- William Kelley has published his first Bordeaux en primeur report for the Wine Advocate.
- He likened the 2021 vintage to certain vintages from the 1990s stylistically.
- Château Ausone and Château Haut-Brion were among his contenders for ‘wine of the vintage’.
The Wine Advocate has published William Kelley’s report and scores for the Bordeaux 2021 wines. The report is the first by Kelley since he took over reviewing the region at the end of 2021.
In his report, he quickly states that this is a difficult vintage to generalise. ‘On each visit to a property […] I encountered a different facet and interpretation of the vintage,’ he said.
Although he wrote that it is not a ‘great’ vintage, ‘it has produced several genuinely great wines, as well as many good to excellent wines that will deliver immense pleasure’.
He added that it was a vintage with the ‘balance and style’ of one from the 1990s crossed with ‘all the agronomic progress and savoir faire of the present’.
Assessment of the wines
Kelley even said that ‘were the 2021s transposed to the decade of the 1990s, they would be considered the product of a superb vintage’.
He found similarities with the 1999 and 1996 vintages in the Cabernet-driven wines of the Médoc, and while there is a growing consensus that these wines will be ready to drink early, he added: ‘anyone who enjoys the great benchmark Bordeaux wines of the 1980s and 1990s should seriously reflect on what the 2021s may have to offer in 10 to 15 years’ time.’
On the other hand, he acknowledged the vintage’s deficiencies as well. ‘Bloody, ferric, metallic aromas and flavours’ are a sign of the mildew that affected the vintage.
Dilution was another problem and the most common deficiency he found was ‘a somewhat hollow mid-palate’.
Not to be forgotten are the white wines, which received a glowing assessment. Kelley said they were ‘chiselled and intense’, perhaps the ‘finest set of dry whites since 2017’ and with ‘considerable potential’.
Top-scoring wines
A selection of Kelley’s scores can be seen in the table above. Several of his top-scoring wines, such as Château Ausone and Château Margaux, were also among the top-rated labels of French critic Jean-Marc Quarin.
Kelley called Ausone ‘full-bodied, seamless and sensual’ and the ‘essence of limestone terroir’. Haut-Brion, meanwhile, he called a ‘timeless classic in the making’.
Both he described as candidates for wine of the vintage, with other wines such as Château Léoville Las Cases (‘a hypothetical blend of 1999 and 1996 – only better) and Margaux (‘multidimensional’) not far behind.
Kelley’s scores for all the key estates can be viewed on the Critics’ Scores Grid on our dedicated Bordeaux 2021 pages.
Price to be drunk
Concluding, Kelley looked at the potential market for this vintage. In his view, ‘the best possible fate for the 2021 vintage is to be drunk’.
He added it would be ‘regrettable’ if this did not happen (‘as I’m convinced that consumers will find much to enjoy’) and hoped to see the 2021s priced ‘between the 2019 and 2020 vintages’.
He echoed the sentiment in Liv-ex’s En Primeur report that ‘the more reasonable the pricing the easier it will be to perpetuate the positive momentum that the 2019 vintage initiated’.
Although the 2019 vintage’s prices were a response to the growing pandemic of the time, Kelley argued that the current ‘economic and geopolitical outlook of early 2022 continue to exhibit considerable uncertainty’.
Here is the link to the Liv-ex En Primeur Report for Bordeaux 2021, which was published recently and is currently available to members only.
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Liv-ex analysis is drawn from the world’s most comprehensive database of fine wine prices. The data reflects the real time activity of Liv-ex’s 560+ merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £100m of bids and offers across 16,000 wines. Independent data, direct from the market.
