Heading over to the Right Bank for the Bordeaux 2015 in-bottle wines is to arrive where the action is.
No doubt at all that Pessac-Léognan (to come) and Margaux produced some spectacular wines but for consistency of achievement in this vintage you have to go to St-Emilion and Pomerol…
Verdict
We are now approaching two years since 2015 en primeur week, and on this re-tasting I think it’s a little clearer that overall 2015 is a great Right Bank vintage.
There are styles to suit all palates – if you like big rich muscular blockbusters the Moueix wines have really shone this year, combining power with beautiful freshness, and if you prefer a touch more restraint, look for those limestone-nuanced wines from the plateau of St-Emilion.
How to go straight to the wines:
To be honest there was still a dip in parts of St-Emilion where we got a parade of some cookie-cutter big oaked wines, but nowhere near as much as we got with the (similarly generous) 2009 vintage, and we really can see the overall evolution of St-Emilion towards more sculpted wines, particularly on the limestone soils where there is a natural austerity.
The tannins are ferocious at times, and this will be a long ageing year, but alongside the big fruit there is also good juiciness and persistency – and for my money length is always more important than power, in terms of how a wine is going to age.
Guillaume Thienpont at Vieux Château Certan called 2015 in Pomerol, ‘a technically easy vintage, without too many problems to grapple with. Right from the early flowering it worked like in the text books.
‘The only problem was that you could wait too long to harvest, so had to make a choice to bring the grapes in while there was still enough freshness.’
I gave just one wine the full 100 points in the Médoc (Château Margaux) but over here there were four 100 pointers, and four at 98 (I haven’t re-tasted Cheval Blanc or Ausone yet, if you were wondering why they hadn’t made the cut here).
Prices
It’s lucky that they do taste so good, however, because on release (using figures from Eleanor Wine), 2015 St-Emilions were up an average of 31.9% in price from 2014 and Pomerols up 31.4% (although both were lower than 2010 prices, by 6.8% in Pomerol on average and 13.8% in St-Emilion).
L’Evangile (€150) and Figeac (€100 ex-negociant) both posted over 65% price rises on their 2014, which was punchy to say the least.
Figeac at least has delivered on that, up around 50% since release depending on where you look, while L’Evangile is also up, but more modestly, skimming around the 10% mark.
If you’re buying today, most prices across both appellations are not too far from where they were at release.
As mentioned with the Left Banks, trading platform Liv-ex recently compiled a list of 2015 prices at release and today, and recorded the highest rise over in St-Emilion being for Château Canon, a 98 point wine for me and one that delivers a near-perfect snapshot of 2015 on limestone.
But far away from these prices, 2015 delivered generally on the Right Bank, and there are many brilliant value wines to choose from in Castillon and Fronsac, as well as the less well-known names in both St-Emilion and Pomerol.
Cheval Blanc and Ausone still to come
For St-Emilion 2015 in-bottle, see:
Coming soon: Pessac-Léognan and Sauternes 2015 tasting notes and ratings
