Lacoste Borie 2021

The 2021 vintage in Pauillac

Vintage benchmark: 86/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Frost, mildew, then a cool summer brought back Bordeaux of old: taut, vibrant wines, shorter but elegant.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pauillac. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

The vintage

The ripening cycle of the 2021 vintage could be likened to a waltz with two tempos. The first part tricky for the Bordeaux vine grower who was powerless in the face of the frost risk to parts of the vineyard, and then a second tempo, with a more conventional weather pattern which restored our confidence and allowed a harmonious ripening of our grapes.

Everything began with a fairly mild winter, particularly the month of February with its usual rains. Then came spring, with wild variations in temperature, (March was warm, almost summery) and a serious frost risk (April was cold, the first half wintry), but, happily, Grand Puy Lacoste’s location between the estuary and the sea allowed us once again to escape damage.

One of the most dramatic contrasts was the weekend of May 8th and 9th 2021 when the temperature went from a summery 30 degrees Celsius to a rainy 10 degrees in twenty-four hours. We were back beside the fire.

Bud break was quite early, from March 24th, as in 2020. June was particularly wet, which required constant vigilance in the vines. First flowering had been noticed from May 28th for the Merlots, and it was fully under way with some fine June weather from 7th to 12th. July was very cool and wet, just as it was in 2018 and 2019. Veraison, when the grapes change colour, started on July 19th and we were half way through by August 13th. August was dry and a little cooler than usual, particularly when compared to 2018, 2019 and 2020. However, this allowed the vines to ripen in good conditions and make up for the cool July. Thanks to that, the grapes could ripen properly and the fine September weather allowed us to arrive at harvest-time with a ripe and healthy crop. At Grand Puy Lacoste we think that the ripening cycle of this 2021 vintage has been very uniform, without either extremes of heat or of rain. Rainfall was very similar to that of 2019. This year too, despite the stresses connected with Covid, our harvest was able to take place, from September 24th, with our motivated and meticulous team of pickers.

Blend of the 2021 vintage

Figures from the 2021 sheet

• 38 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Long vatting (around 3 weeks).

Terroir

Grand-Puy-Lacoste enjoys an exceptional terroir. The soil is made up of gravels, that is to say alluvial stones that provide excellent drainage. The distinctive character of the Médoc soil is part of a history going back two million years, for the gravels are geological witnesses of the Quaternary era. These stones, brought down from the Pyrenees and carried by the Garonne, were deposited over time on the banks of the Gironde, its estuary. Today the layers, of varying depth, are made up of gravel mixed with sand and a little clay. This gravelly soil has the advantage of retaining heat and returning it to the vine at night, which eliminates excessive temperature swings and encourages the harmonious ripening of the bunches.