Wine Feature: Bordeaux 2014 a Vinegrower's Vintage- Part I

Introduction

From the magnificent September and October weather -longest, hottest, driest Indian summer for 100 years and from the relaxed smiles on the faces of the vignerons and the health of the grapes I had expected a very fine if not a magnificent vintage.  At the En Primeur tasting this expectation was not entirely fulfilled.  There were many good or even very good wines, but very few great ones.   I dislike quickies such as ‘Merlot year” or “Right Bank year”, but must quote Château Cheval Blanc who called 2014 a “Vinegrower's Year” because of the amount of work required in the vineyards. 

Expectations not totally fulfilled

Making really fine or great wine is an art. Great artists are rare and so are great wine makers and great wines. Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux makes a very important statement about this  vintage, which gives the lie to what so many growers glibly claim.  "When conditions are NOT those of a great vintage the gap widens between the best terroirs and the others who were unable to catch up totally the time lost in August, in spite of a great September and October,” he says .  This enumerates the fact that damage done in July and August cannot always be totally repaired by a perfect September and October. 

Paul puts a lot of responsibility on terroir and many others of the finest properties have done the same.  Like great winemakers great terroirs are also rare; the best were taken many centuries ago by the first comers, in many cases today's top growths.  One thing is certain - terroir played a vital role this year.

Weather

As the wine of each vintage is shaped and structured by the weather, we need to look at the meteorological pattern and conditions, starting with the winter 2013-14.  It was a year of contrasts.  It is an error to think that the weather during the winter and before bud-break is unimportant.  Firstly, the amount of rain is of paramount importance for refilling the water table or not. 

A full water table helps prevent hydric stress and drought during the coming hot months, while a low water table and a dry winter increases such a danger immensely. Secondly, a mild winter like that of 2013-14 will do little to clean up the vineyards and kill off the bugs while good, hard dry frosts will do a great job.  The vine will suffer no real damage up to a frost of around -12°C or a little more; Bordeaux rarely has a frost more severe than -8°C.  The famous 1956 frost reaching -15.6°C of almost 60 years ago still lives in our memory.

Costs

I must repeat what I said last year: the making of fine or great wine is very closely related to cost.  The numerous operations required in the vineyard to make great wine are extremely expensive.  Green pruning or crop thinning costs a fortune in time and labour, particularly so this year.

Vieux Château Certan and many others de-leafed a second time one week before harvest for maximum ripeness.  Secondary bud removal, shoot removal, nipping off the tendrils that have wrapped themselves around the wires, de-leafing on both sides, pollarding, in some places removing the third cluster, tying up and all the other operations that have to be done by hand are often beyond the reach of small growers in less prestigious appellations. Most of these are to remove unwanted growth so as not to waste nutrition from the roots and to help ripening.   

One can aim at perfect grapes if one is able to cosset each and every vine from birth to death and also if one can afford the luxury of only putting the very best wine in the final blend (if one has the potential to have more than one level of wine, as do most of the classed growths).  This year Château Margaux put 36% of their yield into the First Wine, 24% into their Pavillon and the balance 40% into their 3rd and 4th wines. 

You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear remains as true for making great wine as it does for the purse!  Therefore, weather conditions become even more important to those smaller growers and a year when the weather is fine, the risk of fungus diseases is low and the grapes come to perfect ripeness all on their own as they dream of.  Even the greatest winemakers agree that years when minimum intervention in the vineyards is called for, are usually the best.  In 2014, a huge amount of work was required together with numerous treatments.  It was a year where costly operations were needed to save grapes from harm and bring them to healthy ripeness, which was another reason that so many smaller growers were unable to achieve this degree of perfection.

Criteria and their necessity for great wine

The 5 criteria of Denis Dubourdieu for making great wine are now both famous and accepted by almost all great winemakers here in Bordeaux.  With his permission I am listing them below.  He states that 3 of these criteria must be fulfilled to make good wine, 4 for very good wine and all 5 for great wine. 

How did 2014 measure up to these?

1. An early and rapid flowering and a good fecundation assuring a sufficient yield and the hope of a homogenous ripening.
2. Sufficient hydric stress at fruit-set to limit the growth of the young berries and determine their future tannic content.
3. Cessation of vegetative growth of the vine before colour change, imposed by limited hydric stress and therefore allowing all the goodness from the root to flow into the grapes and not unproductive growth.
4. Complete maturity of the grapes (sugar content among other factors) assured by the optimum functioning of the canopy (leaves) up to harvest time without further vegetative growth (point 3).
5. Good weather during vintage without dilution or rot, allowing full maturity of all grapes including late ripening varieties.

Denis starts by saying rather lukewarmly “2014 ended up by being more than moderately successful”!!

