A Place Beyond Praise: Bordeaux 2022

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 13, 2025

Left Bank: Saint-Estèphe | Pauillac | Saint-Julien | Margaux | Pessac-Léognan and Graves | Left Bank Satellites | Sauternes 

Right Bank: Pomerol | Saint-Émilion | Right Bank Satellites

Introduction

Behind forced smiles and bonhomie, Bordeaux feels adrift. The response to last primeur ran the gamut from “tepid” to “What planet are you on?” This came despite price reductions that were presumed to be the panacea against a faltering campaign, against the backdrop of a gut-wrenching vine-pull scheme and a disquieting feeling of being stylistically outmoded. The Bordelais are searching for a shining light, a pick-me-up, a knight in shining armor….anything to lift their spirits.

Against this swell of despondency, Bordeaux pulled a wonderful vintage out of its silk-lined pocket.

The high points of the vintage touch the sky. Two thousand twenty-two witnessed the birth of legendary wines and unbeatable value-for-money, if it isn’t just a label that gets endorphins rushing. Flip back through the history pages and this is not the first time a lauded vintage has coincided with pervasive pessimism. Demand for the legendary 1900s was weak as everyone had spent their shillings on the 1899s. The 1945, 1947 and 1949 triumvirate had their umbilical cords cut during post-war austerity and languished unsold until the late 1950s. The 1990 vintage was a repeat of  1900 insofar that consumers had already exhausted their budgets on 1989s. The 2001s followed the millennial year and 9/11, whilst the 2019s’ eyes blinked open amidst a pandemic.

The 2022 vintage serves as a timely reminder that when Bordeaux fires on all cylinders, it is untouchable. This is not a vintage without caveats and flaws, some avoidable and others not. This report pulls no punches in pointing those out. I am aware that if price is misaligned with consumer expectations, then praise is irrelevant. Who cares if the best wines constitute future legends if they are unaffordable. It is tantamount to a waste of praise, akin to waxing lyrical about a song you will never hear, a portrait you will never see. These 2022s emerge in the market at a time when even Bordeaux’s most ardent fans have reduced the pecuniary value of a bottle of claret in their minds now that the distorting veil of speculation has been removed.

Let’s put aside the trials and tribulations of the market and remind ourselves of what Mother Nature had in store for winemakers back in 2022.

Looking east over the Gironde from Pauillac at sunrise.

The Growing Season

As usual, I have reproduced my growing season summary that I composed for en primeur in slightly abridged form. I described 2022 as a “season of paradox and luminosity.”

The 2022 vintage saw a return to the warm, dry summers that headlined the 2018, 2019, 2020 trio. The 2021 growing season experienced higher-than-average rain that replenished reserves, not least on porous clay soils. Low rainfall in the first three months of 2022 meant that budbreak was uneven and slightly delayed from late March, before temperatures plummeted between April 2 and 5 to -7°C in some prone areas. Frost affected some 50% of vineyards, though the damage was less severe than in 2017 since bud development was less advanced. April saw just 58 mm of rain compared to 104 mm and 111 mm in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Flowering was around two weeks earlier than in 2021, without coulure or millerandage, so there were hopes for a bumper crop. One long, balmy dry spell followed three or four mini-heatwaves, the first of which ran from May 8 to 22. Between May 7 and September 23, average temperatures were 24°C, with 38 days exceeding 32°C. There was some rain on the weekend of June 18 after a period of intense heat, when the mercury tipped 40°C. On Monday, June 20, two bands of destructive hail strafed the northern Médoc in a southwest/northeast direction. Another battered the far southern Médoc, passing between Côte du Bourg and Fronsac/Lalande-de-Pomerol.

The amount of rain in June varied per region: 140 mm in Saint-Estèphe, 134 mm in Pauillac, 82 mm in Margaux, 72 mm in the Graves and 69 mm in Saint-Émilion. These are important figures since afterward, Mother Nature turned off the tap. July saw a measly 3 mm of rain (zero in some locales), less than in 2016 and 2020. Since warm and dry conditions set in unusually early in the season, they served as a warning, steeling vines for the forthcoming drought—a tacit instruction to force roots deeper, restricting lateral shoot growth and limiting the size of both leaf and berry, the latter with implications for the style of 2022s. Unlike in 2003, vines mostly shrugged off these unprecedented conditions. Some fledgling vines on free-draining soils suffered, whilst others were adamant that they did not spot a single brown leaf. But hydric stress was evident, with self-protecting vines closing stomata to prevent the evaporation that stymies photosynthesis, as well as bifurcating phenolic and alcoholic ripeness. The INAO allowed growers in Pomerol to irrigate, and some mounted tractors to quench vines’ thirst. However, it was too late to make a significant difference. Oddly enough, there was more rain in August 2022 than the previous year, with a revivifying 27 mm compared to 24 mm.

