Mildew was a persistent threat for Bordeaux châteaux in 2023. But how much say did it have on the character and quality of the vintage, asks Simon Field MW in his latest blog from the 2023 en primeur tastings.
Shakespeare’s sorrows, we recall, came not as single spies but in battalions. In Bordeaux, of late, harvests seem to provoke something of a generalization, threatened therefore by spies rather than by the battalions. In 2017 it was frost, in 2022 the drought and so forth. In 2023 it has been the turn of mildew to take center stage. A very canny spy, downy mildew, and often, as is the nature of espionage, preparing the ground for future woe. The battalions are usually lurking in the wings.
Or not as the case may be. 2023 may well be remembered as the vintage of the haves versus the have nots. It was, as Antoine Mariau at Château Nénin has commented; “le millésime des riches,” because the cost required to counter the threat in terms of resource and labor was immense, but if one was able to meet such a cost then the damage would be minimal. Less than zero, some may argue, if it leads to more concentrated grapes. With mildew there is no escaping the effort required to keep it at bay; the copper solution, as Jean Jacques Bonnie at Malartic Lagravière reminds us, is a mere external application (he compares it somewhat disingenuously as a suntan lotion), so every times it rains it has
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
