Well, the 2024 samples are arriving. I couldn’t make it over to Bordeaux for the annual primeurs shindig this year in April owing to pressure of other work and family commitments. That said I’m keen to get a handle on the vintage and I’m now getting samples sent in from various organisations and properties. This week I’ve had six cases arrive from the Grand Cercle and I have been busily working through these. Other samples are due in next week. It would have been better to taste these in situ obviously, especially as barrel samples don’t tend to travel that well and have a short shelf-life once they arrive. That said the best still shine in the circumstances. The 2024 Bordeaux growing season was a tricky one, as it was across much of France. Humid weather, a summer short on sunshine and rain during the harvest proved problematic across the region. It was a busy year for the châteaux who had their work cut out in the vineyard and the cellar to produce good wines. But vintage variation adds to the fascination of Bordeaux wine and there will be a number of successes in this vintage I’m sure.

Way back in early September the Association de Grands Crus Classés de Saint-Emilion put on a tasting high up above London at Landing Forty Two in the remarkable Leadenhall Building. The views were impressive. So were many of the wines. Ostensibly it was an opportunity to taste the joyful 2018 vintage, but each producer also offered an additional, older vintage. This was fascinating. For me it also confirmed the superlative quality of the 2016 vintage in St Emilion, but also the quality of some of the rather unsung 2017s. In fact, there were quite a few properties to my mind that performed better in ’17 than they did in ’18 – and that was no mean feat given the challenges of the frost that so badly affected the former vintage. Given that some 45 different chateau were represented at the tasting, I’m dividing my report into two parts. This one contains notes and thoughts on some twenty-four properties [and forty-seven wines], starting with Château Barde-Haut and ending with Château Franc-Mayne [essentially half of them alphabetically].

Château La Louvière Blanc 2010, Pessac-Léognan, was one of the highlights of a tasting with family and friends last night, reports David Rowe from Bordeaux. The colour is definitely straw, rather than the “pale straw” description we use so often for younger Bordeaux whites. But the remarkable freshness of peach and apricot fruit on the nose belies the age of the wine and promises interesting possibilities for future development in bottle.

Five years ago Bordeaux’s top chateaux were rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of releasing their precocious, and delicious, 2009s to an expectant trade and press. The wines were an assault on the senses, and, as it turned out, the pocket. Released in dribs and drabs to stoke demand, many big guns didn’t name their prices until months later, seemingly waiting for each other to make the next move to see who could double their prices. The accompanying en primeur campaign was a feeding frenzy. Next week Bordeaux offers us the 2013 vintage for the first time. Things couldn’t be more different. I expect you’ll be able to hear the sound of a pin drop.