·      2024 started with a mild, wet winter and spring.

·      A warm, sunny start to April triggered an early to average budbreak, followed by rain.

·      The first signs of mildew were detected mid- to late April, requiring an early start to evasive spraying—the beginning of a relentless fungal spraying battle lasting into July.

·      Plummeting overnight temperatures in late April resulted in moderate frost damage in the most susceptible areas, such as Sauternes and Barsac, and slowed vine growth throughout the region.

·      May saw almost twice the amount of rainfall for this month compared to the 30-year average—around 126 mm vs. 71 mm. June was also well above average (around 93 mm vs. 70 mm). While the mildew attacks continued to spike, flowering and fruit set were late and uneven. Crop losses due to coulure and millerandage ranged from minor to significant, depending on the location and grape variety.

·      May was slightly cooler than average, while June was just about average. However, the rainy, overcast conditions slowed vine progress.

·      The rain finally subsided in July, when only around 15 mm fell compared to the 30-year average of 30 mm. Sunshine hours for this month were only slightly lower than average (244 vs. 256), while average minimum and maximum temperatures were slightly above average. Veraison began in late July, although its progress was generally slow and uneven.

·      August was picture-perfect, with slightly above-average sunshine hours and temperatures. Meanwhile, the rainfall was below average (around 46 mm vs. 57 mm), which triggered the necessary vine stress to aid ripening.

·      The rains returned in September, bringing widespread botrytis outbreaks. The first period of significant rain was September 1^st-10^th, when parts of Bordeaux received nearly triple the average rainfall for this period. Then there were around ten days of dry weather before the downpours began again.

·      Dry whites were mainly harvested in late August and early September. Generally speaking, they were harvested with less potential alcohol and higher acidities (lower pH) than average. Yet the impressive aromatic/flavor intensity and complexity levels set these 2024 dry whites above most vintages from the last decade, promising good aging potential.

·      The rains began again on September 21st and subsided around October 1^st. Dilution became less concerning than achieving ripeness. Moreover, the rapidly spreading botrytis was testing growers' nerves. The top properties focused on making a high-quality grand vin had to accept crop losses, in some cases significantly reduced yields, to wait for ripeness while botrytis ravaged entire vineyard sections.

·      Most Merlots were harvested in late September, while the Cabernets were picked early to mid-October.

·      Selection, selection, selection was the name of the game in the winery. The picking bins were a mishmash of mildew-affected, rot-affected, and intact berries with varying ripeness levels. Most châteaux employed multiple stages and means of sorting: by hand (in the vineyard and the winery), vibrating tables, optical sorters, and densimetric.

*Special thanks to the “The 2024 vintage in Bordeaux” report written by Prof. Laurence Geny, Elodie Guittard, Dr. Valerie Lavigne, and Prof. Axel Marchal of the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences of Bordeaux University for some of the data supplied in this section on the 2024 growing season.

Most Bordeaux vintages are impacted by bouts of either mildew, coulure/millerandage, or botrytis, but to be significantly affected by all three in one vintage is an uncommon case of rotten luck.

Downy mildew has been one of climate change’s downsides in recent Bordeaux vintages. Warmer springs have led to precocious bud breaks, accompanied by damp, humid weather—ideal conditions for the rampant spread of this fungal disease. Bordeaux suffered widespread attacks in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2023. When it returned in 2024, most growers thought they were well prepared to stay ahead of the mildew’s progress. But weeks of downpours necessitating frequent respraying wouldn’t allow workers a break. Exhaustion set in among vineyard staff. Some growers reported more than 30 rounds of spraying from April to July, requiring vigilance throughout the weekends and holidays.

“We sprayed 31 times,” said Mathieu Bessonnet, Château Pontet-Canet’s technical director. “But in the end, we didn’t lose much to mildew. We don't know why we didn't have problems when others did.”

“We kept our cover crops,” noted the estate’s co-owner, Justine Tesseron, who now works closely alongside her father, Alfred Tesseron. “This allowed us access to the vines when others could not get in to spray.”

One significant advantage of some organic/biodynamic farmed vineyards, such as Pontet-Canet, was their maintenance of cover crops, which offered traction for the tractors. Otherwise, many vineyards found it difficult or impossible to spray at times because the rows were just too wet/muddy for tractor movement.

Le Crock in Saint-Estephe, an estate owned by the Cuvelier family of Château Léoville-Poyferré, was in its third year of organic conversion in 2024. “Our vineyard team had to do the treatments at Le Crock with a backpack because the ground was flooded, and we couldn't get a tractor in,” said managing director Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier. “It was a lot of work just to keep our team motivated. We will keep working organically at Le Crock, but we will not seek certification because we need the flexibility to use stronger chemicals if we need to. I investigated the possibility of using drones to spray, but it is not allowed in France.”

Le Crock's yield was just 16 hl/ha, about a third of what they would produce in a good year. And they were not the only estate to drop out of organic certification in 2024—far from it.

