Bordeaux 2018 Revisited

En Primeur

We’re delighted to feature 30 of leading Bordeaux wine critic Neal Martin’s “top picks of the Bordeaux 2018 En Primeur”, while the 2019 campaign is paused. We purchased well in 2018 and have a handful of cases of a number of Neal’s leading Châteaux. And we’ll also send you 6 bottles of drinking claret if you buy from this campaign in May, see below for more details.

These wines are available En Primeur. The price shown is not inclusive of UK duty and VAT, which is payable at the prevailing rate upon delivery from bond. Wines are likely to be shipped from Spring 2021 and we'll contact you once they've arrived. You will have the option to take delivery, or keep your wine in professional storage.

Offer Close Date – Monday 25th May 2020.

Neal Martin's Top Picks of the 2018 Vintage

Neal didn’t make the it to Bordeaux Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux tasting last April due to personal reasons, so he made a separate, quieter visit in September when the wines had another 6 months development. Neal is regarded as the leading critic of Bordeaux wines (and he’s from Essex too!) and this offer is based on wines featured in his top 20 and wines in his written report where we have been able to secure additional allocations. As you might have already realised, this is a vintage of impressive quality across the board – so much so that all the wines in this offer were awarded scores above 90 points. Read our summary of his scores, notes and pricing here.

Our Vintage Report

A top-class vintage that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the opulent and highly sought-after 2009 or 2015, the 2018 vintage in Bordeaux was very much the result of two diametrically opposed periods – a very wet first half of the season, with just enough dry weather to allow flowering to happen smoothly, which on the one hand lead to the loss of part of the crop through mildew but, crucially, replenished water tables. This proved very useful indeed in the second half of the growing season when an interrupted spell of dry, hot (but not as hot as 2003, for example) weather from mid-July until October yielded one of the most relaxed harvesting periods in living memory. Growers were able to pick their fruit at what they judged to be the optimal point, without the fear of rot or dilution that comes with wetter Autumns. The resulting fruit was among some of the most healthy and concentrated harvested in the past 20 years, and the resulting wines are simply breath-taking.