place in late March and early April. (Each spring, fine wine merchants and critics descend on the region from around the world to sample the latest vintage ‘from barrel’ – all being well.)

Keep reading

Bordeaux 2019 weather and harvest report

November 05 2019

If this article looks familiar, it was also published on jancisrobinson.com and Liv-ex.

Now that the grapes are all in, and the wine safely in the tanks and barrels, there’s a chance to reflect on the year in the vineyard and how the new Bordeaux vintage has shaped up. So here is my Bordeaux 2019 update: it’s been my thing for a few years now to put some of the weather statistics into some context by drumming up a few graphs and charts, alongside some photos and explanatory blurb.

Cabernet Sauvignon at Ch Beychevelle in St-Julien with Ch Ducru Beaucaillou in the background. 10 October 2019

This was my twentieth full season in Bordeaux, having arrived just before the harvest in 1999, with 2000 being my first full vintage viewed at close hand. My experience is that no two vintages have been the same and, despite the considerable changes across two decades and the enormous investments in new wineries, equipment, viticulture, people and so on, it is still the weather – and how we and the vines respond to it – that determines the quality and quantity.

Bordeaux 2019 – a very good year

‘You’re joking – not another one?’ No really, Bordeaux 2019 is a very good to excellent vintage. It wasn’t straightforward, with heatwaves, drought and a rainy finish along the way, but Bordeaux enjoyed a long, dry summer and harvest with just enough rain, and no disasters like the late spring frost of 2017 or the significant losses to mildew that some growers experienced in 2018.

Quinney making off with some Cabernet Sauvignon in Saint Julien
Keep reading

September review and our harvest so far

September 30 2019

So much has been going on this month but for this missive we’ve focused on the harvest. Seems only fair. It’s a long read – sorry – with lots of photos of the white harvest, with much of the red still to come.

We’ve also just made the Farmhouse ‘Price and Availability’ for 2020 page live on our website, so that’s certainly worth a mention.

Keep reading

Bordeaux 2019 half term report

July 31 2019

There’s a long way to go before the autumn harvest and the grapes have yet to change colour, let alone ripen, but the end of July seems a reasonable moment to take stock of how the growing season is progressing. Most of the hands-on chores in the vines have been done, and vineyard managers can take their annual August holiday before the harvest preparations begin in earnest.

Speaking of stock, the flowering took place in June and the grapes and bunches evolved in the ensuing weeks, so we have a clue as to how the volumes might look, all being well. This month, in fact, the French Ministry of Agriculture released its estimates of the size of the 2019 crop across France based on conditions to date. AOP wine production (what most of us still know as Appellation Contrôlée) in 2019 is forecast to be between 0 and 8% below the five year average of 2,100 million litres. Bordeaux accounts for around a quarter of that figure and as the largest contributor, the numbers from here can have quite an impact.

Bordeaux 2019 latest

In short, a few days of rain and a brief chill in early June took the edge off the flowering, which had begun so well, while, in contrast, two days of heavy rain on 26-27 July proved a godsend after the prolonged dry and hot patch between mid-June and late July, with peaks close to 40˚C at the end of June and indeed exceeding 40˚C on 23 July. It’s all to play for, still. Marks so far? 7/10. Keep reading

Late spring frosts and the luck of the draw

May 31 2019

Damaged vines from early May frost, Montagne Saint Emilion 17 May 2019.

Late spring frosts in May are extremely rare in Bordeaux but there were some icy mornings on the weekend of the 5th to 7th May. Some friends here lost the crop from a parcel or two of vines, and although the damage was bad in some spots it was not nearly as widespread as the devastating frost at the end of April 2017. We were spared, fortunately. Keep reading

The same vines pictured year on year in May

May 30 2019

22 May 2019

We’ve taken a picture of the Merlot vines in front of the Château on the 23rd May each year. This one was taken on the 22nd because it was so grey and rainy the following day, but it shows how it compares to previous years. (23 May pic below.)

The odd thing is how some vintages are completely different to others. The early budding and growing season of 2011, compared to the late one of 2013, and the hail damaged crop of 2009. Touch wood, so far so good for 2019.

Ten days after a hailstorm at Ch Bauduc on 23 May 2009

The earliest growing season – a burst out of the blocks, 23 May 2011

Keep reading