One of the virtues of en primeur tastings is that they give the taster a fairly precise snapshot of the vintage. Here are a few characteristics that seem to me to be the signature of 2024.
Nobody is unaware that the season was very difficult and demanding. The extremely rainy spring brought exceptional downy mildew pressure and a chaotic flowering in some areas. This flowering, at times very spread out, led to uneven ripeness.
Finally, the very wet harvest did not allow reds to be picked at full ripeness. The heavy rains forced winegrowers to choose between ripeness and health. To pick more or less ripe grapes, they had to accept the risk of a substantial loss of crop because of the sorting made necessary by rot.
The general weakness of ripeness will therefore have allowed the youngest winemakers to reconnect with a tradition well known to their elders: chaptalisation. This vintage will at least have allowed the transmission of a know-how on the verge of disappearing.
From this observation, what is the profile of this vintage?
As often, there is no uniformity between the different areas of the Bordeaux vineyard. There is nevertheless a general trend that emerges, which can be described in two ways, sugar-coated or blunt: the juices are slender or thin, even lean. The sugar-coated formula will call them slender; the blunter version will describe them as thin, lean. It’s up to you to choose the wording you prefer!
The most interesting wines are therefore the least hollow, those that provide the best-furnished mid-palate. The important issue with such a svelte profile is the accuracy of the extraction on the one hand and the appropriateness of the ageing on the other.
Extractions proved rather fine and well suited on the whole, as seems to have become an excellent habit after years of excess. As for ageing, confidence in the capacity to adapt is less evident. The addiction to oak in the classified growths and similar estates is still tenacious. Let’s hope that winemakers will know how to adapt the amount of oak ageing to material that calls for delicacy and softness.
In short, 2024 produced medium-bodied juices, marked by invigorating acidity. The best-raised wines will prove fine, fresh and slender, very digestible and suited to medium-term keeping. 2024 has a scent of nostalgia; it recalls a not-so-distant era when the quest for ripeness was at the centre of winegrowers’ concerns.
In the meantime, plenty of 2021s are proving delicious and accessible, so let’s drink them with gusto!
