Over the past year, The World of Fine Wine has published hundreds of our writers’ notes and scores on Bordeaux. Here we pick out some of the most notable and admired bottles that appeared in print and online in 2023.
Bordeaux 2022: Something new under the sun—Catch 22
Simon Field MW spent three-and-a-half weeks in Bordeaux in the spring tasting the latest vintage en primeur. It was safe to say he was impressed by the quality of the 2022s, if, like many other commentators and producers, rather puzzled by the wines’ essential freshness despite growing conditions that were characterized by extreme heat.
“Energy, vibrancy, and harmony are encountered with near uniform regularity in the wines. Ripe purity and generous discretion need not be oxymoronic concepts, certainly not in 2022,” Field said. “When it comes to identifying the most successful communes, one is also faced with a dilemma, in that they were all good in their own way. Overall, maybe (but with so many exceptions that it almost invalidates the generalization), St-Emilion, especially where Cabernet Franc was involved, impressed just as much as Pomerol, which is unusual; Graves and Pessac were, enfin, a little less beguiling than the wines of the Médoc, its hail-ravaged northern enclaves excepted. Elsewhere, superlatives flow: I was particularly taken by what I describe as the “charming austerity” of the best from St-Estèphe, and by the aromatic authority on display in St-Julien. Margaux, the largest of
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
