Earlier this year, I attended two tastings of the Bordeaux 2012 vintage. Both were held at reputable merchants in London, the first being a look at most of the top wines at Bordeaux Index. The second was what is known as the Southwold Tasting, an annual tasting steeped in British wine trade history.

Trick or Treat

The Southwold Tasting brings together many of the heads/buyers of the UK’s top merchants and a few journalists to taste a comprehensive range of Bordeaux wines after a full year in bottle (we also tasted the 2018s) and to come back to those same wines ten-years-on. Apart from being in a room with around twenty of the best palates in the UK (and the world), this tasting is special because it is conducted blind.

Anyone who knows me knows I love a well-orchestrated blind tasting, which hosting merchant Farr Vintners does extraordinarily well.

2012 was a challenging year that tended to favor Merlot and was better managed by some than others, as seen by where the wines are today. Problems included late spring rains causing coulure—uneven ripening—and mildew early in the season. It was one of those vintages that didn’t really get started until mid-July when the dry weather and heat finally kicked in. Things were looking good, if not great, by the third week of September, when light rains ominously began to darken the pre-harvest skies. The right bank and Pessac-Léognan brought in relatively low yields of nicely ripe Merlot in late September and early October, generally at the riper end of the spectrum and with some hefty alcohols of 14 to 14.5%+. But then autumn rains plagued the Cabernet harvest. Entering the second week of October, around 100mm of rain hit the Médoc, causing dilution and forcing hands.

Thus, 2012 is what I like to call a trick-or-treat vintage—there are lots of treats, but there are also a few scary tricks. It’s a heterogeneous vintage resulting in a broad range of quality levels. Many of the top wines are mature now and won’t last much more than another 10 to 15 years. Some less successful wines are already starting to fade. But there is a clutch of spectacular successes that are still remarkably youthful and should have another 20 to 30 years of cellaring potential. These are mainly out of Pessac-Leognan, Pomerol, and Saint-Emilion, with a handful of fascinating surprises from the Medoc. Some standouts in this cellar-worthy category include Haut-Brion, La Mission Haut-Brion, Petrus, Vieux Château Certan, Cheval Blanc, and Léoville Las Cases.

As for Sauternes and Barsac, this was an even more challenging vintage than usual. Downpours continuing into late October dashed hopes of achieving the special conditions required for noble rot’s slow, measured development. Instead, botrytis spread like wildfire, and producers were left with a rotten, soggy mess through which to sort. Subsequently, this was the year that Yquem, Raymond Lafon, Rieussec, Suduiraut, and a few others decided not to make anything. Bearing this in mind, I was surprised by the consistency of quality of the few wines made.