01. 2022: AN INTRODUCTION

Tasting Bordeaux en primeur is not easy,

so the biggest compliment I can pay the 2022 vintage is that is was a joy to taste. In a packed schedule which I extended so as to try as many wines as possible, it was not uncommon to taste 120-150 wines a day, but instead of palate fatigue I was enchanted by the overwhelming majority of those wines. Is 2022 as good as people have said it is? Absolutely. This is a superb vintage and whilst it is perhaps not uniformly accomplished as 2010 and 2016 were, the overwhelming majority of Châteaux that I tasted have made excellent wines which will doubtless be a total joy to drink in the years to come, from £10 bottles all the way up to the First Growths.

A reminder for those that have not yet read my pre-primeurs blog post that 2022 was an extremely hot and largely dry year, placing vines under enormous hydric stress. Never one to shy away from a marketing challenge, I heard the phrase ‘solar vintage’ espoused several times throughout en primeur week, plus the French word for ‘dry’! However, whilst the hottest days (and there were many above forty degrees) were much hotter than the rolling 30-year average, the daily lowest temperature remained in step with the average, meaning that diurnal range was huge, with cooler nighttime temperatures enabling the vines to calm down and for the grapes to maintain acidity. I believe it is this facet of the vintage, even more than the godsend of a downpour in June to give the vines much needed water, that contributed to balanced wines.

Following last year’s largely average vintage (incidentally heralded by the bordelais as a ‘classical’ vintage), which was at times hard to taste, my experience of the 2022s has been of incredibly fruit forward, ripe wines, with opulent perfumes and huge structure. Wines which did have the vineyard positioning, agronomic acumen, and technical knowhow to deal with all that ‘solar’ 2022 threw at them were an absolute delight to taste, with intoxicating aromas, intense fruit ripeness, confident structure and persistent finishes.

This is undoubtedly an excellent vintage, with some properties making their finest wines ever, but it would be churlish to suggest that it offers the sort of uniform excellence seen in truly outstanding vintages like 2016 or 2010. This heterogeneity makes it more important than ever to quiz your wine broker, as some wines you’ve been offered every year may not quite hit the same highs in 2022. Be wary, too, of merchants who insist that all wines will be ‘superb investment grade wines’ whose value will be sure to appreciate over time. Never has detailed analysis of release prices and recent market trends been more important in making judgement calls on wines worth keeping as assets. The price increases we’ve seen already (30% up at Chateau Angelus!) mean you need to demand data when merchants use the brilliance of 2022 as a smokescreen to try and shift wines which may not deliver a return you are promised.

But overall, I was enchanted by 2022, with my scores hitting the mercury at 100 points more than a few times: it was reassuring to see that all the major critics have followed suit! A triptych of vine evolution, agronomic advance and winemaking technology ensured that 2022 will go down as a wonderful vintage with swathes of excellent wines which will in many cases give enormous drinking pleasure almost immediately and in the decades to come. Priced sensibly, and Lord knows that the en primeur system could do with attractive pricing given the rising interest rates, many of these wines with accompanying high scores could also end up as valuable assets, too.

My recommendation for this vintage is to buy at all levels, subject to release prices, with wines like Beaumont, Batailley, Phelan Segur, Berliquet and Quinault L’Enclos offering sumptuous drinking pleasure for a fraction of the price of the usual suspects at the top of the tree. If you have any questions or require any buying advice, then please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Dominic Brennan