Bordeaux Report Top Guns

Bordeaux’s elite estates shine in the inconsistent 2019 vintage

- By James Molesworth. Photographs by Deepix Studio

Bordeaux vintages are typically remembered for the quality of the year’s wines or for a dramatic weather pattern during the growing season. Yet the conversation around the 2019 vintage, now being shipped, was markedly different, defined by the outbreak of COVID-19 in the early spring of 2020. While the pandemic had no effect on the wines themselves, the ensuing market volatility and economic headwinds—some of which have yet to abate—presented fresh challenges for the region, not only in getting the wines tasted by professionals, but also in bringing them to market. The 2019 vintage was the first year since 2010 for which I was unable to travel to Bordeaux and taste the wines from barrel during their en primeur period, and now global supply chain issues are causing delays in shipping.

Regardless of the powerful hype that roars to life every en primeur season, the real proof for a new vintage of Bordeaux is in the bottle later on. Over the last several months of 2021, I tasted nearly 500 finished wines from Bordeaux’s 2019 vintage via blind tastings conducted in our New York office. The results show a year whose wines are marked by extreme heat and drought, with impressive highs countered by less successful efforts.

Although the reputation of a new Bordeaux vintage is generally steered by the success of a few top producers, any true assessment of quality depends on the bulk of offerings from a range of appellations and