BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR BORDEAUX 2022 - A Collectors Vintage

Namratha Prashanth shares her personal experience of the wines at the 2022 En Primeur tastings in April

- Namratha Prashanth

There was a certain buzz in the air as we entered. We were a team of four tasting the 2022 vintage. We quickly got our invitation badges scanned and headed up the stairs to the top of the vat room where the best wines of Saint Julien, Listrac-Médoc, Moulis-en-Médoc were showcased. The room was filled with merchants, importers, distributors, journalists and critics. They were busy swirling wines in glasses, spitting into spittoons, scribbling notes and saying a quick hello to colleagues and friends.

Every year in April, these spitting experts travel from all across the world to the beautiful region of Bordeaux for a pilgrimage of sorts. It’s called En Primeur. They judiciously taste wine samples that were vinified the previous year after the harvest and filled into barrels. Famous critics like Jane Anson, James Suckling, Jancis Robinson accord points for each wine after which the châteaux release their prices. The courtiers then step in and get working on allocating these wines to merchants who in turn take pre-orders from importers, hotels, restaurants, private collectors, etc… Mind you, all this while the wines are still evolving in barrels.