Even some of Bordeaux’s most prestigious organic/biodynamic estates, with deep pockets to fight the mildew, were not spared, Château Latour being a case in point.

“Our yield was 11 hl/ha,” said Latour’s technical director, Hélène Genin. “Our yields are low due to the combination of mildew, coulure, and then botrytis.”

Château Latour did, however, stick to their principles and remain certified organic and biodynamic.

Merlot on the Left Bank was particularly hard-hit by coulure because of cold, rainy weather during the flowering and this variety’s sensitivity to the disorder. Consequently, most Médoc producers have significantly less Merlot in the 2024 blends than normal.

“This year, for us, it was all about Cabernet,” said Nicolas Glumineau, general manager and winemaker at Château Pichon Comtesse de Lalande. “Merlot really didn't do well because of mildew and coulure. It's our highest percentage ever of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend.”

Thomas Duroux at Château Palmer said, “We had coulure on the Merlots, so the blend is more Cabernet than usual.”

Some left bank producers, including Lynch-Bages, even reported coulure on their Cabernet Sauvignons.

On the Right Bank, where Merlot is the dominant variety, most producers reported minor to significant issues with coulure. La Conseillante was one of the worst-affected estates. “We lost 50% of the production with coulure and millerandage,” said the estate’s managing director, Marielle Cazaux. “We also had a little mildew and then lost about 20-25% with sorting.” Their yield came in at 22 hl/ha.

Meanwhile, other producers across the region reported little or no impact from coulure/millerandage, including Château Margaux and Haut-Bailly (in Pessac-Léognan), and most of the white grape varieties enjoyed a smooth, even flowering and fruit set, with higher yields to show for it.

The wide-ranging effects of mildew and coulure/millerandage across Bordeaux help explain this vintage's marked heterogeneity. However, one blight that no red wine producer was spared was the botrytis outbreaks during the run-up to harvest. The scale of the botrytis was a topic no producer wanted to dwell on, which was no doubt partly down to the lingering PTSD caused by this brutal end to one of the most harrowing growing seasons in living memory. The point here is that the best red wines to come out of 2024 were forged by growers with nerves of steel—they were willing to engage in a dangerous game of chicken with botrytis while waiting for ripeness.

Vintages like 2024 give cause to consider how ripeness is assessed. Growers track several major components when determining ideal ripeness, including sugars, acids, pH, anthocyanins, tannins, flavors, and seeds. The tricky part is that all these components progress at different rates, depending on factors such as heat, sunlight, and water availability. Trying to get them to all come together at precisely the same time is a real vineyard management balancing act, especially in a challenging year like 2024.

Many wine experts (growers, winemakers, critics, etc.) are dogmatic about ripeness, although each one of them likely has a different opinion about what ideal ripeness is. My view is relatively broad, given the range of consumer tastes in the wine world. When assessing quality based on ripeness, I mainly look at tannin (texture) and flavor (intensity and layers/complexity) ripeness. These two component spectrums are hard, if not impossible, to make up for in the winery. Under-ripe tannins range from lightly chewy/al dente to hard, rugged, and bitter. Under-ripe flavors can range from a little thin and simple to downright green and lean.

After tasting hundreds of 2024 reds, one thing stood out to me as odd: achieving tannin ripeness was generally less of an issue than flavor ripeness, when it is usually the other way around in a rainy vintage. It wasn’t until I interviewed Philippe Bascaules, managing director at Château Margaux, that I understood why.

“In Bordeaux this year, we had something strange where the tannins were tracking ahead of the flavor development,” he said when I asked him why I wasn’t seeing more under-ripe tannins in 2024.

This wasn’t the case for all the wines I tasted, but it did explain a trend I’ve detected in this vintage. There are a lot of good, delicious, drinkable, if not awe-inspiring, reds in 2024 because, for the most part, the tannins are relatively ripe. However, many don’t have the flavor layers or intensity of a truly great wine.

There was some dilution in 2024, but this is generally managed adeptly in the winery using saignée (bleeding), reverse osmosis, and/or chaptalization (to boost alcohol, texture, and mid-palate density). Because tannins were relatively ripe, many winemakers also used more press wine than usual, successfully bolstering the flavor density of their wines. Figeac and La Conseillante spoke about the high quality of their press wines this year, using 8% and 9%, respectively, in their final blends. Calon Segur went as high as 20%. Branaire Ducru mentioned, “We were able to use 100% of our press wines this year because the tannins were very ripe. They were elegant with no rusticity.” Meanwhile, other producers, like Château Margaux, chose to use a little less press wine this year (13%, whereas 15-18% is Margaux’s norm), embracing the elegance of the vintage.

The style of the 2024 reds varies, mainly depending on ripeness, dilution, and ability to sort. Quality levels are all over the show.

Across Bordeaux, the reds are lower in alcohol and light to medium-bodied. The fruit characters are more in the red berry spectrum (strawberries, raspberries, and red currants) with floral, savory, and earthy accents. The acidity levels depend mainly on ripeness and dilution levels. The best wines deliver refreshing acidity, yet the under-ripe wines can be tart, while those with unchecked dilution tend to have low acidity. Tannin ripeness, as discussed, wasn’t as much of an issue as flavor ripeness, intensity, and complexity.

