The Big Guns - The best of the best from the awe inspiring Bordeaux 2022 vintage

The 2022 vintage serves as a timely reminder that when Bordeaux fires on all cylinders, it is untouchable ANTONIO GALLONI

The high points of the vintage touch the sky. Two thousand twenty-two witnessed the birth of legendary wines and unbeatable value-for-money, if it isn’t just a label that gets endorphins rushing...The 2022 vintage serves as a timely reminder that when Bordeaux fires on all cylinders, it is untouchable...At their pinnacle, mon Dieu, I really love the 2022s. Those that shone in barrel tend to shine in bottle. This is a vintage with a range of “snow-capped peaks.” These are wines that foment euphoria, a handful with perfection in their sights. Allow me to quote the musical analogy from my barrel report since it sums up the style of the vintage. The 2022s are not warbling Neil Youngs. They are Freddie Mercury strutting the stage. The best will rock you... 

The best wines of 2022 deliver sensational aromatics. They lean toward opulence, thankfully without the overbearing, slightly blowsy nature of the 2018s and, further back, 2003s. Crucially, the elite retain or even heighten delineation. It is as if you can pick each scent individually, like listening to music through a high-end audio system. Often, one finds floral traits of violet and iris flower, though these will ebb with time as the DNA of respective terroirs comes through. The levels of freshness are occasionally breathtaking....These are quite intense wines that deliver purity of fruit and quite plush and pliant tannins, often mouth-filling wines that satiate the senses. ANTONIO GALLONI

Readers can refer to my earlier En Primeur report, where I called 2022 an incredible, singular vintage. Now that the wines are in bottles, it’s clear they have fully lived up to the early hype—and not just at the high end. The 2022s are deep, layered, and concentrated while staying beautifully balanced, light on their feet, and elegant. This is an extraordinary vintage that will go down in record books as one of the all-time greats. JEB DUNNUCK

Firstly, the hype is real. I know that Bordeaux has a reputation for marketing hyperbole but I can tell you first-hand after tasting a swathe of '22 Bordeaux in Paris last month that this is a vintage that you are not going to want to miss. As Galloni says above "The high points of the vintage touch the sky" with an incredible marriage of pure, opulent fruit, soaring, detailed aromatics, lithe tannins and surprising freshness. 2022 was another warm modern vintage but if you were expecting wines that bore the muscle and gruff tannins of the 2010's, or the over-ripe fruit that plagues the 2003s, you won't find them among the best wines on offer. It seems in Bordeaux, with their deep pockets and continuing investment in the management of vineyards and cellars, they are now simpatico with weather conditions of the modern age. It's incredibly impressive to see how in 2022, the wines' big personalities are incredibly met with fruit purity, balance and poise. 

I had not delved into specific reviews before I tasted the 22s but looking at them now, it's no surprise to see so many perfect and near perfect scores across the best wines. We are spoiled for riches and although the top wines still command top prices, the quality on offer rivals any modern vintage and surpasses most. In today's offer I have selected the best of the best from 2022. Top wines from top estates that nailed the brief, with many making wines as good as they ever have in the past. I will leave it to the pundits below to outline each individual wine but I can't recall seeing so many of these monumental wines so close to perfection in a single vintage, the notes below on each wine speak to that remarkable fact as well. Nothing else left to say here except buy up big in 2022.

2022 vintage summary by Fiona Morrison -  Master of Wine

2022 is a miraculous vintage. It was the year that the vine showed its resilience to climate change and adapted to both the heat and the drought that were present throughout the summer, to make elegant, fresh, fruity wines that often showed the best of the terroirs in which they grow. We have never seen anything like it!

 To quickly sum up the weather patterns: A period of cold weather in January allowed the vines to become dormant so they could regenerate for the year ahead. As the vines began to grow, the weather turned warm and stayed so until the end of the harvest with more than 30 days during the summer months reaching over 30°C. The flowering happened quickly and evenly throughout Bordeaux. Heavy rainstorms at the end of June were a welcome respite for the parched soils although two bands of hail did considerable damage in St. Estèphe and the Haut Médoc as they diagonally crossed the Gironde estuary at the same time. The drought meant that the grapes were small and concentrated which accounted for the small yields during harvest. The drought was felt everywhere, particularly for holiday makers on the Atlantic coast where huge fires in the pine forests of the Landes destroyed over 20,000 hectares of forest.  

So how come the wines are so good? Firstly, because the weather was already warm during the start of the growth period, the vines realised early on that they had to adapt to these weather conditions. They produced less foliage as there was going to be sufficient light and 

heat to ripen their grapes and when the veraison came, they quickly changed their efforts from vegetative growth to berry development. It may be too fanciful to say that vines have a memory which helps them to adapt to climate change, but we did indeed see that the vines knew how to adapt to this year’s weather conditions.

Secondly, the grapes were in perfect health with no fungal diseases. Instead of spraying the grapes, the attention was drawn to the architecture of the vine. Growers made sure that there was a parasol effect so that the vines were shaded, especially on the west side of the vine rows and only a dappled light effect could enter the canopy. They did very little leaf stripping and then only on the east side of the vines and no green harvest. In fact, this year, vignerons tended to leave the vines to their own devices. Their confidence in them was rewarded.

Thirdly, throughout the summer and autumn, the nights were fresh, creating a large temperature difference between day and night, which many believed helped to “polish” the tannins in the skins as the grapes expanded and contracted. This also helped to keep the vines fresh and allowed them to rest overnight.

Finally, Bordeaux has learnt a great deal about viticulture in these times of climate change: Pruning techniques have changed: pruning later than in the past to avoid frost damage to the buds and spreading the vine over a double guyot to open the vine and extend its branches. Heavy ploughs are no longer used in the vineyards, as they could break up the earth around the roots. Instead, electric rakes just scratch the surface, so humidity can get underground without disturbing the soils., Mulch or cover crops are put in the vine rows, maybe doing this once every two or three rows to keep the balance right and the stress levels down, to make sure there was enough water preserved underground. The microbial life around the root system has become very important to keep the worms and the vines happy. Bordeaux vineyards today look very different from the tidy but barren parcels of a decade or so ago with their vegetation cut like a hedge to keep everything neat and tidy.

Why should you buy these wines? Most importantly 2022 is a surprisingly successful vintage with delicious, elegant, fruit and fresh wines. Bordeaux has shown that it can make extraordinary wines in a hot and dry year and that its vines are going to survive. If you want to buy a beautiful vintage in the time of climate change, that has incredible aging potential, this is it. 

FIONA MORRISON – Master of Wine