Well after tasting hundreds of wines across all of Bordeaux’s major appellations last week, generally 2013 faired a bit better than expected. That may not seem much of an achievement given how subterranean expectations were at the outset. Truly miserable weather during flowering, and rain and humidity at the end of the growing season, meant it was a battle between rot and ripeness for almost all growers regardless of appellation. These conditions only benefited Bordeaux’s sweet wine producers in Sauternes and Barsac, who qualitatively have produced the best wines of the vintage.

Brooding skies, torrential rain, leaky roofs gave Vinexpo 2013, Bordeaux’s biannual wine fair, a distinctly wet vibe the week before last. The dreadful weather further pointed up the difficulties that vignerons are already facing this year in Bordeaux. Vineyards are three weeks to a month behind usual growth cycles, with the gossip from some that these early season conditions have been the worst since 1984. Despite the brave faces worn by chateaux owners at the various dinners coinciding with Vinexpo, there is no doubt that the forthcoming vintage will be a late one, whatever the outcome. Fine weather in July, August and September may turn things around, so it’s far too early to pronounce on the vintage yet. Still the Bordelais must have been hoping for a much better start to the year than they’ve had. They could do without another mediocre vintage to try and flog.

The 2012 growing season was as tricky up in the northern Médoc as it was elsewhere on the left bank, with the advantage here that the blends often have a higher proportion of Merlot, the variety that succeeded in the vintage. Not that Merlot escaped entirely. One of the consequences of the very cool weather around flowering was considerable flower shatter [coulure] on the Merlot, reducing yields, although this was reported as having a positive effect on quality, increasing concentration. Nevertheless the cool and wet start to the growing season certainly led to uneven development in the grapes. Ripening did catch up with the warmer and very dry period spanning mid-July to late September, but the harvest was always going to be a late one, one that would ultimately be influenced by October’s wet weather. Nevertheless the best wines have good fruit and weight from the Merlot.

The wines from the Haut-Médoc have come along a lot since their primordial days during primeurs week in April 2011. The nascent wines then felt tannic and extremely grippy. Yes they had huge volumes of fruit and extract, but with all the density and acid they were hardly a joy to taste. Such was the early character of the vintage. It still is their character to a degree but the best wines have put on much gloss and weight and have rounded out quite a bit during elévage. They are not the hedonistic efforts the appellation produced in 2009, but are more correct, more obviously structured, serious wines, with lots of grip and sap that, even at this level, remain pretty long-term efforts. Chalk and cheese once again.