It is great to be reminded that it is still possible to be surprised by a new wine and even, for that matter, a region...
This morning we tasted the 2012 vintage of a South African Syrah from an estate called Leeuwenkuil in Swartland , 50 kilometres to the north of Cape Town. This young vintage showed just how much the South African wine scene has changed in the last ten years and it appears to be Syrah that is stealing the headlines.
Tim Atkin MW recently wrote a piece for Decanter on Swartland, highlighting the region’s rise to prominence. He commented that Syrah has only recently ‘emerged as the Cape’s most exciting red grape, with 10% of plantings and increasing’.
The style of South African Syrah can certainly vary, although the best sites – normally at altitude or benefitting from the coolness imparted by their proximity to either the Atlantic or Indian oceans – capture a more European character than anything that might be stereotyped as being ‘New World’. The Leeuwenkuil, which incidentally sees no new oak during its élevage, shows a Rhône-like profile with lifted, peppery, spicy notes to its gently gamey, brambly fruit. I have to say that the clarity of the style surprised me dramatically… there is a purity to the fruit in a growing number of these new wave South African styles that, for my palate, had been absent in earlier years. The 2012 vintage has been heralded as a remarkably fine vintage in Swartland; as a cooler year, it has delivered a real sense of precision in many of the wines.
Leeuwenkuil (‘Lion’s Lair’ if you were curious about its meaning) is owned by the Dreyer family and can trace its roots back to 1693. It is an extensive estate, the family having recent acquired and absorbed two neighbouring farms. The soils for their Syrah are predominantly sandy-loam over weathered rock with a proportion of clay which assists the vines by releasing moisture through the hot summers. There is a distinctive mineral note to the Leeuwenkuil Syrah which I find intriguing. The bottle we opened continued to improve with air over a two hour period…I must confess that my interest has been piqued. The same can be said, it seems, of Tim Atkin, who placed it in his top five from the region and whose note I include below.
2012 Syrah ‘Heritage’, Leeuwenkuil 18.5/ 20 points, Tim Atkin MW , decanter.com £150 per 6 bottle case in bond
Leeuwenkuil is a comparatively recent label (though the fruit from these vineyards was much coveted by other producer), but its Syrahs are brilliant. Red fruit, spice, bacon fat and white pepper combine enticingly on the palate, here underpinned by taut minerality. Drink 2015-2022
Yesterday evening, we were delighted to host a special tasting and dinner at Enoteca Turi in Sloane Square with Santiago Marone Cinzano, winemaker at Col d'Orcia, showcasing a range of vintages of their highly regarded single vineyard wine, the Poggio Al Vento Brunello di Montalcino Riserva.
Atlas' Managing Director Simon Larkin MW comments, 'yesterday’s Poggio Al Vento tasting and dinner highlighted just how impressive Col d’Orcia’s single vineyard Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is. We were fortunate to be joined by Santiago Marone Cinzano, the 10th generation of winemaker, and were guided through a vertical tasting of vintages spanning 2012 to 1995. While each vintage impressed in different ways, the overall consistency was outstanding. Some vintages showed greater capacity for ageing than others, but the consensus suggested that in a great vintage, this wine is capable of ageing for 20-30 years with ease. Indeed, the 1995 and 1999 showed no signs of fading and continued to blossom in the glass long after being first poured from a double decanted bottle – quite astonishing from a couple of wines aged 29 and 25 years of age respectively.
The 2004 and 2006 vintages were certainly drinking beautifully, showing stunning ripe fruit, complex tertiary notes but equally a fine freshness that belies their age. These two vintages promise to deliver even greater complexity over time. The 2012 was comfortably the most forward drinking of the flight, showing a redder fruit character and appealing silkiness on its supple palate. The 2008, an altogether more dense and powerful wine with darker, liquorice nuances in the fruit profile, was well into its drinking window yet showed no signs of fading soon. The entire range underlined the fact that Col d’Orcia craft outstanding, traditional Brunello with a great potential for ageing.
As I commented at the tasting, much is made of early pronouncements of greatness these days, but proof of true greatness is only confirmed with bottle age. A number of the wines we showed yesterday easily justified the term ‘great’; it was fascinating to taste a vertical of such a fine Brunello. While Poggio al Vento may not be as well-known as some Riservas, it is our opinion that it ranks alongside the very best examples from Montalcino.'
