Wine Enthusiast’s Roger Voss published his Bordeaux 2019 report last week and like many critics his report landed amid the releases, a unique addition to this year’s campaign. Roger initially found the wines “benefitted from staying in a barrel a month or two later than normal”, adding, “the wines turned out to be rather good”.
The 2019 vintage “doesn’t have the power and tannins of 2018 and 2016”, said Roger. He opted to equate the 2019 release as “a cross between the openness of 2009, a popular vintage for American wine lovers, and the more structured 2010, perhaps with a little light 1999 thrown in”.
His highest scores of the year went to Chateau Margaux (98-100) and Chateau Valandraud (98-100). He found that the “the vintage is best when there’s a good proportion of either Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc in the blend” and the two aforementioned wines “sum up the vintage with their luscious fruits combined with restrained power”.
Based in the United States, Roger noted “the 25% tariffs that went into effect on October 18 and reduced French imports by almost half remains an issue”. He further explained that, “due to business slowdowns as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many restaurants and hotels are not currently able to increase their wine inventory”.
Roger concluded with his wine of the vintage, Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte. He awarded 96-98 points. He detailed that “with its great exuberance, sheer enjoyment of its fruits and dark dense structure all in great balance, this is what Bordeaux 2019 is about”.
His top scoring Bordeaux 2019 wines can be found below and his full vintage report can be found here.
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Our Bordeaux 2019 pages contain everything you need to know about this year’s En Primeur campaign; analysis tools, critic scores, reports and more.
