I’ve already posted thoughts on a number of leading properties in St Emilion in 2023. In addition to these visits, I also spent a morning tasting blind those St Emilion Grand Cru Classés at the Grand Cercle press event. I’ve included detailed thoughts on these properties in this post in addition to my earlier notes. Combined there are reviews here on just under thirty wines from the appellation in 2023. At the Grand Cercle event I was especially impressed with Château Grand Corbin Despagne, Château La Croizille, Château de Pressac, Clos Debreuil and Château Destieux. These wines had depth and style and fine texture. I also enjoyed Château La Marzelle and the biodynamic Château Fonroque. Overall, these Grand Cru Classés are different stylistically to the wines made at these properties in 2022, reflecting the elegance of the 2023s overall. While they lack the concentration and sheer volume of the ‘22s, they offer delicacy and more evident freshness and are by no means lacking concentration in their own right. It will be fascinating to follow the progress of the ’22 and ’23 vintages in St Emilion down the years.

Fronsac is usually a ‘go-to’ appellation for serious but good value Bordeaux. The finest properties here make excellent, ambitious wine, from exceptional limestone terroir. This over-achieving district doesn’t succeed as much in 2023 as it did 2022 [for me a knockout year for the wines of Fronsac] but there are still good wines to be had. I tasted nine wines blind in the Grand Cercle tastings back in late April. The picks? Château de la Dauphine has made savoury and attractive wine, alongside Château de la Rivière, Château La Huste and Château Fontenil. Château Moulin Haut Laroque also had lots of extract and texture. Château Villars and Château Dalem were good but lacked a bit of middle. They may well pick up depth during élevage. Château La Vieille Cure, usually up at the top of the pack, was not showing well on the day. That said, overall, there more consistency here amongst the wines than in the Castillon appellation in 2023.

“The source may be beautiful, but the true beauty lies in the accomplishment.” It’s the quote that starts Nicolas Thienpont’s 2023 vintage booklet. Often primeur guides are full of hot air but in this case his statement couldn’t be more deserved. Thienpont, who has been making wine on the right bank for forty years, knows the lie of the land here probably better than anyone and he has been giving expression to its varied terroirs with a gentle but guiding hand. He and his team [son Cyrille, winemaker David Suire and consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt] look after the winegrowing and winemaking at Château Larcis Ducasse and Château Pavie Macquin. Nicolas and Cyrille also run the over-achieving Thienpont family properties in Castillon [Château Alcée] and in Francs [Château Charmes Godard, Château Puygueraud and Château La Prade]. If there’s a common characteristic to all these wines, it is the quest for purity, a kind of generous purity, and that’s Thienpont’s touch. So, what’s the take here on the 2023 vintage in Bordeaux’s right bank and just how good are the wines?

What a difference a year makes. Bordeaux 2023 is stylistically light years apart from 2022. That generalisation is based in this case on tasting a hundred or so wines really centred on St Emilion in late April. Yes there is freshness, energy and drive to the nascent wines – they are perhaps more quintessential ‘Bordeaux’ in style than some recent vintages – but there is also heterogeneity. There is not the richness or mid palate weight of the 2022 vintage, or the evenness in quality, but the best wines from St Emilion and Bordeaux’s right bank show brightness and purity in 2023. The difference largely comes down to the weather. The 2023 growing season presented plenty of challenges across Bordeaux. A generally warm and humid year for much of the vegetative cycle, these conditions lead to considerable mildew pressure in the vineyards, challenges that required constant vigilance and affected some properties more than others. While high summer was warm it wasn’t hugely sunny. There were storms in June and there wasn’t the major water deficit that defines the exceptional years. That said there were some heat spikes and as the later growing season progressed the weather became drier, hotter and much sunnier and the vintage was harvested in generally dry, very good conditions. Overall though this is not a solar vintage like 2022 or 2018, and this might be something a relief for some consumers, with the wines perhaps truer to their terroirs and types.