There were only six wines from Pomerol in 2019 on tasting at the MW Institute’s annual Bordeaux tasting last year. Their collective quality made up for the lack of numbers. Château l’Evangile was sublime. It has wonderfully pure plummy Merlot tones and wonderful freshness. Château Clinet is as seductive as ever. It has deep, layered aromatics and a caressing palate which also retains freshness. Château Petit Village was also very impressive with fabulously glossy qualities and plenty of depth and poise. Château Vray Croix de Gay was inky and textured and reminiscent of Château Gazin [not on show]. Château Beauregard also looked good at the more affordable end of the Pomerol price ladder. Sadly the Moueix properties weren’t on show this year [Château Hosanna, Château Trotanoy or Château La Fleur-Pétrus], though they have been in past tastings.

Bordeaux 2019, released in the height of the pandemic in June 2020, was perhaps the last sensibly priced vintage from the region. The quality also seemed great. Early on for me it had the poise of the 2016 combined with the richness and flamboyance of the 2009 with greater freshness. There were scores of impressive wines across all appellations, red and white [and sweet]. With the price hikes here with the exceptional 2022s, the 2019 vintage still appears pretty good value. What’s more the wines are drinking well. In October 2023 the MW Institute put on its annual tasting of ninety top wines and very few seem to have shut down [which isn’t the case with 2018s which have crept into their shells]. The quality too has held up in bottle and the vintage seems to have genuinely delivered on its primeurs promise. So, all in all, what’s not to like about this vintage?

Turning up to Château Valandraud is always a mouth-watering prospect. There are fewer wines now on tasting at the refurbished château than there used to be at the tiny cellars beside Jean Luc Thunevin’s home in St Emilion, but it’s still one to get the juices going. While focus is always on the hedonistic Valandraud grand vin itself, I always spend at lot of time looking at the entire range, which is where the value here lies. I’ve been visiting his cellars now for over a decade during primeurs and I’ve been consistently impressed by Domaine de Sabines in Lalande de Pomerol, Clos Badon in St Emilion and Le Clos du Beau Père in Pomerol. These wines do not disappoint in 2023, though there is a freshness and lightness of touch this year in keeping with the vintage. Jean Luc continues to consult for lots of properties on the right bank and I was particularly impressed with Château Mangot this year, alongside Château Sansonnet. What of Château Valandraud itself in 2023? It is inky and bold and definitely needs time.

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.