May, June, July and August were the hottest since 2009, averaging 18.7°C, 21.0°C, 23.4°C and 24.1°C respectively. In particular, July was 1.8°C hotter than in 2020 and August was 2.3°C hotter. Despite these figures, the viticultural vista is very different from that of 2003. Now, there is minimal de-leafing (or de-leafing on one side) in order to maintain shadow cover, prudent canopy management, with many (including First Growths such as Haut-Brion) no longer practicing rognage (hedging), and lastly, widespread and assiduous use of cover crops to enhance humidity and replace depleted nitrogen/organic matter in soils. Another critical factor is that, unlike in 2003, nighttime temperatures fell to 16-17°C Celsius, giving vines welcome relief from the heat. Vines benefitting from subterranean reserves of water could keep photosynthesizing. But, such was the unrelenting luminosity that the vineyard managers had to be vigilant, constantly stepping in and trying to regulate sugar accumulation while preventing the vines from shutting down. Many proprietors muttered about the tiny crop whenever I raised the topic, the drought chipping away their hopes for high yields at flowering. The region produced 410,000 hectoliters of wine with an average yield of around 37 hL/ha. That is around 15% less than the 2011-2020 average of 487,000 hL. Yields differ between the Left and Right Banks, with the Left often averaging 30 hL/ha or less but the Right delivering 40-50 hL/ha.

The fruit for the 2024 vintage was being picked when I called in at Lafite-Rothschild. Saskia de Rothschild’s dog had a camera attached to his collar to film the harvest…before he went AWOL.

Down in Sauternes, the heatwaves that started in May concentrated the berries and reduced volume. There were hailstorms and frost on April 2 and 3, setting the tone for a smaller crop. May was the driest and hottest month ever. Flowering was early, and chefs de culture were concerned that any rain would create overripe berries. Workers in Sauternes conducted some nettoyage in September when there was some sporadic early botrytis. A little rain followed the hot weather at the end of September, which predicated botrytis formation in October, but winemakers had to wait for berries to progress from the rôti stage. Finally, thanks to the easterly wind, there was widespread botrytis around October 23-24. Sugar levels galloped ahead as pickers streamed into vineyards. Time was of the essence since they feared that levels would become excessive. Indeed, at Yquem, the team did not use fruit from the final two tries. Hence, the 2022 Sauternes contain higher residual sugar levels than recent years with slightly higher pH levels. Yields average around 15 hL/ha for the appellation.

How The Wines Were Tasted

Since I undertook the marathon of Burgundy barrel tastings last October and November, I split my Bordeaux tastings into three sessions in October, December and January—in total, three weeks of tasting, which is longer than usual, partly because I felt that the 2022s deserved close examination. I sought to spend more time with wines and winemakers, allowing wines to aerate and settle in the glass after pouring. Spreading out the tastings allowed me to re-taste wines weeks apart and time to deliberate upon assessments, not least those that I genuinely believe to be exceptional…and vice versa. I tasted all the wines for this report in Bordeaux, either at châteaux or with consultants. I managed to include nearly all the major names except La Gaffelière, an oversight on my part, and Beau-Séjour Bécot, who did not respond to my requests to visit or send a sample to their consultant tasting.

The Wines

At their pinnacle, mon Dieu, I really love the 2022s. Those that shone in barrel tend to shine in bottle. This is a vintage with a range of “snow-capped peaks.” These are wines that foment euphoria, a handful with perfection in their sights. Allow me to quote the musical analogy from my barrel report since it sums up the style of the vintage. The 2022s are not warbling Neil Youngs. They are Freddie Mercury strutting the stage. The best will rock you.

Father and son Alain and Edouard Vauthier at Ausone, entering heated debate about soil types.

The best wines of 2022 deliver sensational aromatics. They lean toward opulence, thankfully without the overbearing, slightly blowsy nature of the 2018s and, further back, 2003s. Crucially, the elite retain or even heighten delineation. It is as if you can pick each scent individually, like listening to music through a high-end audio system. Often, one finds floral traits of violet and iris flower, though these will ebb with time as the DNA of respective terroirs comes through. The levels of freshness are occasionally breathtaking. At that same time, the 2022s occasionally lean into a Napa style, albeit not to the extent that it is detrimental to typicité.

