Guide
Why Bordeaux vintages vary so much
An ocean on one side, a pine forest in between, an estuary down the middle, and a spring night that can take half the crop.
The short answer
Because the Atlantic sends a different year every time. The pine forest and the estuary soften it; they cannot stop an April frost, a May hailstorm or a wet season that brings mildew. A single April night in 2017 took 40 to 50% of the crop.
The ocean, and what stands in front of it
The Atlantic sets the terms. The climate of the Bordeaux vineyards is oceanic, mild and humid, and the word that matters is humid: the weather comes in from the sea, and a vineyard here is always within reach of fungus.
Between the vines and the sea lies the Landes forest. The coastal dunes were stabilized from the 18th century on. The law of June 19, 1857, set off the planting of maritime pine across roughly 1 million hectares of what had been wet heathland. For the
Where the rivers meet, and what they soften
The Garonne comes up from the south, the Dordogne comes in from the east, and they meet at the Bec d’Ambès, about 25 kilometers downstream of the city. From there the Gironde runs to the sea: some 75 kilometers long, up to 12 kilometers wide, 635 square kilometers of water, the largest estuary in western Europe, as the map shows.
A body of water that size softens the cold along its banks. The rivers also left the soil the grapes are planted to, gravel for Cabernet Sauvignon (opens in a new tab) and clay for Merlot (opens in a new tab), a story told in full in the gravel and clay guide. The smaller rivers do their part too. The Ciron, running cold under its trees, meets the warmer Garonne at
What the water cannot stop
Frost is a danger in spring, once the buds have opened. The frost in the early hours of April 27, 2017, was the worst Bordeaux had seen since 1991. Production fell 40 to 50%, to an estimated 320 million liters against an average of 530 million. That is some 280 million bottles that were never made.
Where it struck says as much as what it cost.
Hail is narrower and faster. On the morning of May 26, 2018, a storm crossed Bourg and
Why no 2 years are alike
Each hazard strikes a different stage of the season. Frost takes the young shoots in April. Hail takes whatever lies in the path of a storm. A warm, wet spring brings mildew, which took crops in 2018, 2021, 2023, and 2024. That loss comes months before anyone picks, so it never shows in a tasting note.
A cool year leaves Cabernet Sauvignon, which ripens last, short of ripeness, and Merlot then fills the middle of the wine. In 2021, several of these came together: April frost, mildew through the summer, a cool season, and wines of moderate alcohol. Each season’s weather is on the sky over Bordeaux.
The season has also been moving earlier. Plots that were picked at the end of September in the 1990s are picked at the end of August, in the words of the CIVB (opens in a new tab)’s president. In 2026 the first grapes, for crémant, came in on August 6.
An estate cannot move its vineyard, so it works where it can: which plots to pick first, which lots to keep for the grand vin, the estate’s first wine. The rivers and the forest soften the Atlantic. They do not decide the year.
Where to go next
Sources: Conservatoire de l’estuaire de la Gironde, the largest estuary in western Europe · Office National des Forêts, Landes de Gascogne and the law of 1857 · Bordeaux Tourism, A day in the