Bordeaux 2013: 10 years on & 30 wines tasted

We have become accustomed to the notion that Bordeaux’s current major problem is global warming, sometimes bringing in its wake high ripeness and sugar levels, dizzying alcohols and poorly balanced wines with little acidity. 2013 was the grand exception, more reminiscent of some of the dimmer vintages of the 1950s and 1960s.

A soggy spring led to a delayed flowering and uneven ripening. July was hot and stormy, and August problematic, requiring intense vineyard management. September began cool, with rain increasing as the month went by and continuing into October.

Few grapes were properly ripe by then, but warmer temperatures led to widespread rot. Growers rushed to pick Merlot before losses rose.

Scroll down to see updated notes and scores for 30 Bordeaux wines from the 2013 vintage

A few châteaux, including Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande in Pauillac, discarded their entire Merlot crop. Cabernet Sauvignon was picked at moderate ripeness levels, so

chaptalisation [the permitted addition of sugar to increase potential alcohol levels] was common.

As one would expect, large estates that could afford stringent selection fared best. Château Smith Haut Lafitte in Pessac-Léognan hired 200 sorters, but few other estates could emulate them, especially since demand for pickers was intense.

Challenging season

Initial tastings, en primeur, and then in the years that followed, were often disappointing. Many 2013 wines were simple, dilute and stringy, and even wines from top châteaux lacked flesh and weight.

They were clearly inferior to almost all the vintages before and after. It was hard to find consistency within sub-regions: there were serious underperformers among prestigious estates, and at the same time surprisingly good wines from châteaux that few considered in the top league.

Clearly luck played a part, as did picking dates. With rampant rot, delay could spell disaster, while picking too early could result in greenness and astringency. A small estate in the northern Médoc or Côtes de Bourg would probably not have had access to sufficient, and sufficiently strict, pickers and sorters.

The best of those had been snapped up by wealthier estates. And while a classed growth in the Médoc or St-Emilion could afford the economic hit of releasing just a third or a half of its average crop, small family properties elsewhere may not have had that luxury.

There was no obvious difference in quality between the Left Bank and Right Bank. There are good wines – and terrible wines – from both. The common factors were inadequate ripeness and rot.

On the Right, Pomerol, an early harvester, fared relatively well, and conditions in St-Estèphe on the Left were a touch drier than the rest of the Médoc.

But lesser wines across Bordeaux showed greenness, thinness, and little energy and persistence. Some estates compensated by over-extracting or failed to adapt their barrel-ageing regime so as to allow what fruit there was to shine through. With few exceptions, these are wines to drink young.

The rules of production allow châteaux to blend in up to 15% of a different vintage, but few producers would have sufficient reserve wines to enable them to do this.

This was a year when human decisions were crucial: when to pick, how rigorously to sort, how to vinify and extract. Those choices, and some luck, will have determined the quality of wine produced.

Quaffable clarets

The selection below was made from a tasting of 50 wines at Bordeaux Index in London. Inevitably, many well-known wines were not represented. However, the first growths and many super seconds were present and feature among the pick of a difficult crop.

At the top level, quality was higher than expected. No doubt many lesser wines have expired by now, but many wines from renowned estates seem to have taken on more weight and concentration than when tasted in their infancy.

But the vintage remains patchy. Among the first growths, Château Margaux failed to shine, even though its standards of viticulture and winemaking are as high as those of its rivals.

In St-Estèphe, Montrose and Cos d’Estournel were acceptable but hardly thrilling, whereas Calon Ségur performed far better.

In a top vintage, the differences between these wines would have been stylistic rather than qualitative. That was not the case in 2013, and it’s often hard to find an explanation.

If prices had been slashed to reflect the middling quality of the vintage, there would undoubtedly have been some wines worth buying for early drinking if not for cellaring: wines that have often been disparagingly called ‘luncheon wines’.

Nonetheless, such wines have their place among our patterns of consumption. But Bordeaux estates are shamefully reluctant to reduce prices in poor vintages.

Overall, the 2013s are only slightly cheaper than the superior 2012s and 2014s, though Château Rauzan-Ségla, to its credit, did cut its release price by a third. On the other hand, Montrose and Pontet-Canet didn’t budge.

If the price is right, the top 2013s can offer attractive medium-term drinking, and almost all of them are nearing their peak.

Although we’ve become accustomed to full-throttle vintages such as 2018, in which alcohol levels can easily reach 15%, many consumers still prefer more quaffable and balanced clarets with freshness and cut. At their best, this is what the 2013s can offer.

Bordeaux 2013 revisited: See Stephen Brook’s notes and scores for 30 of the vintage’s finest

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