BORDEAUX 2022 EN PRIMEUR

• Suave, polished, intense red wines with a refined power, joyous energy and complexity.

• A new era for the region’s red wines, marrying youthful accessibility with great potential for long-term cellaring.


• Dry whites and sweet wines have charm and appeal, with a focus on youthful pleasure.


• A small crop: yields are down approximately 30% due to the drier summer conditions.


• A hot and early vintage but one which bears no comparison to the excesses of 2003. The 2022s have a balance and fine fruit profile with no indication of heat stress.

• A vintage to seek out wines at all price points. Quality is about location and careful management decisions. Petits châteaux have excelled within their classification, just as the great classed growths have in theirs.

• A vintage for all varieties and all appellations. In the Right Bank, Merlot and Cabernet Franc are exceptional. The Cabernet drive and vigour in the Left Bank has the ability to achieve greatness.

• Balanced, exciting and enormously pleasurable.

"The consistency of quality is just one surprise to come out of this vintage of extremes. The other amazing twist is the styles. There is a luminosity to many of the wines from 2022 that defies what we thought we knew about Bordeaux varieties. It whispers previously untold truths about the potential of the region’s terroirs and vines in the face of climate change. A relatively dry winter and spring and the subsequent smaller vine canopies from the get-go can go some way to explaining the differences between the number of effortless beauties in 2022 vs the number of monsters in 2003. But the undeniable brightness of 2022’s wines remind us that it is arrogant to think we understand all the mysteries that happen beneath the ground or the extent of the coping mechanisms of vines."
Lisa Perotti Brown, The Wine Advocate

"...winemakers have learnt from previous hot vintages such as 2003 and 2018 what to do and what not to do, but so, it seems, have the vines themselves. Unlike some previous years, in 2022 the leaves on the vines stayed green and healthy – right through to November in some cases. As Fabien Teitgen, who has been at Ch Smith Haut Lafitte in Pessac-Léognan for 27 years, put it: ‘2022 was hotter and drier than any other season right from the start. So the vine got used to the heat compared to, say, 2003 when hot, dry weather suddenly arrived in summer.’ A devout practitioner of organic and biodynamic precepts, he rejects the notion that the vines might have their own intelligence, ‘but vines have a better relationship with the soil now’."
Jancis Robinson

"This is, however much you try to resist the term, an extraordinary vintage. This is, however much you try to resist the term, an extraordinary vintage. It’s not one without challenges, and the words ‘earliest harvest since 1893’ tend to scare off most people who look for balance in their wines. Looking back on the past month of tasting, there’s no doubt there’s drama here, in many cases way too much of it. But there is also plenty to love, and slowly but surely, these wines have won me over.... One thing for sure is that 2022 is a vintage that will be referenced for many years to come, and I’ve tasted many exceptional wines that are truly worth getting excited about."
nJane Anson

"This is the 40th year I have tasted barrel samples in Bordeaux, but I have never come across anything like the 2022 vintage. It was one of the hottest and driest growing seasons in the history of France’s most famous wine region, yet it produced thousands of opulent and structured but still fresh and balanced wines. For me personally, it sets a new benchmark for Bordeaux after my first reference vintage for the region from barrel, 1982. The 2022 shows that the vineyards of the region are resilient and adaptive enough to counterbalance the obvious effects of climate change... It gives us hope that both man and nature can adapt to these circumstance and produce outstanding wines, both red and white." James Suckling

"Everyone who has tasted the wines will agree that the quality and character of the 2022 vintage in Bordeaux is a surprise. How did conditions so extreme deliver wines of such aromatic range and freshness? How can wines of such density and structure exhibit such textural refinement and charm? ... At its best, this is a vintage of remarkable concentration, energy and harmony; but far from forgiving mistakes, 2022 punished them, and the less-successful wines are jammy, astringent and rustic ... terroirs conventionally thought to be of only modest potential were also capable of delivering brilliant results this year." William Kelley, The Wine Advocate

"The 2022s are some of the most memorable young wines I have ever tasted in Bordeaux. The best 2022s are magnificent, viscerally thrilling wines that show what is possible with thoughtful approaches to viticulture and winemaking. A number of properties at all levels made their best wines ever. But 2022 is not consistently great from top to bottom, so some selection is warranted." Antonio Galloni, Vinous