Bordeaux 2019: Vintage Profile
Bordeaux 2019 will forever be etched in my memory for good and for bad. It was released rather later than usual in the summer of 2020 on account of a Covid lockdown in the UK. Samples were tasted not in the glamourous surrounds of Bordeaux’s finest Château, but with my colleagues socially distancing on the driveway of my old house in Abingdon.
Bordeaux 2019 is a seriously good vintage, but more importantly it is a grown-up one. Given the heat and drought of the summer, one might have feared a crop of oversized, sun-baked clarets. Instead, the best wines are refined, concentrated and surprisingly fresh, with ripe fruit, polished tannins and far more restraint than the weather forecast had any right to promise. This is not a lean, old-fashioned year, nor is it a caricature of modern Bordeaux. At its best, it strikes a very handsome balance between richness and control.
The growing season explains much of that character. Winter was mild, but spring and early summer were cooler and wetter than many remember, with uneven flowering in places and some localised frost. Then came the heat: a hot, dry summer, real drought pressure, and temperatures that pushed hard enough to test both vines and vignerons. The saving grace was well-timed rain in August and again in mid September, which refreshed the vineyards and allowed ripening to finish properly rather than brutally. In short, 2019 was a warm year, but not a reckless one, and the best terroirs handled it admirably.
Stylistically, 2019 sits in an attractive spot among recent Bordeaux vintages. The Left Bank tends to show structure, clarity and Cabernet definition, while the Right Bank often has a touch more generosity and texture, though without losing shape. There is plenty of concentration, certainly, but less excess than in some other solar years. The dry whites were also notably successful, combining aromatic precision with freshness, and the sweet wines have real purity. All in all, it is a vintage with breadth as well as pedigree, which is no bad thing if one actually intends to drink the stuff rather than merely admire it from a spreadsheet.
There is also an important commercial point in 2019’s favour. These wines were released during the first Covid lockdown, when Bordeaux rather sensibly realised it could not behave as though the world were carrying on as normal. The campaign was markedly restrained, with Liv-ex calculating average ex-négociant prices down 22.1% on 2018 and 20.2% on 2016, and most wines released at or below what it considered fair value. That modest opening still matters now. Even today, many 2019s stack up well against comparable recent vintages, particularly when set beside the less consistent 2018s.
For me, that is the crux of Bordeaux 2019. It is a vintage with real quality, proper ageing potential and, by Bordeaux standards, a commendably sensible pricing story. It may not quite possess the monumental authority of the very greatest modern years at the absolute summit, but it is one of the strongest and most complete vintages of the past decade. Better still, it was released at prices that did not require one to lose one’s senses, and many wines still look well bought now. In Bordeaux, that counts as almost revolutionary behaviour.
Affordable highlights: Château Marsau, Château Labégorce, Château Gloria, Château de Pez, Dame de Montrose
Money no object favourites: Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Château Brane-Cantenac, Château Pichon-Lalande, Château Léoville-Poyferrè