Winter of 2013-14

Before we look at the individual months please note that 2014 had 941.7mm of rain against the 1982-2013 average of 874.3mm and the average temperature was 14.7°C against 13.3°C.

The winter was both mild and very, very wet, the mildest for the last 10 years.  We had 6 mild frosts in December before the start of winter.  Not a single frost in January, the lowest temperature being +0.8°C and no frost in February the coldest night being +2.8°C.  Most unusually it was so mild that the vines bled during pruning!  There was only one frost on 2nd March at a mere -0.1°C.  We usually get some 20 frosts with at least some of them colder than -5°C.  Rainfall amounted to114.3mm in November, 69.2mm in December, 181.1mm in January, 125.1mm in February and 88.0mm in March leading into spring.  The water table was filled to overflowing obviating to a large extent the danger of hydric stress during the coming summer.  At times the soil was so wet that the tractors sank and could not roll, which delayed work such as co-planting and branch grinding.

March 2014

The end of March was warm and wet causing early budding, some 10 days earlier than the average and 3 weeks earlier than 2013, with 88mm of rain and a lovely 181.7 hours of sunshine. It seems hardly credible, but Château Cos d'Estournel says it had its first bud-burst on12th March! Euphemistically, Château Le Pin describes the 2014 weather as gentle if dull.

April 2014

Much drier with 54mm of rain, above average warmth the first half with exuberant growth and much cooler the second half which slowed thing down and wonderfully sunny with 203.7 hours.  However the cold, damp end of April caused shoots and new growth to get wrapped round the wires and damaged some growth on the white grapes. Together with a small “set” this will explain the coming small crop for the white wines.

May 2014

Like April we blew hot and cold: Rapid growth and then a slow-down.  A violent storm on 19thy threw down some hail in places, but this year there was not very serious or damaging.  Unfortunately, although May only had 71.2mm of rain and 203.7 hours of sunshine it was very wet just before flowering.  Any advance we may have had was lost.  Most importantly the first flowers appeared from 22nd May under unpropitious wet and humid conditions causing an uneven flowering and an important amount of “coulure” on young and precocious Merlot together with some “millerandage”.  There was also considerable phytosanitary deficiency.

June 2014

67.1mm of rain and a splendiferous 287.2 hours of sunshine (the sunniest month of the year).The 21st June reached 31.5°C.  This helped speed up and even out the flowering.  Later Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon benefitted greatly and a third consecutive very small yield was happily avoided.  Mid flowering was around June 7th.  The end of June provided the bulk of the rain, most of it during a violent storm on 22nd June (32.4mm) and caused exuberant growth of the berries, but also of foliage and the danger of mildew and botrytis.  Homogeneity and fruit set were much better on later flowering vines.  As stated already there was coulure on the Merlot and Château Lascombes says that fruit set was impaired by last year's lack of sunshine.

The first two criteria were only partially fulfilled-say 1.5 out of 2, if we are generous.

July  2014

There was no real summer.  Château Palmer says “the sun played hide and seek”-only 50.8mm of rain and a reasonable 243.5 hours of sun, but little real heat.  Weather jumped from hot to cold and dry to wet.  Better conditions for canopy growth than fruit. The average temperature of 21.3°C was  5.8°C cooler than the long-term average.  Towards the end of July it grew very hot and reached 35°C causing highly localised storms that increased the disparity between appellations.  However, most importantly, the heat was not sufficient after all the rain to cause any hydric stress and vegetative growth continued well after colour change, which began at the end of the month.  This was not good!

August 2014

Colour change continued slowly throughout most of the month and the vine forgot to put enough effort into it.  Mid colour change was on around  13th, but was very, very uneven and took place under no hydric stress at all.  The colour therefore only came slowly due to both this lack of hydric stress and the fact that there was little difference between daytime and night-time temperatures, which was also not good for the development of flavour compounds.  It was a thoroughly miserable month  with 79.5mm of rain and only 208.8 hours of sunshine.

Thus the third criterion-cessation of the vegetative growth of the vine before colour change, was totally unfulfilled.

September 2014

This was the Bordeaux miracle month and our saviour - a superlative September-very dry with just 21.9 mm rain and a fabulous 265.4 hours of sunshine. Also, it was 3.8°C hotter than the long-term average-the hottest September since 1961 and 1921. All this helped by a new moon and a long-lasting anti-cyclone.  At last there was some hydric stress; enough to finally stop vegetative growth, speed up berry ripening and increase sugar content despite their large size.  They started to shrink, concentrating sugars, anthocyanins and tannins.  These were fabulous weather conditions for the dry white wine more about which later. Picking started on the Merlot at the end of the month.

The 4th criterion was thus perfectly fulfilled.

