All three of the top Moulis châteaux have performed well in 2019. Château Chasse Spleen is typically fresh and vibrant, always leaner than its rivals, but the extra richness of the vintage has supplied more middle than usual with nice texture on the palate. This will age well and needs three years or so to get set I reckon. Château Poujeaux has more evident depth and structure and feels well built for the long-haul, if currently rather tannic and grippy on the finish. You have five years at least to wait here. By contrast, unless it has shut down in the past six months, Château Maucaillou appears already attractive now, with plenty of red and black fruits on the palate [raspberry and plum tones]. You can decant this now and enjoy the lush fruit. The wines of Moulis continue to provide excellent value red Bordeaux. They also develop exceptionally well in bottle.

A tasting of wines from 2019 put on by the UGCB last November reinforced my impression of the fine quality of this vintage. I majored on the left bank, having covered the right bank more comprehensively during primeurs tastings back in 2020. Looking over my notes, the wines have certainly retreated into their shells since bottling. Many were quite backward and reticent, especially in Pauillac and St Julien. During primeurs, I felt like 2019 was a mythical blend of 2010 and 2009. They had the intensity of the former with the fruit and texture of the latter, with overall finer tannin and less extraction than back then. Right now I’m wondering if 2019 isn’t closer to a modern 2005, that is to say pretty serious, structured and long-term but with sweeter tannin texture than ‘05. Still, this is a generalisation and that comparison is not true in all cases by any means. Not all Pauillacs and St Juliens were backward for example and there were some especially lush wines in Margaux and the Haut-Médoc for instance. So it’s a complex picture. If you’ve tucked into 2019 [like me] there is certainly nothing to worry about, except that you might have to wait a little longer for the wines to open up than we first imagined. I’ll obviously follow up with more detailed posts by appellation, but in the meantime what were the overall highlights?

In the Haut-Médoc, the 2017 vintage doesn’t quite play as well as perhaps I’d hoped back in 2018 during my primeurs tastings. A lot of sites inland from the Gironde, such as Listrac and Moulis, suffered from the April frosts, and this has obviously affected the choices of blending elements, as well as volumes [as elsewhere in Bordeaux in this vintage]. I’m a great fan of these two appellations as sources of good value, vigorous wines, that have plenty of zap and life. Unfortunately, there is a certain angularity to some of the wines here in 2017. While the best terroirs have made the best wines here – Château Poujeaux is the most convincing – 2017 is not a vintage to particularly seek out here over 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. All these vintages are fuller and more complete than 2017.

The neighbouring appellations of Moulis and Listrac provide an important source of good value, high-quality Bordeaux. Both have succeeded in 2015. Listrac continues its modern march towards a softer more supple style, and the qualities of the vintage – harmony and balance – accentuate this. I was especially impressed with Château Clarke, but there are very positive efforts from Château Ducluzeau, Château Fourcas-Borie, Château Fourcas-Dupré and Château Fourcas Hosten. In Moulis, Château Poujeaux reigns supreme, year in year out, but there is another good effort in 2015 from Château Maucaillou.