Some Perspective: 2021 and Beyond, Right Bank
Today was the first major tasting day in Bordeaux for the K&L team, and it provided the kind of perspective that adds so much value to this kind of trip. Although Merlot was a big problem in the Right Bank for the ’21s due to mildew and frost, there is a huge variation in how these calamities affected any given winery. Many châteaux featured a large component of Cabernet that resulted in very compelling wines; while some wineries like Troplong Mondot, sitting at one of the highest points of St-Emilion, were not bothered at all, producing a very healthy yield that matched previous vintages. Others down the slope lost up to half their vintage, the conditions were so unfortunate. And while the words “frost” and “mildew” are always the launching point for any conversation about a vintage these days, it hardly begins to tell the story.
Perhaps not surprisingly, three of the properties that were quick to tell us the most transparent story of the vintage ended up producing the most enthralling, rewarding wines—Cheval Blanc, Conseillante, and Figeac. The latter was the first to describe how much rain fell in June—over three times the annual average. While building the water reserves during that kind of year is not necessarily a bad thing, it was also combined with a cooler, longer phase of maturity from veraison to harvest, meaning an even but less generous vintage. At the worst, the conditions combined for thinner wines that lack mid-palate structure. But the heterogenous nature of the vintage also resulted in some sweet-spot wines that will find many fans. But even these, like the Cab-dominated Figeac, or a Franc-forward Cheval Blanc, shied away from Merlot where possible. Fortunately, the raw materials always shine through, and terroir speaks loudly in such bases.
The question now is going to become—of the wines that did make the mark, what kind of wines are they? “Classic” and “fresh” are words that have been thrown around a lot, but sometimes it is hard to know if they are being used as honest compliments, or to cover up another more unfortunate aspect of the wine. I think, instead, it is a compliment that folds in a known quality of modern Bordeaux—a return to precision means many things. Luckily for most consumers, it means most vintages are of a higher quality than they’ve ever been before. But another side of that same coin is that, when the heat doesn’t define a vintage, or Mother Nature doesn’t play fair, there’s still a brilliant amount of dynamic complexity to be found. If 2021 is a success, it will look like this.
A great example was our visit to Cheval Blanc. We tasted an immaculately crafted 2021 that speaks to their incomparable terroir. But what spoke very loudly was the 2001 and 2008 we tasted with dinner, next to a heavyweight set of banner vintages (2009 and 2010). While these big 100-pointers showed the breadth and heights of two unforgettable vintages, the charm, clarity, and finesse of the two cooler years showed a unique character that many found just as compelling, albeit for different reasons. They both also had many comparisons to the conditions that created the 2021s. If this is a vintage that we look back on with that same kind of fondness for its under-the-radar brilliance, it will be one to keep an eye on for a time to come. But if you also stack in a modern winemaker’s precision and exacting standards on this kind of year, it takes it to another degree beyond what gave the 2008s or 2001s a bit of a cult following.
A lot of the vintage will soon be defined by what we taste on the Left Bank, where we are travelling to for the balance of the week. If Cabernet is showing so strongly, it would seem that there might be a bevy of compelling wines that we’ll be tasting over the next couple of days. But when a vintage isn’t the kind of blockbuster that we’ve become accustomed to over the years, it is, at its best, really compelling because of all the things it does well that the other “big” vintages don’t do. Refreshing is a term we’re hearing all the time, and for many Bordeaux fans the wines will be just that. But at the end of the day, this certainly is a winemaker’s vintage. Luckily, we have a lot of winemakers who are performing at best-ever levels, and there are certainly plenty of wines that we’ll be thinking about for a long time to come. Stay tuned over the following days as we share these discoveries and try to get a handle on how more of Bordeaux handled their 2021s.
- Ryan Moses, Bordeaux Specialist/Marketing and Retail Analytics Manager