Neal Martin’s Bordeaux 2017 report, The F-Word, has now been published on Vinous.
Martin calls the vintage “good to very good”. Despite not coming close to 2015 or 2016 in most cases, he says that, “some proprietors talked of a ‘2014-plus’ which is pretty fair.”
He adds: “In banal terms, I like this vintage. I am not saying it is the best, but they were mostly a pleasure to taste and fascinating to learn about.”
Martin’s top red wines from the vintage are Lafleur (“an awesome 2017”), Lafite Rothschild (“classic from start to finish”) and Eglise Clinet (“gets better and better as it opens in the glass”). Each received 95-97 points.
Two Sauternes, Yquem and Doisy-Daene, reveived equally high scores.
On the market, Martin suggests that releases fall into two camps: those that are priced to sell through to the end customer – that the trade can get behind – and those that are priced to move no further through the supply chain than the negociants’ holdings. He comments: “I am privy to merchants’ actual sales to consumers and it is black and white, successful or disastrous, often hundreds of cases or zero … There is no such thing as a vintage that cannot sell. It just means the price is wrong for consumers”.
These sentiments are very closely aligned with Liv-ex’s own findings in the Bordeaux 2016 concluding report, hit and miss, which concluded that last year’s campaign was one of mixed successes.
Martin’s report, which aside from wine mentions Sharknado, Billy Rae Cyrus, Santa’s reindeer and My Little Pony (not all in the same sentence) will have been anticipated by Liv-ex members, who voted him as the Bordeaux critic they follow most avidly, as highlighted in our recent En Primeur report. You can find a selection of his top scores below, and the full report on Vinous.
Antonio Galloni’s report is expected to appear on the publication tomorrow.
To compare Martin’s scores to others, please view our comparison grid.
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