Bordeaux 2023: A Vintage to Love

After tasting nearly 1,100 barrel samples of Bordeaux 2023 vintages, James Suckling‘s verdict is that it compares favourably to some of the region’s great years, but with even more precise winemaking.

Three weeks in Bordeaux tasting nearly 1,100 barrel samples of the 2023 vintage and meeting more than 100 wine producers face-to-face gives you a broad view of a young vintage whose wines are now lying in cellars. I still remember the smile on my face the first time I tasted a red 2023 during a meeting on April 4 with Olivier and Adrian Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier, the respected wine estate in the Pessac-Leognan appellation.

“This is going be fun and the wines should be excellent quality,” I thought to myself, despite some negative publicity about high levels of mildew last June, which reduced grape yields for a number of vineyard owners but did not affect the quality for the best ones. In fact, many of the vineyard growers I talked to spoke of “large” or even “huge” grape yields, which could have had more of a negative effect on the quality for some winemakers.

“The 2023 is really classic,” said Eric Kohler, the technical director of Château Lafite Rothschild. “I’m very confident. It really is Bordeaux.”

Added Fabien Teitgen, the technical director of Château Smith Haut Lafitte: “We have the ripeness from a warm vintage, but you don’t taste it. It remains fresh.”

I’ve seen a lot of young vintages of Bordeaux in my time. This year was my 41st vintage of young Bordeaux tasting from barrel. The first vintage I reviewed as a young taster for The Wine Spectator was 1982 – and I’ve never missed a vintage from barrel in Bordeaux since.

I think a few vintages of the past and present compare to 2023, such as 2019 or 2016 and something older like 2001 or 1996 or 1995. They all had ripe, balanced fruit and firm tannins with slightly lower alcohol and lower pH (strength of acidity) compared with hotter years. But 2023 is different, not only because of its special growing season but also the advances in viticulture and winemaking over the last decade. The top Bordeaux viticulturalist and winemakers are much more precise and thoughtful than in the past.

Philippe Bascaules, the technical director of first-growth Château Margaux, called his 2023 “a classic wine for a vintage that’s not so classic … We talk about vintages of the 1980s and 1990s when we make a comparison. But there’s more concentration and more tannins with the 2023. We’re at the level of tannins and concentration of 1986 and beyond.”

He added it was easier to make the 2023 than 2022, because “alcohol was lower, so we could be slower and more accurate and have more balanced wine. 2022 went so fast with higher alcohol. 2023 was a very gentle process.”

Winemaking appears to have been much less taxing than viticulture in 2023. The weather was very wet during the spring and early summer, though the flowering went very well with excellent berry set for a large crop. The worst mildew came in June, but vineyards with the resources and organisation had few problems combating the disease. Some growers who adhered to organic or biodynamic viticulture had more issues, but not all.

“This was really a vignerons’ [vineyard growers] vintage,” said Pierre Seillan of Château Lassegue in St-Emilion, who may be better known as the head and part owner of Verité Winery in Sonoma County, California. “You had to be on top of your vineyards and react at the right time.”

I heard so many winemakers and vineyard managers say during my trip that if it hadn’t been for the dry and hot weather from the second half of June to the end of August, the harvest could have been compromised by mildew and other diseases. And it may have been unripe. Some say the dry and hot weather wasn’t much different from 2022, but temperatures weren’t as hot during the day in 2023 and were cooler at night. The rain at the end of the summer helped revive vines amid the heat.

However, heat spikes before the rains in late August may have slightly changed the character of many top dry whites, giving them a slightly richer character in the mouth than 2022. The colder 2021 vintage is clearly a better vintage for dry whites, and they’re in bottle now.

Most wineries started picking grapes for their red wines in the first seven to eight days of September and continued until the third weekend, when weather reports had forecast heavy precipitation, though only about a third of the expected amount actually dropped. Many of the cabernets picked after these rains had the best structure and fruit concentration for the wines, particularly in the Medoc.

“The secret was to wait,” admitted Julien Viaud of Rolland et Associes, the winemaking consultancy that advises hundreds of wineries and producers in Bordeaux and dozens more around the world. “We had a lot of rain at the beginning of September. You had to wait. It was a cabernet year, both franc and sauvignon.”

