US wine writer Jeff Leve has published a series of articles on Bordeaux 2017 on his website, The Wine Cellar Insider.
Leve commented that 2017 is “not the vintage of the century. 2017 Bordeaux will not make you forget 2016, 2015, 2010 or 2009”. However, he added that “there are a few great wines from the vintage and a lot of very good wines as well”.
He goes on to say that “2017 Bordeaux is a stylistic choice”, adding that “generally, the wines are medium bodied, fresh, aromatic and lighter in alcohol than sunnier vintages”.
Leve suggests that Pauillac showed the best this year. In a his Pauillac article, he commented that “at the top end, some of the wines [from Pauillac] are not that far off the extremely high level of quality found in the 2016, 2015, 2010 and 2009 vintages”.
On the market, Leve agrees that “the success of the 2017 Bordeaux campaign will come down to the prices being asked for the wines”. He adds that “there is only so much money available” and “hopefully, the chateau will take that into consideration, if they want the wines to sell through to the consumers and not just to the negociant”.
Leve’s top reds from the vintage were Mouton Rothschild and Petrus. Both wines received a barrel range of 98-100, making Leve the first critic (so far) to award a potentially perfect score to a red wine from 2017.
A selection of Leve’s top scoring reds are shown in the table below. You can find his overview of Bordeaux 2017 on The Wine Cellar Insider. You can also compare his scores to other leading critics on our critic scores page, which will be updated as more are released.
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