2022 Bordeaux En Primeur: Rule #1 - Don't Start with Conclusions
This year, we started our visits with the infamous Bill Blatch, a fount of knowledge who tasted us on Sauternes, but is as well-versed in Bordeaux in its entirety as anybody you’d meet. When asked about the vintage for sweet wines, his answer was very refreshing and grounding. Instead of reaching for superlatives and quotables, he produced a series of charts that showed the temperatures, wind (intensity and direction), and about every other nuance of every single day in the vintage. We asked for conclusions. Instead, he gave us information, paired it perfectly with the wines, and set us down our own paths.
One of the frustrating things is that there are already too many conclusions at this incredibly early stage, many that say we’re looking at a remarkable vintage in the making. I look at the information—the market, previous vintages, consumer trends—and believe the 2022s might be wines that have a greater burden of proof than many others before it. There is already a consensus that prices are going to be way up – that’s not even for debate. It is also coming off of a “classic” but mispriced vintage that has left everybody down the supply chain reeling. And it is following on the heels of a duo of vintages that show great potential (2020) and relatively unmatched value (2019), leaving a lot of great wine on the market. So where do we go from here? Sure, the wines will probably be good. But are they great? Will they be inspiring? Are they wines that need to be bought early, and will reward folks for doing so? We are here to find that information, and help everybody draw their own conclusions.
One of the things that makes this campaign unique is that the verdict already seems to be in on pricing. Or perhaps that’s naïve, and pricing is always settled early. But this vintage seems to want to rush to conclusions on the quality as well, and propose a triumph. My expectations? This is a vintage of extremes, where the apparent quality defies conventional wisdom. It makes me suspicious. We should be assuming another 2003, where not only heat, but extreme heat, defines the vintage. Even if twenty years of evolution in élevage practices and vineyard management help avoid some of the faults of that ominous vintage, there is no avoiding the fact that there will certainly be a large measure of variation and extremes. Again, this leads me to see 2022 as a prove-it vintage in the face of a marketing machine that is treating it like a predetermined commodity.
Beyond the quality of the wines themselves, we are really in a golden age of Bordeaux winemaking. Of the past eight vintages on the market, there is something for everyone. 2014s are sneaky good in a classic vein, and have always been values. 2015s are the warm-vintage precursor to the focused, structured, and unimpeachable 2016s. The 2017s struggled with consistency but have sneaky good upside. 2018s are a bit inconsistent, but sometimes find wonderful heights. 2019s are high-quality and also were the best high-upside value vintage in the region’s history. 2020s shine on the Right Bank, and have banner-vintage potential at many estates. 2021s are the modern classics—priced wrong, but might find many fans of the old-school style for years to come. Does 2022 offer something that these don’t, in a way that they are the only wines that you can buy that offer such a high standard that they should demand a premium?
These wines are also facing a tenuous economic situation. Is the economy as stressed as it was at times last year? Probably not. Could it get there? Certainly so. But the real issue is waning inflation. It is the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss. There are two facets to that piece of the puzzle—putting money down early needs to be worth more. When your bank is paying meaningful interest, there are other safe and easy places to let your money grow than in wine futures. But the other is the real stinger—shoppers right now are demanding more for their money as a reality of inflation’s slowdown. Where at times in the past few years an average consumer would be more willing to spend on a luxury item, all signs are pointing to the fact that that luxury needs to be even more rewarding. The collectibles market has flipped in the past year, but suppliers seem very reluctant to admit it.
Let me put it this way—I think that the properties in Bordeaux are over-estimating the market’s interest in a premium vintage. Their predictions are built on many frail assumptions—one is that the market is interested in paying a lot early to secure stock, and another is the 2022s are so infallible that they deserve it. Early indications are that there is a massive mismatch between expectations and reality. So, with that lens going in, I’ll also admit…I hope I’m wrong. I do genuinely believe that the wine world is richer for another benchmark vintage in Bordeaux. I really want there to be a warming-climate future where we have such a mastery over the conditions. I would be delighted to see wines released at a price that makes them endlessly compelling to buyers at this stage in the game. And with all my skepticism, that’s what I really want to discover during our tastings this week—revelatory, must-have 2022s that reignite a futures market. I’m ready to be amazed. Let’s hope the wines are of the caliber and quality to do so.