He added: “Some people picked too early, and they may have had some dilution in their grapes.”

One good note, however: these rains also set up the botrytis for sweet wine producers, who made some fantastic offerings in 2023. It’s the third top vintage in a row for Sauternes and Barsac, giving them a trilogy of terrific botrytised wines reminiscent of the legendary 1988, 1989 and 1990.

Vigorous grape selection was important in both the vineyard and at the winery harvest reception area to make outstanding-quality wine. Those with the best grapes made the best wines, as always.

Many wine people I met in Bordeaux spoke of the inconsistent nature of the vintage, with so many different quality levels and personalities to the wine. I’m not sure if they tasted more wines than I did, but I found a very high level of quality in the 1,200 or so samples I rated with my associate, Andrii Stetsuik. I tasted dozens of wines two or three times during my journey.

The big differences in wines were due to terroir specificity, viticultural precision and different winemaking methods, particularly macerations after alcoholic fermentation using soft pump-overs or just infusion techniques. There was definitely an almost-naked nature to the wines during my tasting, where they weren’t marked by the hot weather of the growing season (as in 2022) but expressed their unique character at this early period.

“It was a tightrope vintage,” said Mariette Veyssiere, the winemaker and manager of Château Quintus, the St-Émilion estate with the same owner as first-growth Haut Brion. She was alluding to all the problems with the weather and work in the vineyards as well as picking times. “It was easy to fall and make mistakes.”

This made the wines all the more enjoyable and fascinating. As a taster, I found them very easy to cope with, particularly because they had slightly lower alcohol levels and higher acidities, giving them more transparency and freshness. It was the most enjoyable en primeur tasting I’ve done since rating 2019 from barrel, which was similarly bright.

“People will fall in love with 2023” when they taste it, said Veronique Sanders, the head of Chateau Haut-Bailly. “It’s a bit like 2016 and 2019. They taste it and they want it.”

Whether the wine trade or consumers really want to buy 2023 now is a matter of great debate. Prices are coming down for the 2023, despite the high quality of many wines. All the wine producers I spoke to said they’d be dropping prices. Compared with 2022, some of the very best wines could see decreases of from 20 percent to 35 percent, or even more. This, however, may not offset some vintners’ hefty price increases for their 2022s last year.

En primeur, the French term for wine futures, is a long-established event, but as I wrote in my first story on the vintage, there’s a lot working against selling wines before bottling, including bank interest rates, a soft global wine market, overstocks of wine and declining fine wine prices, not to mention two wars and a stress-ridden US election.

The reality of 2023 Bordeaux en primeur will be more than evident in a few weeks, because from April 29 some of the top names began releasing a portion of their production on the market, with lower prices expected. I’m hoping I still have a smile on my face when I hear the news. 

The Best of Bordeaux 2023

Top 2023 en primeur wines rated.

CHÂTEAU CANON ST-EMILION 2023
99-100 POINTS

This is so elegant and sophisticated already, with a really electric presence and length that goes on and on. It’s medium- to full-bodied with an intensity of tannins. It remains weightless and energetic. A blend of merlot (71 percent) and cabernet franc.

CHÂTEAU LE PIN POMEROL 2023
99-100 POINTS

Shows the exotic nature of Le Pin with blackberries, milk chocolate and hints of spices, as well as coffee beans from the ripe seeds in the grapes. This is so classic Le Pin at the finish. It lasts for minutes in your mouth. Silky and flavourful. 100-percent merlot magic.

CHÂTEAU MARGAUX MARGAUX 2023
99-100 POINTS

The aromas in this young Margaux are so primary, reminding me of grape must fermenting in the vat, then turning to perfumes and flowers. Violets and roses. Full-bodied but comes across as so agile and bright, with vivid acidity that makes the wine crunchy and linear.

CHÂTEAU MONTROSE ST.-ESTÈPHE 2023
99-100 POINTS

Wow! This is the essence of Montrose, with blackberry, blackcurrant, crushed stone and earth. I haven’t tasted a Montrose like this in the 42 years of my career. 75 percent cabernet sauvignon, 21 percent merlot and 4 percent cabernet franc.