Bordeaux 2015: How it looks in the bottle

Verdict on Bordeaux 2015 wines tasted so far:

• Pomerol and St-Emilion get highest overall scores

• Southern Médoc & Pessac Léognan best on Left Bank

• Many wines offer exceptional value and the best will be long living

• More uneven than expected; some estates pushed ripeness and oak too far

See below for all of Jane Anson’s ratings and tasting notes from her Bordeaux 2015 in-bottle tastings

Bordeaux 2015 in the bottle – Quick links:

Médoc 2015 classified growths

Bordeaux Right Bank 2015: Top scorers

Pomerol 2015

Pessac-Léognan 2015

Graves and Pessac-Léognan 2015 whites

Sauternes and Barsac 2015

Setting the scene

The first taste in bottle of big vintages is always an exciting moment. And potentially a disappointing one.

Bordeaux 2015 was one of those years where the buzz started early, as the grapes were coming in, and built slowly through to the en primeur tastings.

The wines were highly acclaimed, particularly on the Right Bank and in the southern Médoc, and this was the year where Bordeaux’s oenology school the ISVV said, ‘all five conditions necessary for a great red wine vintage in Bordeaux were perfectly aligned’.

The 18 months of ageing since those early tastings should in theory have allowed the wines to settle in to themselves, to show greater integration and softening of tannins, together with a fattening up of the body.

On the Right Bank particularly, the in-bottle tasting may be the first chance to see final blends – estates such as Château Fleur Cardinale do not select their exact final blend until the end of ageing, unlike most Left Bank properties that finalise the blend in the months after harvest.

What about the weather in 2015?

‘More complicated than generally reported.’

There were a few things to particularly look out for when approaching this tasting.

The 2015 vintage was always a little more complicated than generally reported, particularly in the northern Médoc.

St-Estèphe saw 118mm of rain in September, compared to an average of just 35mm across the rest of the region, with AOC Médoc around Bégadan and upwards closer to 150mm in places (more, incidentally, than has fallen in 2017).

The small showers in August were essential after an extended dry summer, but those in September were a little more complicated, and meant more uneven results than had been expected.

Luckily cool nights and a return to sustained sunshine meant the worst issues were avoided, but the results in these specific areas were not as uniformly good as 2016, and in some cases not as good as 2014.

What we expected from this tasting

The wines tasted here were opened over several sessions. Firstly with the Grand Cercle de Bordeaux, a grouping of Cru Bourgeois, Grand Cru Classé St-Emilions and similar quality wines over both Right and Left banks.

I also tasted further Médoc Cru Bourgeois (the 2015 list having just been released) both in châteaux and in horizontal tastings of wines delivered to me.

The idea was to get a good look at how this vintage has evolved in bottle for the kind of good quality, under £40 wines.

In theory, these ‘drinking wines’ should deliver in spades in vintages like 2015, where the general health and ripeness of the grapes should mean plenty of happy bottles.

At the same time, in some cases the lower price per bottle can mean less selection of grapes, and in some cases it showed.

First impressions of these Bordeaux 2015 wines in-bottle

‘Overall the vintage tastes less like 2009 than it did en primeur in many cases.’

In general, the tasting revealed many delicious wines, but with some reservations.

It was a little more uneven than expected, not always living up to the high expectations of the vintage. I scored lots of wines in the mid to late 80s and early 90s, but I was expecting more 94+.

The highest scores went to Pomerol, St-Emilion and Sauternes as a rule – and I look forward to seeing how that compares to the cru classés [coming soon].

The quality of the vintage was certainly confirmed. The acidities are a little higher than in 2009 or 2003, which means less immediately flattering and voluptuous wines, with the exception of the really gorgeous bottles from Pomerol, Fronsac and many in St-Emilion.

There were also brilliant southern Médoc and Pessac Léognan wines, but it seems more clearly a Right Bank vintage on these tastings than was perhaps thought during en primeur.

In general the best will indeed be long living, and a number are already closing down in a way similar to 2005 – although not as much as 2010 did at this stage – but there are plenty of wines that will be ready in the next few years.

As a rule Merlots worked well in 2015 – which is why the Right Bank did so well, with a preference either for the clays of Pomerol or the clay-limestones of St-Emilion.

Styles vary, but at this level of price often this is the case, with winemaking or market requirements often taking precedence over terroir.

Some estates have really pushed ripeness and oak, which was of course a temptation in a vintage where there was so much ripe fruit and the window for harvest was wide.

But there are many wines here that offer balance, great fruit and exceptionally good value, and that more than prove the point than in good vintages there is value to be found in Bordeaux at every level.

The wines: