“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.

First stop last Saturday was to Château Pavie Macquin in St Emilion. The winegrowing judgement here of Nicolas Thienpont, Cyrille Thienpont and David Suire is second to none. There aren’t any state secrets. Here gentle extraction of wonderfully ripe fruit, the result of meticulous work in the vineyards from beautiful terroir, always yields some of Bordeaux’s most appealing wine. In 2018 Château Pavie Macquin, Château Larcis Ducasse and Château Beauséjour [HdL] are exceptional. Larcis has typically satin-y, caressing fruit, and fabulous length. Pavie-Macquin has great depth with remarkable power under the hood while Château Beauséjour displays some of the most exceptionally pure, beautiful fruit I’ve come across. All are stunning. The real steals I imagine, will be the Thienpont’s own wines from the Côtes de Francs – Château Puygueraud and Château La Prade are lovely.

It was an exciting start to the Bordeaux primeurs week over in St Emilion on Sunday. By the looks of things so far, St Emilion was as good a place as any to start tasting Bordeaux 2015. All vintages have their complexities but perhaps ‘15 seems to favour the right bank over the left in many respects at this early stage. At the Grand Cercle tastings held at Château Bellefont Belcier there were a number of wines from the various Côtes de Bordeaux appellations, especially the Côtes de Castillon, the Côtes de Francs and Fronsac that impressed. It looks like there are many excellent St Emilions to be had in 2015 too. The St Emilion Grand Crus and the St Emilion Grand Cru Classés showed very well indeed. Pomerol showed slightly less well but I will look in more detail at the appellation Wednesday. I also had the opportunity on Sunday to taste the range of right bank estates run by Nicolas Thienpont. They have produced a very exciting St Emilion at Château Berliquet, Château Larcis Ducasse, Château Pavie-Maquin and Château Beauséjour. These are a very harmonious set of wines indeed.