Beats me why it happens, but here’s something you can seriously benefit from. Great vintages often come in pairs and it’s usually the first in the pair that gets the scores and the accolades, which then transfer to prices on the secondary market. It’s the second, hidden vintage in the shadows of the first that is often overlooked by the media and the market – and this is where the quality and value can really lie.
Here are three classic examples of what I’m talking about: 1982 and 1983 in Bordeaux plus the Australian pairings of 1990 and 1991 plus 1998 and 1998. I was in Bordeaux in both 1986 and 1987 and remember tasting a lot of the 1982 vintage. I remember wondering what the fuss was all about, since the wines tasted so much riper and fruit-driven than the Bordeaux reds of the 1970s, which frankly came from rather a forgettable decade. To my mind they had more in common with Australian reds than classic Bordeaux. Yes, I showed some inexperience back then and I have since marvelled at the beauty, power and precision of many a red Bordeaux from 1982 which, if you remember, was the vintage upon which Robert Parker jnr built his reputation. And, to be honest, he got it dead right.
Then, quite naturally, came 1983 – a more traditional and less ripe and overt vintage than 1982. Its wines were more gentle, perhaps more traditionally perfumed and elegant, with finer, more supple structures than we saw from 1982. Perhaps it’s because the wine world was just experiencing the first dose of Parker’s unquestioned authority – a period which lasted for at least two decades and changed the wines of many regions and countries – but all of a sudden it wasn’t high fashion for a Bordeaux red to resemble the wines upon which the region had crafted its reputation. And, to a significant extent, especially amongst those who had swallowed the Parker pill, the qualities of 1983’s classical red wines did largely slip beneath the radar.
Today, well preserved bottles of fine 1983 Bordeaux will provide a very different, but equally valid kind of pleasure to the more pricey expressions from the year before. We have two such bottles of 1983 Chateau Margaux in our Old and Rare selection right now.
The pair of Australian vintages I mentioned earlier follow a very similar story. Both 1990 and 1998 were, at their time, considered to be the finest Australian vintages since seasons like 1962 and 1966. In most of the country there was little to prevent growers and makers from harvesting their fruit precisely when they wanted to – a rare luxury in viticulture. So makers were able to take complete and total control – which also had the side-effect of revealing any mistake they might have made. To be frank, too many makers actually wasted the opportunity afforded them by these seasons, usually harvesting too late in the pursuit of yet more flavour, which came at the expense of freshness, purity, vibrancy and length. This typically led to reds that appeared as if they were made from fruit that appeared more baked and dehydrated than perfectly ripe and balanced, because they were.
That said, there are enough classics from 1990 and 1998 to cement their places amongst Australia’s finest ever seasons for high quality wine. Strangely, each was followed by a season which, like 1983 in Bordeaux, was less warm but provided a long, even and relatively dry ripening season able to deliver many wines of wonderful elegance, balance, length and finesse. It’s taken the expected time for this to happen, but in many cases the finest Australian reds of 1991 and 1999 have now eclipsed their predecessors.
Of course individuals have their own tastes and preferences – which is of course at the very heart and soul of the way this platform works – and it’s with some pleasure that I imagine countless future arguments as the case I have just presented is debated time and again by those with the cellar and the wisdom to have collected these vintages.
Interestingly, history appears to have repeated itself again with the 2021 and 2022 vintages in Australia. Get the hint?
