I have just finished a week in Bordeaux. I have visited over 40 châteaux and tasted several hundred wines of the latest vintage – 2022.
And now I find myself at the magnificent Château Smith Haut Lafite on the final evening attending the incredible Commanderie dinner ‘La fete du Bontemps’. The ‘Bontemps’ is the wooden bowl in which the egg whites are whisked for that most amazing part of the winemaking process, the fining of the wines. A truly fitting symbol to end this Bordeaux En Primeur week and celebrate the 2022 vintage.
The vintage is truly fascinating. If you had asked the Commanderie (The elite group of château owners) in May 2022 what they perceived of the vintage, their heads were hung low, predicting not only an apocalypse for 2022, but for future vintages also given that for many the 2022 climatic conditions were a harbinger of years to come. Widespread frosts in spring, a very large hail event not long after, and then three of the hottest months ever recorded in the region starting in May. Every château employed their own methods to combat these conditions.
Château Margaux reduced foliage in an attempt to reduce photosynthesis, Château Latour kept foliage to shield the berries from harsh sun. Soils, yeasts, crop cover – all were played with. Harvests were conducted earlier than normal with many picking their merlot in the last week of August. And then, as the wines began to vinify, it was clear that something remarkable was happening. The wines had a vibrancy, a freshness, an elegance and a restrained power, large mouth feel and incredible length.
The vintage was turning into a truly memorable one and a success. And in the end all the vignerons could say was that a large part of this was down to the vines and the terroir and their own ability to adapt to climatic conditions. The combination of limestone, gravel and clay soils allowed the roots to go deeper and find amazing flavour components. They were able to survive from the retained water in the soils and increased water-carrying capacity from deeper roots. In the end, the vines adapted. 2022 is their vintage.
And so we gathered on this night to celebrate, and the mood was high. The Commanderie were relieved and ecstatic. This vintage has given them a glimpse of a good future for Bordeaux. Large bottles of ‘99 Latour circled my table and my cup was always full. I laughed and danced with my new friends.
I am quite sure that Xavier, the owner of Château Branaire Ducru, will be owing me a bottle of something special as The All Blacks defeat France in this year's World Cup. The Prince of Monaco is now on ‘speed dial’. And to my whānau in New Zealand,
it was Bordeaux that truly inspired me to enter the world of wine. For me, it is not about the final product, the sensory delight or even the social coming together, it is the fact that wine is a most natural product that springs unforced and most sustainably from our earth. The fact that the same vine can speak to us so differently from each terroir that it hails from. I believe that all of our food should be like this.
We should have thousands of baked beans and thousands of cauliflower variants, every foodstuff uniquely speaking of its own terroir. Being an individual whilst simultaneously being part of a group – duality. I wonder if somewhere in that is the grand unifying theory of life. (PUNEET DHALL)
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Published 3 July 2023