Description

Modern technology has made many things possible, but it still hasn’t enabled us to be in two places simultaneously. My duties as co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge meant that I couldn’t be in Bordeaux to taste the 2018 En Primeur samples from barrel. I was sorry to miss out on what sounds, at its best, like a very good to outstanding vintage, but I’m delighted that my friend and fellow Master of Wine, Rod Smith, was there to cover it for timatkin.com, as he was for the 2017 campaign.

Rod is an excellent taster, who is based in France, and well known in the Far East and I was fascinated to read his critical take on these inchoate wines. In a winemakers’ vintage, the best chateaux come to the fore, so let Rod be your guide. You can download his 104-page report here for £15.

Tim Atkin MW

“2018 is a great vintage in Bordeaux. Other than 2016, the best since 2010, and in many cases eclipsing even that. But wine is all about balance, and the 2018 vintage in Bordeaux has certainly posed vignerons a huge challenge to produce balanced wines in what can fairly be described as a very unbalanced vintage.
The best have succeeded admirably and have crafted wines that may count as among the best of the millennium so far. But it is not a consistent vintage in the way that 2016 can be described as consistently great, and 2015 as consistently warm.”

Rod Smith MW