Bordeaux 2022 EP

D

Dom Shepherd

Location
UK
A hot year with very little rain, so what to expect?

The tastings have begun and the noises so far seem positive. Perhaps a vintage for those who like a more opulent style though - talk of 15% ABVs on the right bank and some coming in as high as 15.5%.

FWIW Jean-Marc Quarin is raving:

“80% of the wines I have tasted are the best the estates have ever made”.

“the sumptuous smoothness of 1959, the tannic power of 1961. Forget all about 2003 and 1982!”

Bordeaux futures 2022: results (1) - Primeurs 2022 - Bordeaux primeurs -
 
My god daughter was born in 2022. I thought I would buy a case or two of wine for her/her parents for future enjoyment. I am regretting my decision but thankful I did not mention it to them!
 
Let's say 2022 is really good... Does that mean it is still necessary to buy EP with all of the associated risks? Hardly a scramble given the huge volumes and also hard to tell how a wine is until various in bottle reports have been released or unless one has tried personally. Also for so many classed growths they have no financial need to make their patrons buy their wines as futures except perhaps to satisfy shareholder dividend demands. Unless one has an impossible to get allocation (Lafleur?), or special bottle formats are required, then why buy now? Totally up to the Chateau to make it make sense, as they did in EP2019.
 
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kevin heatherington said:
Well, other hot years such as 1929, 1949, 1959, 1982… did ok.
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Yes they were but if you look at the available temp and rain data you'll see that max temps and average temps were much higher in 2022 than any reports we have for those years and rainfall was less. On paper not a vintage for me, though I'll taste them, I suspect I won't be buying anything.

Images below gives a general impression. Average growing season temp in 2022 was 19.5C (highest ever), days above 30C was over 65 (second highest ever), rainfall was 242mm Apr - Sept (5th lowest ever). None of those are good indicators for me.


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I’m in agreement with most of what’s been said already. Unless 2022 is an important year for you personally (like Joel) and you want something specific, then as Graeme says, what is the point?

It will be interesting to see the reaction, because from what I’ve read the hyperbole has gone into overdrive already but it’s impossible to ignore those climatic conditions. Especially given that we are likely to see prices go up too.

There might be some exceptions but I suspect Gareth is probably right in that the 2022 reds might perform best in tastings rather than for drinking pleasure.
 
As I understand it from the early reports, it’s a vintage that won’t deliver across the board, but will deliver some spectacular wines. The quality of winemaking has moved on since 2003 in such a way I don’t think it’s a useful comparison.

As somebody with a child born in 2022 I’ll be doing exactly what’s suggested - picking up different formats that will be hard to get later. Other than that, it’s watch the prices and wait until the in bottle and 3 year on tastings, which tend to yield the most accurate reports. In the meantime, there’s certain 2020 to stock up on I’m sure! Montrose in particular looks set to be a knockout.
 
Antoine Singer said:
"The quality of winemaking has moved on since 2003 in such a way I don’t think it’s a useful comparison."
Some magic improvement after centuries of doing it wrong? Law of diminishing return? I don't know for sure...
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Technology and most importantly scientific knowledge of wine making processes has improved more in the last 20 years than it did during the entire 20th century.
 
How much of an increase on 2020 in bottle release prices, if at all, do we think the EP 2022s will be priced at? I suspect 15%+ in many instances. The Bordelais are not going to miss an opportunity to factor in current and future inflation!
 
I think it will vary wildly property by property. GBP v EUR is about 5% worse for us than last year. There is also the fact that with commercial interest rates rising as they have negociants can no longer afford to finance allocations as much as they used to, which may play into our favour.
 
Steven Pritchard said:
Technology and most importantly scientific knowledge of wine making processes has improved more in the last 20 years than it did during the entire 20th century.
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Exactly this. Things in wine, like elsewhere in the world, have moved on dramatically in the last 20 years. This means that whilst we will still see absolute stinkers of vintages, the “average” vintage (if such a thing can be considered) will be better.

Imagine if the identical growing conditions to 1982 happened again - would the resulting wines, 40 years on, be better than the current crop of 1982s? Absolutely.

So, they weren’t “doing it wrong” for centuries, but nowadays have so much more data available to them that it is far easier to “do it right”.
 
Russell Gammon said:
So, they weren’t “doing it wrong” for centuries, but nowadays have so much more data available to them that it is far easier to “do it right”.
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I'm still not entirely convinced that some of the hot vintage wines will be universally great drinking at 20 years old. They might possibly be 'correct' oenologically, but I may well not enjoy them. I have some doubt about certain 2009s and 2010s and I suspect some 2018s will be hard going at maturity.

Average vintages are definitely improved over the last twenty years.
 
Maybe the best we can hope for is that winemakers can save what would normally have been seen as bad vintages and make them into appetising wines.

Or, we have to learn to appreciate the new proportions of bordeaux (though I think the 'hot vintages' are always going to be touch and go)
 
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