Chateau Haut-Brion and Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion were extolling the virtues of their Merlot in 2012 shortly after the harvest. There is no doubt that the sixty-odd percent that this variety constitutes in these blends this year reflects the quality of that fruit and its overall superiority to the Cabernets. This high percentage of Merlot gives both wines a wonderfully plush, seductive quality, and, in their different ways, Haut-Brion and La Mission display the very best qualities of this vintage. Nevertheless there is density here too, especially in Haut-Brion. For me it is probably the pick of the first growths this year with Mouton and Margaux close behind.

Even in the most consistent year a Bordeaux vintage is complex. 2012 is far from a consistent year. Poor weather caused uneven flowering at the start of the growing cycle, this led to great variation in ripening, and after what eventually proved a hot and dry summer, vintage rain caused difficulties. It’s a vintage that is heterogeneous in a great many places, especially on the Left Bank. One thing is not in any doubt, however. The vintage has produced Merlot of considerable beauty and it is the quality of this variety that stuck in the mind during Primeurs week.

Haut-Brion & La Mission Haut-Brion report promising wines in 2012

In Pessac-Léognan, estates seem pretty bullish about the quality of the 2012 harvest and resultant wines, red and white. The weather pattern here was similar to the Haut-Médoc – a wet and cool spring and a difficult early summer followed by a hot and dry August. Rain arrived here too in late September and again in mid October, but Pessac-Léognan’s best terroirs seem very happy indeed with quality. We will soon see for sure in the up-coming primeurs week tastings [7-11 April] exactly how good the nascent wines are but the talk is certainly very encouraging.

Not for the first time does Pessac-Léognan stake a claim to making the most consistent and attractive wines in a single Bordeaux vintage. No mean feat when you’re producing dry white and dry red. Bordeaux 2010 is clearly a vintage of superlatives at the top level, but across the board here in Pessac-Léognan there are excellent wines. You can’t escape the vintage character – why would you want to – so there’s plenty of extract, density and tannin in the reds but there’s also wonderfully bright, refreshing acidity. That too makes the whites even better for me than in 2009, with a bit more freshness and zip, though 2011 probably trumps both [for whites].