2023 Bordeaux Wine Guide, The Official Report
With 2023 Bordeaux, you find a good vintage, with wines that are charming, mostly-early-drinking, modern-classically styled wines. Perhaps with 2023 Bordeaux, several of the best wines come from the Left Bank. That being said, Pomerol and St. Emilion both produced some incredibly strong wines with character, class, and ageability.
In the midst of writing this report I learned that Michel Rolland, perhaps the most influential consultant in Bordeaux passed away. He was a true treasure as a person who always had time for questions and to discuss wines. Michel Rolland left some very big footprints that will be impossible to fill. Michel Rolland is already missed.
I could not have managed the Herculean task of tasting 700 wines from the 2023 Bordeaux vintage without the help of Jessica Taylor, Natalie Leggit, and Annette Solomon. Thank you for all you did!
2023 Left Bank Appellation Wine Guides with in Bottle Scores…
2023 St. Estephe – 2023 Pauillac – 2023 Saint Julien – 2023 Margaux – 2023 Pessac Leognan, Graves – 2023 Haut Medoc, Listrac, Moulis, Medoc – 2023 Dry White Bordeaux
2023 Right Bank Appellation Wine Guides will be published tomorrow morning…
2023 St. Emilion Pt 1, Wines A-K – 2023 St. Emilion Pt 2 Wines L-Z – 2023 Pomerol, Lalande de Pomerol – 2023 Cotes de Bordeaux, Fronsac, St. Emilion Satellite Appellations – 2023 Bordeaux Superieur and AOC Bordeaux
Below, we provide a condensed version of our vintage and harvest report. For our detailed report on 2023 Bordeaux, the growing season, harvest and barrel tasting notes 2023 Bordeaux weather, growing season, harvest and vintage report
What’s up with 2023 Bordeaux anyway?
As you can see from the wines included in this article, 2023 Bordeaux is a vintage worth checking out. Sadly, the vintage is being released in tumultuous times for the world of wine. A myriad of recent articles proclaim the world of wine is dying, or dead. Like Mark Twain said in 1897, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” The same can be said about wine, a beverage that has provided pleasure, sustenance, and memories for thousands of years. Yes, wine, like most things is cyclical. But, the value of wine remains, even if a generation, or two declines to gravitate to it.
The marketing of wine, well, that is a different story. That is where real change needs to take place. Pricing for the upcoming En Primeur needs to take stock and recognize the true purpose, and value, or lack of value in buying futures. The majority of wines offered as futures since 2010 are still selling at the same price, or less in many cases than they were originally priced at. Consumers are smarter today than they were before. Wine buyers have lost faith in buying wines 2 years in advance, when the wines on release are available at the same price they paid, or even less.
For the future of futures to have a future, this needs to be addressed, or producers may as well hold on to their wines until they are ready for release.
2023 Bordeaux wines, the style and character of the vintage
There is a lot to like with 2023 Bordeaux. The wines are not the equal of 2022, or 2016. But, so what? 2023 Bordeaux is a good vintage providing wines that will provide pleasure in their youth, coupled with the ability to age and evolve. They lack the power and opulence of 2022, or the definition of 2016. Instead, there is a freshness and with many wines, a beautiful sense of purity, produced in a modern-classical style.
Many of today’s consumers will appreciate the fact that a lot of 2023 Bordeaux has more moderate alcohol level than you encounter in previous vintages, in several instances the wines are lower by roughly 1%. Yet, there are no green flavors, or dryness in the better wines. The best 2023 Bordeaux offer aromatic complexities paired with wines that feel soft, and silky, with a vibrance.
One of the issues with the 2023 vintage is that some estates did not embrace the gentleness in the vintage character, choosing to extract as much as possible, and, or over-oaked their wines, which created harsh, green, and charmless wines.
2023 Bordeaux is a good example of the current style of wine Bordeaux is seeking to produce. Wines with refinement and charm that can easily be consumed in their vibrant youth with pleasure. In Bordeaux today, there is a lighter touch to the wines you can taste and feel. Phenolic ripeness remains the game. But, vignerons and consumers are also seeking less extracted wines, with less oak, more vibrancy, purity, and lower alcohol levels these days. Consumers can embrace the wines young, as the days of demanding years in the cellar to soften are firmly in the past.
2023 Bordeaux is not a one size fits all vintage. There are issues with under ripeness at several estates with challenging terroirs. 2023 Bordeaux is not a Left Bank, or Right Bank vintage. Though perhaps my favorite wine in this report comes from the Medoc. That being said, there are numerous wines at all price ranges from Pomerol and St. Emilion that rocked me taste buds. Value savvy consumers will also find a bevy of wines to their liking, although the best of the 2023 Bordeaux wine values come from the Cotes de Bordeaux and other Right Bank appellations.
2023 Bordeaux Vintage, What Happened When during the Growing Season and Harvest.
2023 Bordeaux is the product of an early, and warm spring, with bud break taking place at the start of March. Once again, Bordeaux had to contend with frost in April, but with little loss of crop this year. April brought the duo of warm weather and rain. This is a bad combination because it foreshadows the development of mildew, which can be devastating. With more rain, not only was vine growth exacerbated, but by June, growers were increasingly nervous over the onset of mildew due to the tropical weather patterns which were developing forcing some vignerons to react quickly spraying between 10-20 times in 2023. The end result varied widely with some estates losing more of their crop than others. The majority of the losses were to the Merlot. On the other hand, there are also vineyards recording some of their highest yields in years, if not decades!
June was rainy and cool. July continued with moderate temperatures. By early August, veraison was completed. Due to the lack of sunshine, and tepid conditions, the rate of growth slowed down. In most vintages, this could have had a negative impact. But, with 2023 Bordeaux, it ended having a positive benefit, as it allowed for a longer hang-time, which helped the fruits reach maturity. This was followed by a welcomed heat spike, starting August 23. Another heatwave from September 4 – September 7. Growers were busy picking by mid September when more rain fell. Vignerons with patience waited to pick grapes at phenolic maturity. 2023 Bordeaux turned out much better than most growers anticipated.
