There is no doubt that Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion occupy two of Bordeaux’s most remarkable vineyard spots. Situated in what has become the urban sprawl of Pessac, divided between a busy main road, these two properties, Haut-Brion to one side, La Mission on the other, and the gnarled, muscular vines that surround them, are somewhat at odds in the hum drum modern setting, testament to another time and five hundred years of history. The white wines here in 2014 are sublime, for me as good as any of the great years. They represent the very heights to which dry white wine can aspire. The reds are fresh and lively, akin to 2008 but with perhaps with a little more weight.

The white wine harvest is already well underway in Bordeaux [see here white grapes sorted at Château Carbonnieux] and the early signs are promising. After a string of dreary vintages culminating in the washout 2013 harvest, Bordeaux has been blessed with a sunny early September and those properties in Pessac-Léognan that have begun picking the white varieties [Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris] seem happy at this stage. The weather still needs to hold fair for the harvest of the red varieties, Merlot at the end of the month and Cabernet perhaps at the beginning of October. But with healthy fruit and good anthocyanin levels in the grapes, there’s an air of optimism about the 2014 vintage that seems encouraging at this stage. More sun and warm temperatures are forecast, though there will be some moisture about later in the week.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison. If botrytis was the enemy across most of Bordeaux in 2013, it was certainly most welcome in Sauternes and Barsac. The warm and humid conditions favourable for the development of ‘noble’ rot from mid-September onwards, allied to drying winds, proved the classic mix for a very good sweet wine harvest in 2013. The region has produced many beautiful wines with the vintage’s trademark acidity. It gives extra freshness and vibrancy. Some are comparing the quality to 2007 and 1997. Château d’Yquem has produced something tremendous, but there are also very impressive efforts from Château Coutet, Château Doisy-Daëne, Château de Fargues, Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey, Château de Rayne Vigneau, Château Rieussec, Château Sigalas Rabaud, Château Suduiraut and Château La Tour Blanche.

There’s a very fresh, saline quality to the whites of Pessac-Léognan in 2013 and overall the vintage looks successful. Comparisons are being made with 2007 and 2010, but with greater acidity than the latter. Certainly the wines are marked by freshness, emphasized partly as they are a bit less weighty with fractionally lower alcohols than usual. None of this is a bad thing. It makes makes for complex, nuanced and appetizing dry white wines.