These are quite intense wines that deliver purity of fruit and quite plush and pliant tannins, often mouth-filling wines that satiate the senses. Alcohol levels are slightly higher than usual, though one infrequently finds wines where you can really feel a blur of excessive alcohol. Additionally, such is the level of knowledge and caretaking in wineries that there is much less volatility and spoilage than you would have seen 10 or 20 years ago. I did find a few instances of Brettanomyces, which is inevitable in a warm season and tends to manifest with a few months in bottle (see my Burgundy 2020 report for further explanation of this.) There is not much distinction between appellations in 2022, as tends to be the case in warmer vintages, though for reasons I will explain later, there are more inconsistencies and shortcomings once you broach less propitious stretches on the Right Bank. I expect divergences to manifest with bottle age.

Olivier Berrouet oversaw what might well be the finest Petrus of his career, surpassing my expectations from barrel.

Three wines achieved that loaded concept of perfection. I dislike reducing fine wine down to something as banal as numbers, especially in such a subjective arena, even if it is the lingua franca of wine criticism. However, the strength of such practice is in binding any reviewer to a comparable measure of appreciation that can be easily obfuscated or misinterpreted by prose. I am not averse to giving perfect scores to young wines. I do so with opposing forces of trepidation whilst being simultaneously convinced that the wine belongs to the handful that have deserved that accolade over the last quarter-century of reviewing thousands of Bordeaux wines (including nearly all the 20th-century icons). The trio that moved me to the core are Petrus, Château Margaux and Vieux Château Certan. These were the three wines where I had to suppress the urge to jump up and down, though behind my poker face, choirs of angels sang Hallelujah. A couple of others came within a whisker, however, my steadfast rule is to deny a perfect score if there is a scintilla of doubt.

This is not a vintage without caveats. These must be addressed. There is already an ocean of puffery about Bordeaux. Nowadays, Bordeaux is painted as some kind of utopia, its wines existing beyond the touch of constructive criticism, with their shortcomings or faults either willfully ignored or undetected. Reviews are hence reduced to fodder whose existence is little more than to be copied and pasted into brochures, justify unmerited price hikes and ensure that their authors get a hearty welcome back next year. Two thousand twenty-two is unequivocally not a straightforward season where everyone could skip merrily along without a care in the world. The succession of heatwaves tested the mettle of terroir and posed significant challenges to vineyard teams who tackled them how best they saw fit. Tasting across hundreds of estates, some performed better than others within every level of the hierarchy, though scaling the highest levels, the vintage does become more consistent for obvious reasons (terroir, equipment, money, manpower, talent).

Joséphine Duffau showed me around the new vat room at Beauséjour Duffau. The concrete vats are each carved with panoramic bas-relief.

Firstly, as I wrote in my original report, 2022 is not a vintage whereby the vagaries of each appellation or château shine through. Quite simply, the heat of the summer meant that the weather shaped the wines. If you seek terroir distinction, then vintages on either side might offer more satisfaction, though having just revisited the 2021s, you must pick ‘n choose. Overall, 2022 is superior to 2021 or 2023, but that does not imply that individual terroirs will surface with bottle age.  At least the 2022s possess the structure, body and balance to warrant long-term cellaring.

Secondly, the 2022 vintage is less consistent than expected from barrel. Some of the wines at the lower ends of the hierarchy are besmirched with drier, more austere finishes than I would like. In my primeur report, I suggested that the 2022 season had flattened the pyramid, however, the vintage now in bottle reinforces the idea of the Manichean religion of haves and have-nots. Juxtaposition made wines’ shortcomings more conspicuous, especially within the parameters of freshness and fruit intensity. Wines did not, to use an oft-heard refrain, make themselves. Forget the romantic and inaccurate notion that vineyards make wines. No, vineyards make grapes.

The bottom line is that it was extremely hot and dry, so some more-exposed and free-draining parcels could not avoid hydric stress. Bordeaux seems to have convinced itself that it avoided hydric stress. Suddenly, against the laws of Nature, vines’ stomata no longer close down to limit evaporation when temperatures reach 34-35°C. Reread the growing season summary, especially the differences in summer rainfall: 140 mm in Saint-Estèphe, compared to 69 mm in Saint-Émilion…that implies the Right Bank was more susceptible. Hydric stress risks a disconnect between sugar level and physiological ripeness come picking time, and in some instances, where fruit had not reached physiological ripeness, the wines exhibit a sweet ‘n sour element—a nagging green streak that upends the sweetness. This is more apparent now that the wines are finished and in bottle.