October 2014

The red wine vintage-this was relatively late due to the miserable July and August.  However a very beautiful and hot October (2.3°C above average) and a true Indian summer meant that harvesting could be done without haste and under optimum conditions with 41.4mm of rain and 195.3 hours of sunshine. However for the grapes to have ripened perfectly it was very important that meticulous and draconian green harvesting had been done at the appropriate times.  It was of vital importance this year.  The fine, dry, hot weather kept botrytis at bay and mildew had long since been dried out.  It was a long and protracted vintage; Pichon Longueville Baron said it was their longest ever at 5 weeks and they had to work hard to keep the freshness.

Less than perfect features

In spite of this optimum maturity, excellent tannins, fine acidities and healthy grapes, as well as the fine September and October, vegetal notes were still present in a number of wines.  Although in early summer climatic conditions were favourable for synthesising the pyrazines, this was not completed on less well drained soils and on soils particularly rich in nitrogen.

The 5th and final criterion was thus perfectly fulfilled.

Therefore 3.5 criteria out of 5 were fulfilled for the 2014 vintage.

Dry White Bordeaux Wines

I feel that this year the dry and sweet white wines deserve full attention because, in the final analysis, they were the best wines in Bordeaux in 2014. A large part of these were harvested from the beginning of September and the other part from around mid-September.  Thus they were picked under perfect weather conditions.  The only rain in September was 4.4mm on 17th and a storm of 17.5mm on 18th after a heat build up to a terrific 31.3°C on 17th.  Thus it was easy to avoid these two days and pick in hot, dry weather. 

What kept the wines so vibrant and fresh were the higher than usual acidities.  These were kept high by the cool July and August holding back development.  There was a high content of Mallic acid and a few properties also did partial malo-lactic fermentation. But the vast majority were perfectly happy with the acid measurements and left them well alone.  The fruit was ripe and clean and healthy.  Naturally the Sauvignon was picked before the Semillon, but those who picked later in September made richer wines; Château Margaux is a perfect example. 

There are still the two styles of White Bordeaux being made.  The traditional one that is more fat and made with more Semillon and needs time and the more modern one that is crisp, fresh, full of energy and vitality, almost pure Sauvignon and to be drunk vibrant and young.  Both were excellent this year in the absence of any traces of rot or any vegetal notes.  Rarely does one have the luxury of being able to say that the entire crop was harvested without picking on anything but a dry, sunny day. 

As I am one of the team that creates the vintage chart for the International Wine and Food Society I have awarded these wines the highest mark of 7.

Sweet White Bordeaux

There are two very different stories here.  Some unfortunates such as Château Closiot (Bernard Sirot) describe the vintage as the ultimate disaster as they were invaded by the vinegar fly, the Drosophila Melanogaster, and lost nearly all their crop to “sour rot”.  Fortunately there were not so many properties that suffered as badly, although almost all of them admitted to a percentage of “sour rot”. 

Chateau d'Yquem tells their story so well that with their permission I am paraphrasing it. “It was a worrying start because the noble rot was delayed by the fine dry weather and some shrivelling began to appear.  Also, even more worrying were traces of “bouïroc” (sour rot caused by the Suzuki fruit fly).  Any affected bunches were carefully removed.  Finally came three successive weather sequences ideal for noble rot.  The picking followed these cycles.  The 22mm rainfall of 25-28 August was followed by 19 dry days leading to an early first tri from 5th - 16th September (1/4 of crop) with very high acidity.  Another rainfall on 17th-18th September encouraged more botrytis and was followed by another hot, dry period with no rain until 4th October.  Thus there was a second tri from 25th September to 8th October with superb concentration and fine acidity (1/4 crop). Then there was a rainy period from 8th - 16th October, but the entire second half of the month was almost bone dry, over 20°C and wonderfully sunny.  Now, between 20th - 30th October, Château d'Yquem did their 3rd and 4th tris with wonderful botrytis on later ripening grapes.  All grapes with “sour rot” were successfully eliminated by draconian berry by berry picking. 

Never say die

A long, nine-week harvest.  The first and early tri provided unusually fine acidity.  The alcohol level is just 13.4°, the residual sugar 134 grams and the total acidity a wonderful 7.3gr/litre with a pH of 3.60.  To a greater or lesser extent this was the pattern for the botrytised wines this year and very small crops of very fine wine have been made by many.  Fortunately, those destroyed by the Suzuki fruit fly were few and far between. Château Climens, who suffered coulure, grey rot, withering and sour rot, none the less declared a tiny crop of 8hl/ha of pure, clean and aromatic wine - even complex, elegant and powerful.  Never say die!!

John Salvi Master of Wine

The concluding Part 2 focuses on Structure and Composition of Bordeaux 2014 and will be published in the next edition of delWine- Editor

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