First impressions of Bordeaux 2017 barrel samples

Read Jane Anson's initial report on the key emerging characteristics of the Bordeaux 2017 vintage, and which areas look set to come out on top - currently available exclusively to Decanter Premium members.

Full tasting notes and ratings on hundreds of Bordeaux primeur wines will be published later this month.

So has Bordeaux 2017 given us the best ‘7 vintage’ wines since 1947? Well, based on the en primeur tastings, it’s not immediately obvious how to get the shape and feel of 2017, because there is no one style or character.

This was a difficult vintage for growers, and that is also true for tasters – not just those of us tasting en primeur right now, but for you guys when deciding what to buy.

Everybody has a different experience this year and even the official Bordeaux oenology report says it would be an ‘illusion’ to think it can cover each individual situation in its annual summing up.

This is a year to taste, to think about the wines, and to spend time over your choices, because this is the kind of vintage where you will find some over-performing wines that should price within the overall context of a ‘challenging year’.

One of the most useful comments that I have heard over the past few weeks has come from Omri Ram, cellar master at Château Lafleur in Pomerol, who said, ‘the potential of 2017 has been obscured in some places because the trauma of the frost had an impact beyond the frost itself’.

Not easy to compare it to any other vintage

Certainly not in broad brush strokes. In some cases there is no doubt that the elegance and florality can reach towards 2001. In other cases it is much closer to 2014, or 2012. Clearly the fruit is less exuberantly ripe than 2015 or 2016. There are in the main two distinct types of wines – those from non-frosted vines that are very good and those from frosted vines that are not fully ripe. But even that distinction gets away from you, because there was factors to take into account – drought and water stress at some points, rain at others, and a summer that was dry in the main but not always particularly hot. My impression is that the next year or so of ageing is going to be hugely important also.

The mid palate trap

You could also fairly happily divide 2017 into those wines that have an expansive mid palate and those that have a hole that opens up before you. Oliver Berrouet at Petrus pointed out, ‘You had to adapt your programme to the harvesting needed in 2017. If you went too far you got angles, austerity, tannins. The tough thing this year was to get the tannins to support the aromatics and the flesh of the wine, and not the other way round’. Some people used press wine to great effect, others used clever but subtle oak. Still others just had enough of all the right elements to not even worry about this. But it’s certainly something to be aware of.

There were some notable successes

This is not a Left Bank or Right Bank vintage, but there were some key successes. Pauillac, St- Julien and St-Estèphe have seen some excellent wines – although not uniformly so – and you can expect another great year from the likes of Pichon Comtesse, the Pauillac Firsts and Montrose. St-Estèphe in particular seems to be hyper aware of its reputation for rustic tannins, and many estates seem to be really adjusting their winemaking to deal with it. The pocket of Pessac Léognan near to the city avoided the frost and had enough heat in the summer to fully ripen the grapes – I found some of my favourite wines here, among them the Haut-Brion stables and its neighbour Carmes Haut-Brion. St-Emilion and Pomerol have also produced some excellent 2017s, although the picture is more complicated here because of the frost impact. Without a doubt Troplong Mondot is worth looking at this year, as the arrival of Aymeric de Gironde during harvest has seen him immediately making a few significant changes, and the results are pretty exciting.

A white vintage – up to a point

No doubt, the weather conditions suited the dry whites. An early year but with cool nights in July and August meant that the aromatics were preserved, and there are some of the best whites that I have tasted for a number of years – better than 2015 and 2016 in many cases, and with more balanced acidities than in the (very good) 2014 vintage. Carbonnieux, Domaine de Chevalier, Olivier, Clos Floridène and others are performing at the top of their game. There are some good sweet whites also, but things get more complicated in Sauternes, largely because the dry summer meant that the grapes ripened by mid to late August, but then had a long wait before the botrytis set in. Up to four weeks in some cases, which meant high sugars and sometimes low acidities. There are rich and intense flavours in Sauternes, but the challenge was keeping freshness.

There is much more to 2017 than frost

We know about the frost. For a start there are a (pretty high actually, more than I expected) number of missing names, and there is no doubt that even for those who made a wine, the level of frost impact and what the estates did with the remainder of the grapes has made for a key distinction for wine character in 2017. But there is much more to 2017 than that. For a start, it was an early bud break, at least two weeks earlier than average, which was followed by an even and rapid flowering, so if estates were not affected by frost, they could achieve good yields, and many have done so – particularly in Pauillac, St-Julien and St-Estèphe.

Early harvest

Across the board, almost all grapes were in by the end of September or the first week of October. Typically in Bordeaux, an early start is a good thing, as it allows winemakers a few weeks in their pocket to deal with any September rains (and there were some this year, on average 60 to 100mm depending on area).

Fruit character is on the fresher end of the scale

Don’t look for overripe fruit this year. There was clearly less solar influence than in 2015 and 2016. This was an extremely dry summer, but it was less sunshine than usual, particularly in July, so even non frosted vines have a fruit character that is savoury and succulent rather than generous or particularly exuberant. There are some classically sculpted Bordeaux profiles to be found on both Right and Left Bank, which beautifully balanced fruits in the best examples, and alcohols tend to be fairly restrained. Austerity is a byword – not everywhere, but you should expect it as a rule. And don’t allow this to mean necessarily mean damning with faint praise – remember Bordeaux has the ability to harness balance and elegance in a way that very few regions can do so, and to manage this without sacrificing complexity. Some have definitely nailed this, but not all.

Unusually, there is often less second than first wine

In 2017, certainly for those affected by frost, you will often find that the first wine has made it through unscathed, but that there is either a tiny quantity of the second wine, or none at all. This is because the best terroirs, the highest spots, often survived better than the lesser, lower spots, in the cooler parts of the vineyard.

But those first wines might have an unusual blend…

You will see a number of wines that have different blends than usual in their first wine. Figeac, for example, as the lowest amount of Cabernet Franc in memory, at just 10% of the blend. La Fleur Cardinale has the highest amount of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon ever, up at 55% of a blend that is usually 70% Merlot, because that is what the vineyard spared. It’s just another reason to do a little research before making your buying decisions.

Decanter Premium members will get exclusive access to Jane Anson’s tasting notes and scores for Bordeaux 2017 vintage barrel samples, to be published later this month.

Follow Jane Anson on Twitter @newbordeaux

See also: 

• Bordeaux UGC head praises ‘approachable’ 2017 vintage

• Bordeaux 2017 weather re-cap