The tasting featured a line-up of the following wines:
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Rosso di Montalcino 2013 (en magnum)
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 2012
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 2008
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 2006
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 2004
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 1999
Tenuta Col d’Orcia Poggio al Vento, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 1995
The Bordeaux en Primeur campaign is underway, and has started in quick form this year. I was still slurping my way through a range of samples at a negociant’s offices in Bordeaux when the first releases were made. Making it a snappier, quicker campaign will be welcomed by the entire trade.
Another welcome sign has been the reductions in price over last year. In recent years, Bordeaux pricing has escalated to such a level that it is invariably more expensive to buy en Primeur than it is to pick up a back vintage from a merchant’s list. You might recall my first write up on Bordeaux this year, where I commented that the aim of en Primeur is to provide beneficial cash flow for the châteaux, a margin for both the negociants and their wine merchant clients, and an appealing price to the end consumer. This doesn’t always transpire, and often wines are priced right on the cusp of fair value, or just over. Invariably, when prices are dropped, the accompanying volume is often restrained by the Châteaux, who hold it back to release at a higher price once it is bottled. This allows the masses of journalists to write about headline price reductions but doesn’t ‘cost’ that much. Fortunately, this year, the volumes released seem to be reasonably good, so the economic backdrop is shaping decisions. We have seen estates like Léoville-Las Cases reduce their price by 47% over the 2022, for example. But as one contact of mine put it, you need to have increased your price fairly dramatically over a period of years to countenance such a move. That said, reductions of 20-40% have been welcomed and at least have generated some interest from consumers, who perhaps were feeling like they were on a treadmill of ever-increasing prices. Obviously, Châteaux that are already more moderately priced, or those that hadn’t pushed hard to elevate their prices, will not have the same scope to cut by 40%, but some of the bigger players have. It has been commented in the wine press that Bordeaux is at some form of crossroads; the appeal of en Primeur doesn’t entirely resonate with a younger audience and there is a lot of wine ‘stuck’ in the system, whether it be burgeoning stock levels with merchants or with negociants. The wine market in general needs to draw in younger consumers, and the traditional approach of en Primeur – buying early and storing for a decade or more even when the price is not necessarily advantageous – doesn’t have a lot to offer as an attraction. Acknowledging this backdrop, Bordeaux could have done more this vintage to make it a complete success, but perhaps lessons are learned in phases rather than in one rather sobering hit.
As ever, much has been written about the new vintage. Reading through and comparing the write-ups of different critics has been particularly interesting this year as they are more divergent on the merits of individual wines than we have noted in a while. One may be championing the qualities of a specific wine, while another’s words suggest they were relatively non-plussed, or are, at least, nowhere near as effusive. I think this speaks to the nature of the 2023 vintage; to my mind there is a raft of good to very good wines, wines with which it is difficult to find obvious fault, but where it is equally tricky to focus on outstanding qualities. That is not to do this vintage down, as I found many appealing wines, but I do not believe that it is an homogenous success nor do I believe it has delivered many epic or potentially legendary wines outside of 10-12 significant successes. I don’t score wines, but I would expect a good number to fall in the 93-96 category on anyone’s 100 points scale.
So, should you buy? We have dealt with the issue of fair value already, but in terms of the qualities of the vintage, the conditions in 2023 have delivered fresh, well-balanced wines with lower alcohol levels than we have witnessed in many recent ‘solar’ Bordeaux vintages. They have a supple appeal; my notes are littered with words like ‘fluidity’, ‘lithe’, ‘mineral drive’, ‘streamlined’, ‘agile’, ‘graceful’ and ‘supple’. This isn’t a vintage that has delivered bold, concentrated wines with a tight block of fruit that will need 15 years to unfurl. It lends itself to being broached earlier than most recent vintages, yet the best of the wines, and the majority, aren’t diffuse either. Despite the well-documented heat in 2023, it was not a solar vintage – that is a handy way to categorise it; it was not a year of continuous blazing sunshine. In recent years we have grown accustomed to hot, dry Bordeaux vintages where the vines suffer to a lesser or greater extent from hydric stress – think 2022, 2020, 2018 for example. We have had very few vintages in the last decade where the growing season has been punctuated by periods of regular rain. Invariably the model has been that winter should replenish the groundwater levels sufficiently to equip the vine with the ability to survive a hot, dry summer. 