You don’t need the weatherman to tell you it’s raining! Having spent many weeks in Bordeaux during the growing season and, more importantly, at harvest time, it seemed pretty obvious that unless miracles happened, 2013 was going to be a pretty difficult wine to make and eventually to sell.

Everything went wrong: hail storms in spring; cold and wet weather during the flowering period; and a cool summer and non- stop rain before and during the harvest which resulted in under-ripe grapes and the onset of ‘rot’ in most areas and vineyards. Chaptalisation, the process of adding sugar to unfermented grape must, was widely used.

Yields were disastrously low. The lucky vineyards that escaped the ravages of hail had to contend with inhomogeneous development during the summer, which meant severe green harvesting and eventual drastic and meticulous selection of grapes at harvest and on the sorting tables. I suppose this is best exemplified by Mouton Rothchild, who employed nearly 700 people to harvest the vintage on the many estates that reported a 50 per cent reduction on their 2012 production.

Thirty years ago, the vintage would have been a total disaster, but today, wealthy Bordeaux estates have at their disposal a vast array of techniques and technologies, as well as the ever-increasing services of wine consultants, to make decent wine.

As is customary, specially blended barrel samples were shown to the media and buyers in the Primeur tastings in the first week of April. I had the opportunity to taste around 150 wines and there is no doubt that 2013 will not go down in history as a great vintage. It was never going to be one anyway.

Some wines are over-extracted, some are green and, in the worst cases, some have very strange and artificial flavours.

The Cabernet-dominated vineyards seem to have fared much better than the Merlot ones. In fact, across the board, the percentage of Cabernet in the blends have increased dramatically. In my opinion, the most successful wines were the ones where judicial and restrained extraction was used to produce a lighter-styled wine, evidently for early drinking.

Of course, there are some wines that stand out above the rest; either because of their exceptional terroir or because of the wine-making or growing techniques used.

Some châteaux hope that 2014 will turn out better wines so as to be able to add to their final 2013 blend. This is a legally allowed and often used practice in lesser vintages.

As mentioned earlier, the media plays an important role in assessing the wine and eventually to help set the price and sell the vintage. This year there were much less wine journalists around and the very important American wine critic Robert Parker did not come to taste en primeur. He will visit the region later in the year and release his verdicts after. A number of ‘less important’ critics took the opportunity and were releasing their verdicts practically ‘at real time’.

2013 did produce some decent wines

Both Tim Atkin MW and Guy Woodward, former Decanter editor, have written hard-hitting columns in Harpers Wine & Spirit, setting out their serious misgivings about how the current en primeur system is working, with Woodward going as far as describing some of the behaviour of the Bordeaux châteaux as a ‘con’.

They agreed that serious reforms need to be made to restore the confidence of not only wine critics like themselves in the system, but the trade and, most importantly, wine buyers and investors. They question when the wines are being tasted and suggest it would be better for some wines to be tasted later when more realistic assessments of the wines can be made.

In any case, and dependent on price, some wines will still be attractive to collectors and wine enthusiasts. Here is my opinion about some wines that are closely followed here in Malta.

Figeac had its first full vintage under the consultancy of Michel Rolland. With a higher percentage of Cabernet than usual, Figeac retains its freshness and elegance, all be it with a more modern outlook. The newly promoted Château de Pressac also increased its Cabernet proportion and made a decent wine.

One of the best in Saint-Emilion, and possibly the star of the vintage, is Cheval Blanc. In Margaux, Rauzan Segla made a light but elegant wine. Grand Puy Lacoste and Mouton of Pauillac and Leoville Barton and Las Cazes of St Julien are good. La Fleur-Petrus, La Conseillante and Gazin in Pomerol are decent, while Smith Haut Lafitte and Pape Clement in Graves are excellent.

I did not have a chance to taste the dry and sweet whites, so I cannot comment on those.

While we await the release of prices for the different wines, my final verdict is that 2013 did produce some decent wines. Whether they are worth buying now is a different story.

For merchants and importers there are factors such as future allocations and relationships to take into account, but as for consumers, unless prices go down dramatically or one has interest in particular properties or extra cash, I see no point in participating in this year’s campaign.

The Primeur business was successfully built over many years because it made sense to all concerned: producers, middle men and the end customer. In the past few years it was a bit like the small print on your bank or insurance contracts – very one-sided.

mike@michaeltabone.com