Château Pomeaux 2021

The 2021 vintage was one of the most difficult on record, presenting Bordeaux’s wine producers without almost unlimited challenges. These challenges included heavy rains, frosts, and hail in the spring, and mildew, botrytis, insects, rot, meager sunshine, and moderate temperatures during the summer months. The 2021 vintage began with a rainy winter followed by a warm early April that precipitated early budbreak followed by frosts in April and early May. Many vines were lost and those that survived matured heterogeneously. Rainy weather in June and July resulted in mildew, which proved challenging to control. Fortunately, dry and sunny weather arrived in August and early September, and warm days with cool nights prevailed in late September and early October. Wine producers who exercised patience and delayed harvesting until October were rewarded by mature crops of concentrated grapes.

If a vintage such as that of 2021 had occurred 30 years ago, very few high-quality wines would have been made. Vast improvements in vineyard management and winemaking, however, have permitted the best wine producers to craft extraordinary wines in 2021. Decades of agronomic progress, courageous decisions to delay harvesting until fruit achieved optimal ripeness, severe selection of perfect grapes, optical and densimetric sorting, bleeding tanks before fermentation and maceration, reverse osmosis, and chapitalization, and intensive work in the vineyard and the winery now permit exceptional wines to be produced in challenging vintages.

Most 2021 red Bordeaux wines exhibit moderate alcohol, medium body, and fresh acidity. These wines are typically highly perfumed and silky, will be easy to drink, and will mature early. Although these fresh and drinkable wines are likely to benefit from extended aging, consumers will be tempted to drink them while young.

The 2021 vintage of Château Pomeaux was harvested in the second week of October under ideal conditions. Château Pomeaux was able to harvest a moderate crop of optimally ripe grapes. After malolactic fermentation in small oak barrels, the 2021 Château Pomeaux wine is maturing in new French oak barrels and will be bottled in the summer of 2023. Barrel samples indicate that the 2021 vintage of Château Pomeaux wine will be concentrated, lush, rich, fresh, well-balanced, and delicious.