Discuss to only about anybody concerned in making it, they usually’ll put this down to 1 easy phrase: precision. For a very long time and till comparatively lately, making Bordeaux was not a completely scientific endeavour. Whether or not within the vines or vats, there was an acceptance that often issues simply occurred, or didn’t, that have been past the producer’s management. Generally that labored of their favour, yielding a wine-of-the-vintage contender. Generally it went the opposite approach, they usually had a crop of crap.
It’s completely different right now. Châteaux have certified agronomists, agricultural engineers and oenologists on workers, and these disciplines are much better understood. There’s a relentless movement of interns from winemaking faculties all over the world. These folks have the knowhow and sources to beat no matter nature throws at them, to make the most effective of every winery in every classic.
Working exactly signifies that something controllable is managed. You’re managing 20, 30 or extra constituent parcels of vines, treating every with thought and care all through the rising season. You then harvest the fruit of every parcel at its second of optimum ripeness. You kind it strictly, eradicating something not fairly proper, and also you make a batch of wine. This occurs in your state-of-the-art cellar, which is obsessively clear – and has extra fermentation vats than you might have parcels of vines. Treating every batch as gently or as firmly as your analyses warrant, you then age it in no matter barrel or vat or tank or egg or glass ball will finest go well with it. Then, and solely then, do you mix. The completed product is as near perfection as attainable. Chapeau. However would that strategy have yielded a Mouton 1945 or a Palmer 1961?
I ponder if it’s attainable to be too exact. It’s not that up to date Bordeaux wines lack distinctive character. Removed from it. Precision isn’t winemaking by rote or following a recipe – costs levelled towards the earlier era. What works for Cheval Blanc received’t essentially apply subsequent door at Figeac, for instance. And it’s not just like the hand of the maker exhibits too closely, both. The Bordelais are too good for that, the times of super-ripe grapes, heavy extraction and plentiful new oak firmly behind them. (There’s a clear transfer in the direction of a lighter contact, which is in itself an attention-grabbing improvement.) However is all this precision main in the direction of a homogeneity, I ponder – if not of fashion, then of strategy?
By most measures, good Bordeaux is healthier now than ever earlier than: extra phenolic ripeness, higher stability, just about no faults. When a château of a sure standing makes a stinker of a wine today, it’s notable as a result of it’s uncommon. However, is it actually all that newsworthy when a prime property makes an excellent wine? Each midway bold property is working at a better degree than up to now, with each element exactly managed.
Are we lacking out on these fleeting, random moments of magic – the slightly-too-early harvest, the spontaneous fermentation, the mix-up within the barrel cellar – that result in one thing out of the extraordinary? Is there a flattening of the curve between highs and lows?
It’s laborious to inform, and we would by no means know – these accidents, pleased or in any other case, will possible grow to be a factor of the previous. Bordeaux now’s much less finger-in-the-air and extra finger-on-the-pulse: all the time watching, studying, observing. The extra exactly the châteaux work, the higher their wines get.
Taken to its excessive, if precision strikes from being a way to an finish in the direction of an finish in itself, would possibly this strategy go away us with one thing just a little too excellent? One tough edge too many smoothed out, the final little quirk filed down. No person needs overtly rustic tannins, although I’ve received a comfortable spot for just a little little bit of solidity right here and there; one individual’s refined tannins could also be one other’s lack of identification.
In time, would possibly this convergence in strategy result in a convergence in model?
In my glass this month
Château Picoron in Castillon takes the parcel-by-parcel strategy one step additional by bottling particular person plots individually. The Né de l’Eden 2017 (£19.75-£22 Forest Wines, JN Wine, Thorne Wines) is a minimal-intervention Merlot from a single clay-limestone plot. There’s loads happening, with floral notes and concentrated berry fruit together with bitter darkish chocolate and meaty character. It’s enjoyable and playful, although it has a severe aspect. It developed properly over a number of days going backwards and forwards.
