Bordeaux 2022 is now in bottle, and the major critics around the world are starting to put words and scores to the finished wines. As I wrote in a comparative piece on 2020 and 2022 Bordeaux in November, price has been this vintage's issue from the outset. But casting that aside for a moment, let's delve into which wines are the most exciting in a vintage with a very high ceiling that separates the best from the rest. And should 2022 be considered a great vintage now the wines are finished?
After a disappointing 2021 Southwold, 2015 Ten Years On brought hope of some delicious, varied and approachable wines at a range of prices to reignite some love for Bordeaux from the tasting group. We were 19 in total, including writers Neal Martin, Lisa Perrotti-Brown and Jancis Robinson; 10 of us are Masters of Wine. We tasted just under 120 wines blind in a marathon day of reds, with two sweet flights to finish.
2021 Bordeaux has had a rough start. It was never going to be easy to follow 2018, 2019 and 2020 when everyone knew the weather was not going to allow for another highly rated vintage. Though everyone was glad to be back in Bordeaux for en primeur (after two Covid years where we tasted the wines at home in less than ideal conditions), it was clear from the outset that the wines were a step down on the last three years. This was compounded by the release prices, which did not reduce anywhere near enough to warrant buying the wines from barrel – many wines were released at 50% more than the 2019 releases, which were clearly much better.
As 2024 comes to a close the team at Farr Vintners have put together a list of their favourite wines of the year.
William Kelley has called Château Montrose a “de facto first growth” in recent years. There is no doubting the property’s rise from an already strong second growth into the top echelon of Bordeaux’s left bank since the Bouygues takeover in 2006. The financial prowess of the owners – known for telecoms but most successful in construction – together with an eye for hiring the right people, has made this Saint Estèphe one of the Médoc’s most coveted, consistent wines.
Last week I had the chance to attend tastings on both the 2020 vintage (held by the Institute of Masters of Wine) and the 2022 vintage (with the Union des Grands Crus) on the same day. While tasting over 100 samples of serious young Bordeaux is punishing on the palate, the opportunity to compare the wines in depth informed where and how these two highly rated vintages converge and differ.
Porseleinberg Syrah has quickly become one of South Africa’s great wines. After Boekenhoutskloof bought the land in Swartland in 2009, they installed Callie Louw as winemaker for the newly acquired vineyards that would produce this unique, brilliant Syrah, and his work over the past 15 years has built Porseleinberg into what it is today. He is reserved but captivating to talk to, though he clearly prefers being among the vines than talking about the wines he produces. It is rare to get a chance to sit down and talk with him, particularly in the UK, so we were delighted to receive him at the Farr Vintners office in September to taste through every vintage he has bottled so far, from the newly-released 2022 back to the 2010.
Last week Farr Vintners hosted an unprecedented tasting of Kumeu River's top wines from 2020 back to 2002. Paul Brajkovich guided the trade and journalists through a remarkable set of wines that displayed the consistency and quality that has given these Auckland Chardonnays their well-deserved reputation as the best that New Zealand has to offer.
Bordeaux's right bank is studded with famous properties nestled in close proximity to one another. Driving through Saint Emilion and Pomerol, you will see celebrated vineyards and châteaux almost on top of each other, with the likes of Cheval Blanc nearly spilling from one appellation into the next. The concentration of famous names and vineyard sites makes it easy to see the underlying quality of the various terroirs and financial prowess that provides. Take a ten minute drive southeast, however, and the landscape shifts, moving from the plateau to rolling hills, the highly-designed châteaux replaced by more functional, working buildings. The vines remain, and it is on these slopes that there are some stunning, under-appreciated vineyards - if you know where to look.
For a brief, shining moment at the end of June, England finally saw the sun. A good excuse to open some bottles that had been squirelled away in the Farr cellar on a balmy, sunlit evening hosted in our chairman Stephen Browett's garden with a barbecue. We worked our way through a number of wines in quickfire blind format - giving us a chance to analyse the wines briefly, both for identification and quality, before continuing to drink them after their identities were revealed. We meandered our way mostly through France, tracing through vintages from 2020 back to 1982. There were a few disapointments but some real stars, at starkly different price points, and one wine that will almost certainly be worthy of a perfect score in the future.
