Jane Anson has released her scores and tasting report for the Bordeaux 2024 En Primeurs. While taking a slightly more positive tone than William Kelley (report summary here), in her 20+ years of En Primeur tasting, Anson has never encountered a larger gap between successful and less-successful wines than this year.
According to her, buyers will ‘find wines that have over-performed expectations’, but ‘pricing is truly key — châteaux surely have to recognise that recent En Primeur release prices have not been sustained in the marketplace, even for more successful vintages than this.’
Anson notes that the 2024s are superior to the 2013s and (in some cases) the 2021s, thanks to warmth and dryness in July and August. Our analysis of her scores (considering the 33 of the wines we cover during En Primeur for which there was a full set of scores), puts her average for the 2024s at 93.7 — higher than her average of 90.8 for the 2013s, but lower than her average for any other recent vintage.
She awarded her top score of 97 points to five wines – L’Église-Clinet, La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, Les Champs Libres, Pavillon Blanc and Coutet.
Top-scoring Left Bank wines
Cabernet Sauvignon, more so than Merlot and Cabernet Franc, struggled to ripen in the 2024 vintage. According to Anson, high acidity – particularly ubiquitous on the Left Bank — worked to the advantage of some wines, adding ‘juice, muscles and salinity’, but ‘emphasised the tannins’ and resulted in sharpness for others. She warns that (also owing to under-ripeness) some wines exhibit ‘hard tannins’ and ‘pyrazine green pepper notes’.
Nevertheless, some wines were successful — ‘floral, fragrant and nuanced’. According to Anson, ‘the key to the vintage was reacting early… taking things away that would impair successful ripening’. Chateau Margaux was Anson’s top scoring Left Bank 2024, receiving 96 points.
Each of her top-scoring wines in this category, however, fared worse than in 2023; Montrose, Ducru-Beaucaillou and Lafite Rothschild all fared worse than in 2014.
Top-scoring Right Bank wines
Anson’s successes on the Right Bank are more numerous. L’Église-Clinet was the only red wine to achieve her highest score of the vintage – 97 points. She scored Lafleur and Ausone on par with Margaux at 96 points, and six more at 95 points.
Alongside proper sorting, terroir played a key role in determining success of the Right Banks. Pomerols ‘on the classic inner plateau with high quality gravel and clay were better able to regulate the water supply’. The ‘whole game [for St. Emilion] has been how to handle the austerity without rendering things too tight’. The sub-region has delivered ‘many tasty, successful if slim wines’. Fronsac and Canon Fronsac struggled with hail, austerity and achieving full maturity.
Top-scoring white wines
Anson awarded four of her five 97-point scores to white wines – La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, Les Champs Libres and Pavillon Blanc on the dry side, and Coutet on the sweet. She credits the more homogenous success of the dry white wines to the ability this vintage provided in maintaining aromatics but added that the ‘lack of density’ prevented her from veering into higher score ranges. The sweet wines were ‘less luscious than the 2022s and 2023s’ but many were ‘balanced [and] delicious’.
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 620+ merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £140m of bids and offers across 20,000 wines.