2023 was different. Equally, when needed, 2023 provided periods when the temperature spiked, which served to build greater ripeness and concentration. These could not be considered heatwaves, as they were not that prolonged, but they served to accelerate the berries towards full phenolic ripeness, giving the resultant wines a touch more density than you might expect in a ‘fluid’ vintage. I talked to a lot of winemakers about crop and berry size; yields were higher than the norm on account both of more berries, due to a very homogenous, efficient flowering, and of greater berry size, meaning more juice in each berry, on account of the more readily available moisture. A couple of commentators have talked about acidity, and yet I do not find the acidities in 2023 to be notably elevated above the levels encountered last year, though they are not offset by the same density of fruit. In many instances, the pHs in 2023 are almost identical to those of 2022. The key point of difference, and the one that has shaped the vintage and reduced the alcohol levels, is dilution. This word need not be pejorative; in many wine regions that I visit the question of yield is being debated. In a bygone age when sunny, hot vintages did not dominate, leaf plucking (exposing the fruit to the sun) and green harvest (reducing the crop so the vine focuses on ripening a lower volume) were de rigueur. Now, with markedly different conditions, there is a broader recognition that higher yields and a higher juice to skin ratio ease the density of the wine, can lead to lower alcohol and allow the winemaker to achieve balance in the wine more easily. The skins today are so rich in phenolics and fruit compounds that the presence of more juice allows you to extend the period of maceration (some winemakers cited this in the 2023 approach). This does not mean that diffuse wines result. If you had a much lower level of ripeness, with thinner skins, then dilution would be an issue in a negative sense and weedy wines would result. In 2023, there is more wine, yields are more generous and that attribute that I looked to describe with a whole host of synonyms in my tasting notes is key to the vintage.
Many merchants and critics have commented on the ‘transparency’ of the vintage. That is a fair comment, but it once more relates to the point on dilution. When you have a densely ripe wine like a number of the 2022s, the signatures of an individual vineyard’s terroir are very often masked in its youth. Terroir then starts to assert as the puppy fat falls away with maturity. Think 1989 or 2009 – both these years showed less evident sense of terroir in their youth and, in fact, many 2009s still have some way to go in their evolution before these signatures start to appear more clearly. In contrast, a vintage like 2014 had this clarity at an early stage. Such vintages were easier to taste young; the fruit was less copious and the vineyard character traits were more easy to read from one wine to the next. I think 2023 is far more successful than 2014, as the latter has a perkier acidity that may take some time to tame, and certainly that vintage did not benefit from the same boost to density that was brought about by the heat spikes in the run up to the 2023 harvest. Comparing such a vintage to previous years is really a mug’s game. I am not trying to argue that 2023 is like this vintage or that, but do believe it is worth highlighting that it has traits of cooler years, even though it was by no means a cool year, and traits of bolder vintages without being bold. All of this, coupled with that supple accent, render it a very appealing vintage and one which should chime with the canny buyer, who simply buys for future consumption as opposed to investment. Of course, speculators will be drawn to several outstanding wines that register as notable high points in this vintage and whose qualities can readily be compared to outstanding young vintages of the past, but I see 2023 as a vintage for the drinker, and I do not believe that the usual patience will be required to quite the same extent before the charms of the 2023 vintage can be enjoyed from bottle.
As ever, the trade is keen to make this vintage work. It is completely understandable given that the fine wine market has lacked direction for this last 12 months. It has been a quiet period for the market on the back of high interest rates and the general global economic backdrop. This has given rise to the usual hyperbole and we have seen some bizarre comments and scores. My advice to anyone interested in buying Bordeaux 2023 is simple: cut through the nonsense, consider whether the style of the vintage that I have described is one that appeals, and do not hesitate to ask us any questions about specific wines that catch your eye. I do think there are a number of bargains to be had this year if you are looking for Bordeaux that you could drink earlier and that represent more of a classically-balanced style, even if the conditions that brought that style about are markedly different. The trade will no doubt debate the reductions witnessed on various wines, and whether the reductions are enough to bring about easy sales and to add some form of a draw to the slightly flagging en Primeur market. We will see how these things play out. In the meantime, at Atlas, we will continue to highlight wines that impressed us and where we believe the price is favourable. The decision is yours, but we remain on hand to advise as and when you need it.
I opened by saying that the 2023 Bordeaux en Primeur campaign started quickly. It is now taking a pause for French May Bank Holidays and will resume in earnest next week with the goal of releasing most wines before Bordeaux decamps to Hong Kong for Vinexpo Asia from 28th to 30th May.
