What’s really happening with Bordeaux 2018 through eyes of winemaker Gavin Quinney
By Richard Siddle
You would think, on paper, Bordeaux has got everything. Its got the history, the river, the Right Bank, the Left Bank, the wine, and a city that is repeatedly voted the best in the world to visit.
Yet put “Bordeaux” in the search window of your computer and all you get coming up are stories of despair, woe and misery. At least you do if you type in Bordeaux and wine. This week is no different.
The first headline that appears is “Bordeaux wines ravaged by fungal disease” with the somewhat alarming news that this year’s Bordeaux harvest could be down by 70% as a result of mildrew tearing through the region’s famous vines destroying grapes as it goes.
The reality, as always, is slightly less dramatic than that. Yes, there is mildrew, thanks to the heavy spring rains, and some producers could lose as much as 70%, with the emphasis being on the “some”.
The actual picture, like so much that is written about Bordeaux, is a lot more complicated and harder to generalise. But being the famous wine region in the world comes with its drawbacks.
The most frustrating, at least for the Bordelais, is the region as a whole tends to be lumped together when it comes to mainstream news reporting. Which becomes doubly frustrating when you consider Bordeaux is arguably the most complex, divided, different and varied wine region in the world. Making any generalisations are almost impossible when you have Grand Crus being thrown into the same analysis as a village AOC.
On the ground
Those best placed to know what is actually going on in Bordeaux are those directly involved in making the wine. The grapevine of knowledge and insight is very much alive between growers, winemakers and producers, regardless of their place in their Bordeaux food chain.
Like Gavin Quinney, the English winemaker who has been making wine in Créon at Château Bauduc for close to 20 years. The majority of Quinney’s wine he sells direct to private customers in the UK as well as having longstanding accounts with top Michelin star chefs, Gordon Ramsey and Rick Stein, and other key premium restaurant accounts.
But as a former executive at a leading computer business he also has a head and capacity for crunching numbers and analysing data not just from his own winery, but across all regions and producers in Bordeaux. Data and insights he shares with the fine wine trading site, Live-ex and jancisrobinson.com.
He is arguably, outside of the main generic bodies, the best placed winemaker “on the ground” to give his assessment of the current vintage going into harvest. Or as he puts it "the business end of the season”.
He says that after the infamously “damp” spring, the start of the summer has been dry and hot. “In fact, of the last 44 days, 22 have seen temperatures over 30°C, with another 14 over 28°C,” he says.
“In the last six weeks we had some useful rain at the very end of June and start of July, and since then it’s been dry, although some areas had a mid-month downpour. This arid, warm patch has been great for the vines, as hydric stress has a way of convincing the vines to concentrate on fruit production rather than on vegetative growth. Relatively cool nights have been good for bunches of young grapes.”
The hot weather looks set to continue and he says there are some early concerns that “some vines start to suffer with the thirtysomething heat and no water, especially those on drier ground”.
“This has been the fourth dry July on the trot, though the difference with 2018 is that it’s been much hotter - over 1.5°C warmer than the average and almost 2°C above the 2017 average temperature. June too was warmer at 20.5°C compared to the average of 19.3°C, May was on a par with the average and April much warmer. These elements were good for vine growth and for the flowering in June, but also for the increased threat of mildew in the humid conditions.”
But it is still early days. “We have a long way to go to the September and October harvest, and the grapes haven’t even changed colour yet, so there’s little to be alarmed about for now.”
The real ripening season happens in August and winemakers will be looking for a balance in temperatures as “too much heat and the vines can effectively switch off”.
Mildrew factor
Looking back on the conditions that have resulted in some vineyards suffering mildrew, Quinney says the issue was as follows: “March rain was well above average, so, on top of the winter rain, we might have had plenty of water in reserve but we also had soggy vineyards that were hard to access by tractor for maintenance work and for spraying when the time came.”
This has been followed by slightly higher levels of rain than average in April, May and June, but, he stresses, “nothing untoward once a proper summer kicked in post mid-June”.
Quinney, however, says it is quite understandable that mildrew is very much a factor for some producers this vintage.
“Every week we’d be sent a mildew risk assessment as ‘favorable’, meaning, somewhat conversely, that conditions were favourable for the mildew but not for the grower. We’ve had the toughest test against mildew since the dodgy 2013 season and some vineyards have really struggled to keep this fungal ‘maladie’ at bay - it can impact bunches as well as leaves.”
His own Bauduc estate has only seen “minimal impact on the red and no mildew at all on the white”, but he admits to being “fairly surprised to see some pretty well-managed properties really struggle, with mildew clearly evident in the vineyards”.
Before adding: “The vast majority of top châteaux though have coped well in this regard and the vines look verdant and healthy, but mildew has indeed been an issue.”
Winners and losers
Looking forward to the harvest itself, Quinney expects it will be another vintage of winners and losers across the region. He says his own “yields look very promising, despite some rain in the first half of June during the flowering”.
“Others have not been so lucky,” he adds. “2018 has seen several storms, often accompanied by hail warnings. Whereas in 2017 a widespread frost at the end of April resulted in a substantial loss for the region as a whole, hailstorms have wreaked havoc on vineyards in a number of really unlucky appellations this year. On May 26, the most devastating storm took out thousands of hectares in Bourg and Blaye and in the southern end of the Haut-Médoc. It had begun in the northern Graves and ripped through parts of the city of Bordeaux on its journey north towards Cognac.
“This month, on Sunday July 15 - the very day that France won the football World Cup - hailstorms battered vineyards in Sauternes, the Haut-Médoc (again), the Côtes de Bourg (again) and to a lesser extent near Fronsac. The vines at châteaux like de Fargues in Sauternes and La Lagune in the Haut-Médoc took a hell of a beating. For some, it was the second season in a row that disaster struck, after being hit by the late spring frost in 2017.”
Quinney knows only too well the devastation that hail can bring having being hit on a number of occasions over the last 18 years making wine in Bordeaux.
“Losing your crop to hail is the stuff of nightmares and the recent sight of rows upon rows of damaged vines, once again, never fails to fill me with a sense of shock and, of course, pity for the grower.
Let’s hope that’s the end of it for this year.”
As for the harvest and vintage overall we can safely say he does actually speak for Bordeaux, and France as a whole for that matter with his sign of.
“Allez Les Bleus.”