As interest surrounding Bordeaux 2014 continues to build, critics have started to announce their in-bottle scores for the vintage. James Suckling released his this week; James Molesworth and Antonio Galloni published theirs last week.
Mouton Rothschild 2014 is the only wine to appear in all four critics’ top ten. Cheval Blanc, Latour, Vieux Chateau Certan each appear in the top ten for three of the four reviewers.
James Suckling’s top scores were higher than other critics. He awarded Lafleur and Ausone a ‘perfect’ 100 points, noting that he is “in awe” of Ausone, and exclaiming that Lafleur “is fantastic on the nose. OMG!” As can be seen, eight of his top ten wines have been scored above their original barrel range.
James Molesworth and Antonio Galloni have been a little more reserved. All of Molesworth’s scores fall within their original barrel ranges. Galloni awarded 97 points to seven Bordeaux reds with Vieux Chateau Certan acheiving the top score of 97+, above its original barrel range of 93-96+.
Neal Martin’s in-bottle scores for Bordeaux 2014 are expected in the next few months.
The chart above highlights the differences of opinion amongst the leading critics for twenty of the high-scoring wines that received a score from all four reviewers. It uses a mid-point of the barrel range for Neal Martin. As can be seen there are significant variations between critics for particular wines. For example, Clos Fourtet received 90-92 from Neal Martin from barrel, but 97 points in bottle from Antonio Galloni.
Neal Martin has generally scored towards the bottom of the range so far. However, as we have seen Suckling and Galloni have both increased their scores from barrel to bottle. It will be interesting to see whether Martin also finds more quality in the vintage when he releases his in-bottle scores later in the year.
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