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Wine Description
The Story
Since the 17th Century, the first wine of Château Margaux has been recognised as being one of the greatest wines in the entire world. It owes its unique qualities to the genius of its terroir as well as to the passionate work of a succession of generations. It’s a remarkable wine that comes from a combination of characteristics that are only rarely found: finesse, elegance, complexity, density, intensity, length and freshness. Although its tannic concentration may be exceptional, it’s rare to detect astringency.
The great vintages are distinguished by their formidable ability to move us. The lesser vintages give pleasure to wise enthusiasts. They offer the advantage of evolving very rapidly and, reveal, after a few years, instead of power, this subtlety that is the prerogative of great terroirs. Château Margaux has an extraordinary ability to evolve. Over the years, it has developed a finesse, an aromatic complexity and a remarkable presence on the palate.
Château Margaux has sought to achieve excellence in its wines for over 400 years now through painstaking and necessarily long studies of its terroir, through a constant desire to learn and innovate, by remaining sensitive to demanding markets, and above all through a passionate commitment that has been shared by the families that have succeeded each other at the estate. At the end of the 17th century, it became part of the nascent elite “First Growths” – long before being established officially by the Classification of 1855. Since then, Château Margaux has known fame and fortune, seeing by experience how ephemeral both are.
The estate has 200 acres under vine. Each plot and each variety are treated differently from pruning throughout the growing season. Chateau Margaux’ goal is to nurture and maintain vines for as long as possible, as they believe vines need to reach 20 years of age to produce great wine. The estate is constantly trying to understand through experimentation how to improve soil health and fruit quality. Today, no insecticides are used, there is an important balance of healthy insects to counter pests, and any number of experiments with ploughing, organic farming, and biodynamic applications are ongoing. A final key point to note, Margaux has for the last 30+ years had among the lowest yields in the Medoc.
The wine was aged for 15 months, in 10% new oak and 90% second use barrels. Because of the particularities of the vintage, Cabernet Sauvignon made up an extremely high 88% of the blend, with Merlot only 12% of the blend. Importantly, the wine is held in bottle until ready to drink, which may not mean that vintages are released sequentially.
Wine Information
Château Margaux’s 2022 Grand Vin is without doubt as extraordinary as the weather conditions were. Extraordinary firstly because of its concentration: due to the very dry summer, the Cabernet Sauvignon berries were almost 35% smaller than in a normal year. Particular care had to be taken during vinification and the separation of the wine from the solids, during which only the silkiest tannins were extracted. Another less fortunate consequence of the small berries was the lowest yields since 2013.
The wine is also extraordinary for the freshness of its flavours: we had expected wines with solar notes. We might have expected them to be lacking in acidity. But this was not the case. The nose revealed itself to be a delicate mixture of fruity and floral notes. The wine’s length remains supported by a remarkable acidity, nicely balancing the higher-than-usual alcohol levels.
The blend is more classic with predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon (92%). This enabled the wine not to be too high in alcohol, at 14.5%, as a result of the weather conditions. 6% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc complete the blend. Château Margaux represents 40% of the harvest.
The description of the weather conditions has begun the same way almost every year for the last ten years: 2022 was once again the hottest year on record... and to this, we must add another climate phenomenon: a severe drought. However, these two factors impacted the harvest in such a way as to produce an extraordinary vintage.
Apart from some frosts in mid-January, the winter of 2022 was mild and relatively dry, with just 150 mm of rain. Nationally, the spring of 2022 was the third warmest (13.2°C) since 1900, close behind 2011 and 2020. It was the same in Margaux, with record temperatures during June, sometimes exceeding 40°C. Fortunately, in typical Bordeaux fashion, there was regular rain throughout the spring, with 182 mm in Margaux. Summer brought further extremes: three long, intense heat waves; the thermometer again recorded temperatures over 40°C several times, and over 35°C for more than 14 days in July and August. Slightly more than six long weeks passed without a single drop of rain. The 20 mm that arrived at the end of August was welcome, but its effect was more to cool the air than to significantly rehydrate the surface soil.
In these conditions, budburst was relatively spread out, between March 28th and April 13th, depending on the grape variety and the nature of our diverse terroirs. Conditions were sufficiently good that no coulure or millerandage was observed in our plots during flowering, which took place in the week of May 24th, indicating an early vintage.
The summer weather then reinforced the early nature of the vintage. The white grape harvest took place extremely early, on August 18th.
For the red grapes, it lasted from September 8th to 27th, with normal temperatures in September and optimal harvesting conditions. The first autumn rains began on the last day of the harvest.
