Union des Grands Crus 2022

Tasting wines at the Union des Grands Crus – or any large event – is always an interesting and enjoyable experience. It’s worth keeping in mind that some tasting formats are conducive to investigating certain hypotheses and not others. For example, any very young wine (as tasted as UGC) may weave in and out of accessibility, articulate for a time and then withdrawn. So detailed notes on individual wines can be possible in moments when they’re open but just as easily it can be easy to miss what’s there. Nevertheless, these impressions can be helpful – both to compare to en primeur notes as well as to refer back to as the wines evolve in bottle.

Perhaps the most useful aspect of the UGC tastings is the opportunity to gain broad impressions about the style of the vintage, the performance of particular regions (sometimes as broad-brush as one bank of the other, in some circumstances even more specific to appellations), and to estates which might be up-and-coming. I had already tasted about 60 wines from the 2022 vintage in Bordeaux prior to the UGC but having the opportunity to zoom out and see dry and sweet, white and red, Left Bank and Right really does help to form a coherent opinion as to the vintage.

To start with, I like the 2022s very much; the combination of depth without excess alcohol makes them undoubtedly appealing. There are certainly some acids which seem unusually low – most in Sauternes where one had to wait quite a long time for botrytis (which was very good when it came) and in wines where Merlot strongly predominates in Péssac-Léognan and the Right Bank (Cabernet Franc seems to help freshen them). Acidity in the Northern Médoc is relatively well preserved and I actually had to loop back to Saint-Julien at the end of the tasting to ensure the perception of low acidities on the Right Bank and in Péssac were indeed correct rather than reflective of palate fatigue.

Yet even with a relatively low acid, the wines don’t come across as flabby or listless. Rather, they come across as particularly gourmand in a way. They will be pleasurable wines to drink. That said, I recall some small berry weights in the Médoc when I visited in September 2022 and the situation might be even more pronounced for the usually-larger Merlots. The result being that many Merlot-dominant wines can be shockingly tannic. So while that low acidity lends a certain lavishness, we’ll have to wait for the tannins to integrate.

Ultimately, these are wines that will be worth waiting for. I like the wines from both banks, dry and sweet, red and white. It’s regular in that way. It’s also worth noting what these wines aren’t – they aren’t overripe or dessicated, there’s no marked discrepancy between alcoholic and technical ripeness. This challenging growing season has resulted in not only great success, but potentially some useful insights into the nature of making superb Bordeaux in climate extremes.