Notes here on sixty-nine St Emilion 2025s. Looking back at the tastings the striking thing is the consistency. This is a seriously good vintage in St Emilion. The hot and dry vintage conditions have reigned in the alcohols [more on this paradox below] and the evident freshness and structure in the wines has given so many a vital intensity. It is a fascinating vintage to compare with 2022. It doesn’t have the heavenly quality of that vintage, but that is not to damn 2025 with faint praise. If 2022 is a vintage for the heart, 2025 is very much one for the head. In that sense it is a bit like 2009 versus 2010 – but with right bank winemaking and viticultural approaches now very different from those heady, extractive days. These are classical, moreish wines, which are impeccably balanced in the main. So, 2025 is a very exciting vintage indeed on the right bank. It is also one with a lot of value to be had. This is firstly as a lot of less famous estates have made super wine. Secondly, so far many of the best properties are releasing at sensible prices that might encourage an early purchase. This is good news for those of us who got a bit burnt with the pricing of 2022. So, what are the highlights overall from the tastings?

Again the emphasis in St Emilion 2024 overall is freshness. The best exhibit vivid blue fruit characters and are appetising and moreish. There is heterogeneity though. If some are bracingly fresh and lively, others are solid and a bit unexciting. Others feel a bit green, and some are gentle, forward and probably early developing. Generally, the winemaking in the cellar feels sensitive enough, going with the material rather than against the grain. There are a few that feel a bit out of whack at present, either overly sappy or a bit drying. My experience is that these wines usually come good after élevage. Obviously 2024 doesn’t have the wow factor of the sunny, solar years here, like 2018 or 2022, the latter so seductive during primeurs. Still, it’s a journey, not a sprint and I’d be keen to see all these wines further down the track once they are bottled in twelve to eighteen months time as they will all probably pick up I expect.

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.

The St Emilion Grand Cru Classé that were tasted bling at the Grand Cercle press tasting at Château de la Dauphine back in April were sensational. They stood out along with the wines from Fronsac [more on these shortly]. I’ve already published posts individually on a number of top chateaux in St Emilion in 2022.  I’m including these tasting notes again in this post, but I’m majoring on notes and analysis on a further sixteen cru classé and a handful of grand cru tasted with the Grand Cercle. There is usually some degree of variation between properties in any given year. The particular challenges of ’22, in terms of heat spikes and near continuous drought, would also have varied depending on terroir, viticulture and winemaking approaches. That being said, the astonishing thing about the wines tasted at the Grand Cercle was the high consistency. Many of the best wines are weighing in at fourteen to fifteen degrees alcohol [and, yes, it does now seem possible for a wine to achieve balance and weigh in at fifteen degrees] but there is surprising freshness in the wines, delicacy even. And the textures are sublime. So, what were the highlights at the Grand Cercle tasting?