Hot on the heels of the 2022 Southwold Group tasting came the 2016 Ten Years On tasting, one that promised so much for a vintage many consider to be the greatest of the last decade, bridging old school proportions, refined but deep structures and cool ripeness of fruit. These wines have been difficult to get into in youth but now, at ten years old, are they ready to drink and do they live up to their lofty status? 21 tasters assembled at Farr Vintners HQ, including writers Neal Martin and Jancis Robinson; eleven of us are Masters of Wine.
In the period after Hong Kong wine duties were removed in 2008, Bordeaux was without doubt the region which capitalised most on the sudden boom in demand. Despite Hong Kong’s historical link to the UK, fine wine was still something enjoyed mostly at private dinners amongst a few connoisseurs. Almost overnight, it became the chosen social lubrication as well as a sign of sophistication and opulence.
2022 is a vintage with a big reputation. Lauded by many producers as another “vintage of the century”, with critics handing out perfect scores for several wines as vignerons believed they may have made their best wines ever, the combination of extreme weather and difficult market conditions, together with at times higher-than-ever release prices meant wines with great potential were often bought in more modest quantities.
The annual “Southwold Group” tasting is an important event in the wine trade calendar. Every year in January, 20 of us get together for three days to blind taste our way through samples of 250 top red and white Bordeaux from the most recently physically released vintage. It’s a completely comprehensive tasting with every leading château of Bordeaux pleased to take part - bar two who don’t like their wines blind-tasted against the neighbours. I won’t name names, but they don’t get away with it as we just buy their wines in anyway. The panel of tasters contains some incredibly knowledgeable people including septuagenarians and wine trade heroes Sebastian Payne MW and Mark Savage MW. In fact, 12 of the panel are Masters of Wine and ages range from early 30s to mid-70s. We have representatives from most leading UK merchants including Berry Bros, Corney & Barrow, Justerini & Brooks, Lay & Wheeler, Goedhuis-Waddesdon and The Wine Society. We are joined by wine writers HRH Jancis Robinson MW OBE and Neal Martin of Vinous (formerly of The Wine Advocate). It’s a fantastic line-up of people and wine.
As we reach the end of 2025, the Farr Vintners team have once again put together a list of their favourite and most memorable wines of the year.
The last few months have been a pretty special run of opening and drinking great, rare and old wines. I’m not really a big label drinker most of the time. I first got into wine through blind tasting, and that has largely shaped what I choose to drink at home to this day. What’s in the glass is more important to me, though a label can unquestionably provide context and enhance the experience in some cases. To open so many great wines in such a short space of time feels excessive, especially looking back on some dinners where many were opened in one sitting. But, in the end, the point of these wines was always to drink them, and though many delivered incredible experiences and delivered in the glass, some were either disappointing, tired or outright faulty, to the inevitable dismay of those who brought them. What follows below is largely a highlight reel, with a few lows, concluding with some thoughts on what a great wine is and when we should drink them.
As I push past all the shoppers at Causeway Bay, dodge bus-loads of mainland Chinese tourists and pass numerous bustling restaurants, I note that this is not quite what I was expecting.
Bordeaux 2022 is now in bottle, and the major critics around the world are starting to put words and scores to the finished wines. As I wrote in a comparative piece on 2020 and 2022 Bordeaux in November, price has been this vintage's issue from the outset. But casting that aside for a moment, let's delve into which wines are the most exciting in a vintage with a very high ceiling that separates the best from the rest. And should 2022 be considered a great vintage now the wines are finished?
After a disappointing 2021 Southwold, 2015 Ten Years On brought hope of some delicious, varied and approachable wines at a range of prices to reignite some love for Bordeaux from the tasting group. We were 19 in total, including writers Neal Martin, Lisa Perrotti-Brown and Jancis Robinson; 10 of us are Masters of Wine. We tasted just under 120 wines blind in a marathon day of reds, with two sweet flights to finish.
2021 Bordeaux has had a rough start. It was never going to be easy to follow 2018, 2019 and 2020 when everyone knew the weather was not going to allow for another highly rated vintage. Though everyone was glad to be back in Bordeaux for en primeur (after two Covid years where we tasted the wines at home in less than ideal conditions), it was clear from the outset that the wines were a step down on the last three years. This was compounded by the release prices, which did not reduce anywhere near enough to warrant buying the wines from barrel – many wines were released at 50% more than the 2019 releases, which were clearly much better.
