Bordeaux En primeur: Is 2016 a left bank or a right bank year?
As En primeur critics rates are released for 2016, it seems interesting to compare the Global Wine Scores obtained on the two Bordeaux banks in order to get a better idea on the future bottled wines.
Right Bank wines are those located on the right side of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers globally easter to Bordeaux. The two villages concerned are Pomerol and Saint Emilion. In Bordeaux wines classification, Grands Pomerol, Premier Grand Cru Classé A and B of Saint Emilion and Grand Cru Classé of Saint Emilion correspond to this right bank category.
Left Bank wines are those produced norther and wester to Bordeaux, from the region called Médoc. All the Grands Crus Classés en 1855 from Médoc and Château Haut-Brion concern this right bank category.
The left and the right banks are the two regions that are the most recognized for red wines in Bordeaux area.
The grapes varieties also vary between the two banks. On the right bank, producers mainly grow Merlot, the dominant grape variety in wines final blend of this region. On the left bank, Cabernet Sauvignon is the main grape variety.
The wine ratings used as input for this study come from the main wine critics mentioned on the home page of the Global Wine Score (Robert Parker, Neal Martin, Wine Spectator, etc, ….). As the Global Wine Score represent a reliable tool to input wine critics and normalize them on a same scale, it seems interesting to compare these wines on a regional basis for each vintage.
The chart below presents the Global Wine Score for each vintage from 2005 to 2016.
This chart shows that left bank Global Wine Scores are above those from right bank excepted for 2008, 2012 and 2015.
Of course, these results are relative to the Global Wine Score averaged on the two distinctive areas concerned and have to be considered with caution. A regional variation may occur for each vintage and may not appear through this average.
The chart below also shows interesting results that globally confirm this analysis.
Each of the bars correspond to one vintage where only the first hundred wines scored are taken into consideration. The color dominant in each of these bars gives another idea of the relative quality of the vintage on each bank.
In fact, the chart confirms the previous results. 2008 and 2012 are better vintages on right bank. Vintage 2015 is on this chart better on the left bank while the vintage 2016 is better on the left bank with a very slight advantage (51 against 49 wines in each case).
Conclusion
The two charts shown in this study present results globally consistent. Since 2005, Left bank wines have better vintages according to the Global Wine Score averaged separately on the two regions. Better results on the Right bank occur for 2008 and 2012 while results for 2015 and 2016 are very tight.
Of course, the bank preference may be relative to each person tastes but, according to these results, it is difficult to consider that one bank is necessarily better.