I toured the brand-new chai and Château Cantenac Brown with Head Winemaker José Sanfins.

Thirdly, we are all human. Making wine is a series of judgment calls that are easy to criticize in hindsight. Clearly, some winemakers assumed that the vintage gifted them the raw materials and mandate to push their wine as far as possible, a dogma that in 2025 feels like an anachronism. On the contrary, the vintage was a test of making wine with restraint, knowing when to ease off the accelerator pedal. Testament to that is the astonishing Petrus. Olivier Berrouet is one of several winemakers who repeatedly confirmed that you had to be prudent by shortening the length of barrel maturation or reducing the level of new oak. This may well have benefitted those that partially age their wines in amphora, the likes of Les Carmes Haut-Brion and Pontet Canet. In some cases, winemakers maintained the usual percentage of new oak. Higher alcohol levels mean that the maturing wines are more solvent, and therefore oak leaves a greater imprint. I was perturbed by the number of potentially great wines spoiled by harsh, woody finishes that were glaringly obvious when compared to those that pitched percentage of new wood/toasting/duration exactly right. Privately, many winemakers concur with my view that the barrel regime is as fundamental to quality as the growing season or how much new-fangled equipment occupies one’s winery.

These relatively high-alcohol wines may put off readers who found relief in the lower alcohols of the 2021s. That said, the 2022 levels are not off the scale, which is remarkable given the statistics of the growing season—the quartet of heatwaves, average temperatures and the pitiful amount of rain—and if you really do have an upper limit at 14%, there are options available.

Two thousand twenty-two is unequivocally not a memorable vintage for the dry whites. It is a so-so season with the occasional pleasant surprise. There was too much heat, and consequently, the 2022s lack the acidic spine and tension that underpin any dry white from the top drawer. This category tends to garner exaggerated praise because of the banal fact that when tasting large numbers of tannic reds, the whites come as a relief. Perceived freshness is exaggerated, especially in wines poured slightly cooler than room temperature. Even the 2022 Haut-Brion Blanc, a wine that I have tasted blind in peer-group tastings for many years, failed to elicit much emotion compared to some of the great vintages I have experienced in the past, for example, a recent 1985. Comparing the 2022 Haut-Brion Blanc against the 2022 La Mission Haut-Brion and vacillating between them for 15 minutes, I much preferred La Mission, though unfortunately, today that costs a pretty penny. There are plenty of cheaper, viable alternatives, such as the 2022 Domaine de Chevalier Blanc, 2022 de Fieuzal Blanc, or perhaps the constantly improving and delicious 2022 Grand Village Blanc from the Guinaudeau family.

Again, Sauternes is an extremely difficult category to assess objectively because the wines’ residual sugar means that they are preloaded with deliciousness. How many times have you sipped a Sauternes and said, “Yuck”? A poor Sauternes vintage offers much more sensory pleasure than a poor vintage for the dry reds. The 2022 vintage in Sauternes is spotted with excellence, though having tasted every vintage comprehensively for a quarter-century, I am not inclined to place it amongst the all-time greats. That said, the likes of Doisy-Daëne, Coutet, Rieussec, Haut-Bergeron and Nairac are all very commendable. I will be tasting Yquem in the imminent future.

Bordeaux: The Greatest Value

Over my career, I have witnessed the bipolarization of the region—essentially, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, to the extent that the latter teeters on the brink of extinction. Regional inequality has never been wider. This report treats every wine on its own merits irrespective of appellation, renown or status. Hypothetically, the apotheosis of any vintage could be a tiny château from a peripheral appellation that nobody has heard of. I guess you could say that is just keeping an open mind.

Does it pan out that way?

Well, no, the most reputed châteaux blessed with the finest terroir tend to make the best wines, though intermingled amongst those are a number of over-performing, less-familiar names that are just as good and half as cheap. There is a plethora of such châteaux. The problem is that these chateaux swim in a vast ocean, disadvantaged by the fact that to nearly all consumers, they are nothing more than a name that can be easily confused due to titular similarities. These names can even be identical. For example, Lagrange in Saint-Julien is a completely different entity to that in Pomerol. Whereas other regions, like Burgundy, place winemaker at the forefront—a figurehead that consumers can easily latch on to and engage with—winemakers in Bordeaux are too often uncredited actors in a play. It can be like scanning a page of telephone numbers. Bordeaux’s error was in rebranding itself as a luxury brand instead of a human brand. The fact that this has been the way since time immemorial is irrelevant.