Read our exclusive Bordeaux En Primeur 2023 Pre-Report
The Bordeaux En Primeur season is upon us and two of our team have just returned from the UGC tastings and a series of independent chateau visits. On Monday, three more of us head out to taste – this time focusing largely on the Right Bank. Our Vintage Report will follow shortly, but it suffices to say that 2023 has the makings of very good vintage. Recent Bordeaux vintages may be showing a progression towards hot and dry conditions, but 2023 was a vintage where the growing season received regular intervals of rain, and not in dramatic amounts. This has boosted berry size and thereby eased concentration back from the 2022 level, where rich wines were more the norm, with relatively significant alcohol levels. Conversely, the best of 2023 show fine balance, good freshness, and more moderate levels of alcohol. Winemakers were able to carry out lengthier macerations as the juice to skin ratio was higher on account of a larger berry size – when the vines are subject to increased hydric stress clearly resultant berry size is smaller. With lower alcohol and more juice, winemakers did not have quite the same concerns about over-extracting as they had last year. Despite vastly different vintage conditions to back in the day, it is more of a throwback vintage, more classically styled than the heat summation data might lead you to believe. It begs the question that, if conditions are moving towards the hot and dry end of the spectrum in general, how many such years where the season is punctuated by adequate rainfall are we likely to witness in a decade? One could be forgiven for thinking that such years are likely to prove to be the anomaly as opposed to the norm. Our impression of the 2023s, largely based on our sampling of the Left Bank, leads us to believe there are a range of impressive, appealing Cabernet dominant wines that show good volume of fruit and fine natures, with good balancing acidities. The big question concerns price – 2023 could be a successful vintage for the region, if release prices are well-judged. All in all, 2023 maybe a welcome surprise, even if it does not register as one of thee more dramatic vintages of recent times. As ever, we will make our recommendations to you, based on quality and value, in our stream of regular offers. Atlas has always remained selective in its approach to Bordeaux en primeur, rather than opting to offer every single release far and wide as most of the trade does. We do however have availability of more wines than those we choose to endorse; for which you will be able to register your interest.
A word on pricing The aim of Bordeaux’s En Primeur system is to allow the sale of the wine, on paper, two years before it is bottled. When the system works well it provides beneficial cash flow for the chateaux, a margin for the negociants and their wine merchant clients, and allegedly an appealing price for the end consumer. Release pricing used to be influenced by the negociants and the courtiers (the agents between the negociants and the chateaux), but all that changed in the early 1980s when demand for the wines started to build and the chateaux assumed far greater control, now absolute control, over price setting. Negociants find themselves in a position where they are obliged to buy, even if they don’t agree with the price, as if they opt out one year, they will lose their allocations in the subsequent year. What does this interesting background have to do with the 2023 Bordeaux en primeur offer? Well, I think it is in the balance this year. 2023 is a good vintage overall, rather than exceptional, though, as always, the generalised view masks the notable successes that push above the average quality. We are told the Bordelais Chateaux owners are aware of the economic backdrop, the fact that en primeur has perhaps lost some of the limelight in recent years, and the fact that the fine wine market is feeling a little flat right now. We are told we can expect significant reductions on last year’s levels. But what kind of reduction might be required to fully resuscitate the patient? There has been plenty of discussion in the market about reductions in the realm of 30-40% on average. If that were to transpire, I think it would be a good sign that the decision-makers in Bordeaux do not exist in some parallel universe, and it should lead to clients who perhaps have hung back on the sidelines during en primeur season to enter the fray once more. The last time I can recall such a significant reduction in release pricing was the 2008 vintage, which served to re-engage the market and led to a far better campaign than many envisaged at the outset. The sad reality of Bordeaux en primeur is it becomes a discussion of price above almost everything else. The system of selling has led to this as it was supposed to deliver benefit down the chain from chateaux to consumer, but it hasn’t always transpired that way. The hiatus of 2009 and 2010 left many people who purchased high and dry, many still holding stocks that are underwater today. If the Bordelais get the pricing ‘right’, then perhaps the conversation will return to the relative merits of the wines themselves. Either way, we won’t have to wait long as one lesson that appears to have been learned is not to protract the period of releases. We already know that the release schedule will commence in earnest as early as Tuesday or Wednesday next week and expect a quickfire campaign condensed into three to four weeks rather than the usual drawn out affair with the last releases emerging as everyone starts to disappear on summer holidays.
Our Vintage Report will be sent to you next week which will provide further information on forthcoming Bordeaux releases.