The top terroirs—especially vineyards on free-draining gravels, clay/gravel mixes, and limestone—had a definite advantage this year, as did warmer areas such as the Pomerol plateau.

The Right Bank tended to be more consistent in quality, mainly because Merlot demands less heat and hang time than Cabernet Sauvignon to achieve ripeness. A good number of Merlot-dominated wines were not chaptalized at all, or only on small, select lots.

“We did a little chaptalization on one tank that came in at 12.8% potential alcohol to bring it to 13.2,” Olivier Berrouet at Petrus informed me.

“We did a little chaptalization at L'If, but at Le Pin, we did not need to chaptalize because we could harvest earlier there; it is an earlier ripening site,” said their managing director, Diana Berrouet-Garcia.

Other top Right Bank producers, such as Angelus, Pavie, and Ausone, believed that the results of saignée (bleeding) or reverse osmosis achieved sufficient sugar and flavor intensity, and the delicate style of the vintage was best balanced without further boosting the alcohol.

This year, many elegant, bright, refreshing, soft-textured, and perfumed wines come from Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, and the Castillon also put in a strong performance. This is a rare style for these communes that have become better known for power, richness, and hefty alcohols in recent years. Tannin levels are not as high as those of recent great vintages, but they are not significantly lower either. The best Right Bank wines should take on a little more density with barrel aging and should cellar gracefully for 20 to 25+ years.

On the Left Bank, many of their classified growths produced wines worthy of their status, albeit in a lighter, brighter, more refreshing style than recent hot, dry years. However, moving away from the estuary and gravel terraces of the top estates becomes increasingly challenging. The Médoc, Haut-Médoc, Listrac, and Moulis AC wines were impacted by coulure, taking a lot of the Merlot out of action. And, for the most part, Cabernet Sauvignon simply didn’t achieve tannin or flavor ripeness. I tasted a number of very disappointing wines from these Left Bank peripheries: lean, green, tart, and rugged.

Regardless of location, sorting was critical to achieving the highest levels of quality in 2024. Properties that could afford the multiple levels of sorting necessary (in the vineyard, by hand after destemming, vibrating table, densimetric, optical, and again by hand) to eliminate under-ripe, mildew, and botrytis-affected berries have crafted some impressively pristine wines. However, there are a good many wines at the lower end with under-ripe, rustic, mildew, and/or rot-associated characters.

The dry white wines are the silver lining of this vintage. I wasn’t expecting them to be as consistent and impressive as they are. However, the warm, dry months of July and August allowed Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon vines to achieve optimal flavor ripeness at lower alcohol levels, although many whites naturally came in at higher alcohol levels than the reds. Without any extreme heat events this year, acidity and nuanced aromatics have been beautifully preserved. That is not to say the wines are in any way tart or austere—on the contrary. There is an effortless sense of harmony in many of these 2024 dry whites. Readers who have already checked out my tasting notes will have spotted that my top wine of the vintage is, in fact, a dry white.

“We have good news for 2024,” Olivier Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier said as I sat to taste with him. “Our white wines are excellent this year. And we had good yields—48 hl/ha.”

It’s worth noting that the whites mainly came in before the big downpours of early September and before botrytis set in later that month. Also, many producers, such as Domaine de Chevalier and Château Margaux, have switched to Diam closures for their whites, which is an effective method to eliminate premature oxidation issues and TCA—great news for consumers who can resist the early-drinking temptation and intend to cellar some of their bottles!

2024 was an excellent year for Sauternes and Barsac, delivering wines with the necessary acid backbone to inject vivacity into the dense flavor layers that define the best wines. Sugar levels run lower than those from recent hotter vintages, revealing better balance and more “drinkability.”

“July was nice and not too hot,” said Aline Baly from Château Coutet in Barsac. “Above 25 degrees Celsius, the malic acid degrades, but above 35 degrees, the tartaric acid degrades, which is not ideal. So, in 2024, we have really nice acidity. We started picking for dry whites at the beginning of September. Sauvignon Blanc was picked from 5 to 7 September, finishing the lots of Sauvignon on 14 September. Then we waited a little longer for Sémillon. Our first trie (harvest pass) for the Coutet in Barsac was 19 September. We had alternating nice weather and rain, so it was tricky. Our second trie was in early October, and the 3rd trie around the 7th of October. The tries after that didn't go into Coutet. The core of the grand vin came in about two weeks earlier than normal. We made more Opalie (their dry white wine) than in previous years. Our yield was around 9-11 hl/ha for the Coutet. We had lots of pickers, so we could react very fast when the crop needed to come in.”

With great flavor intensity, plenty of botrytis-instilled complexity, and racy backbones, there are a number of gorgeous Sauternes wines worth seeking out this year. Yields were around 12 hl/ha overall, on a par with last year but under the 20-year average.