With this in mind, I have highlighted several affordable wines with some background information so that they are not just names…

Badette – Marc Vandenbogaerde bought this 10.5-hectare Saint-Émilion estate in 2012, whereupon his son Marc-André has taken the reins. A single block covers 9 hectares, plus there is another 1.5-hectare parcel adjacent to Figeac. The vineyard is planted with 75% Merlot and the remainder Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. The wine is aged three-quarters in barrel and the remainder in tank.

Barreyres – Château Barreyres represents what Bordeaux excels at: great Haut-Médoc wine that you can pick up from a supermarket. Nothing wrong with that (it is available in Sainsbury’s for those in the UK). Pierre Castel bought the estate in 1971, so it is part of Castel’s portfolio. The vineyard is planted with 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Merlot.

Cantin – This 30-hectare Saint-Émilion property served as a château for Benedictine monks in the 17th century. Purchased by the Helfrich family in 2007, the vineyard is nearly all Merlot. The wine ages in 50% new oak.

Clos Cantenac –Martin Krajewski has owned this Saint-Émilion cru since 2006. He also owns Château Séraphine in Pomerol, but his daughter Charlotte runs both wineries. Clos Cantenac was equipped with a new cuverie in 2015, and it is paying dividends with a splendid 2022.

Guitignan – Located in Moulis-en-Médoc, Château Guitignan, admittedly a bit tricky to pronounce, was designated Cru Bourgeois in 1932. The vineyard is planted with 60% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot, and the wine is aged for 12 months in French oak. Guitignan is not the most familiar property from the appellation, but the 2022 will provide much pleasure over the next decade.

Laniote Saint-Émilion – I have been tasting this Saint-Émilion for many years. It was bequeathed from mother to daughter for eight generations. The 5-hectare property is planted with 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. Their 2022 is simply the best that I have tasted from the estate.

Marjosse – Pierre Lurton may spend most of his time running two little-known estates called Cheval Blanc and Yquem for LVMH, but Marjosse, his personal property in Entre-Deux-Mers that he bought back in 1997, is a gem. The vineyard is 80% Merlot, with the remainder comprising Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. I cannot think of many Bordeaux wines that consistently offer better value for the money than this.

Montaiguillon – Owned by the Amard family in Montagne-Saint-Émilion since 1949, this estate contains a villa said to date from the 4th century. The 28-hectare vineyard yielded a 2022 that exudes elegance without requiring a silly amount of money.

Final Thoughts

Is 2022 the acme of Bordeaux? Will it be uttered in the same breath as 1945, 1961, 1982, 2016 and so forth? The reputation of a vintage is not measured via greatness throughout the entire region, but rather the performances at the summit of the hierarchy. It is not the measure that I use, nor is it the most accurate, but that is the reality. Headlines shape perceptions, so the elite will give 2022 an angelic glow. And let’s be frank, at its zenith, the season produced sensational wines that deserve superlatives. At the same time, I refuse to ignore the pitfalls. Given the region’s pining for good news as a potentially catastrophic primeur campaign careens into its driving lane, 2022 serves as an opportune reminder that Bordeaux creates wonderful wines in volumes that are simply impossible anywhere else. Therein lies the problem. However hard producers try to create an air of elusiveness to justify prices, Bordeaux has always been about economies of scale, combining parcels of vines whose total is more than a sum of its parts—estates that can be over 100 hectares in size. Two thousand twenty-two is not a small vintage, so there is plenty of wine out there to be enjoyed, whether now or in decades to come. But I would define a great vintage as one where its virtues are not experienced by professional writers like myself, but out in restaurants, in family homes, bottles shared with friends. I like the vintage very much, but that isn’t the point. You have to like it too. And frankly, a lot of château owners don’t get that. There is a disconnect between qualitative and commercial success, and market forces will bridge that gap ruthlessly by lowering prices to an equilibrium where demand and supply intersect.

The 2022 vintage is one of the modern-day greats. The best will stand the test of time.

But they need to find a place beyond praise.

© 2025, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or redistributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.

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