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Average Scores of all Estates within a Region

The above chart represents the average of the scores gathered by all the Bordeaux wineries by wine growing region (AOC in French). For more details on a specific chateau, please use our search engine at the right hand's side of each page. This tool is extremely useful to pick the best wines at Bordeaux Futures offerings and wine auctions.  

88 to >90 = excellent
86 to 88 = very good
84 to 86 = good
< 84 = generally pleasant but lacks character, complexity or depth

Bordeaux 1997 is very disparate in quality. 1997 is definitely not a great vintage for red wines while excessively priced. 

From a quality point of vies, the Medoc and the Pessac-Leognan (Graves) have little in comparison with 1996. The right bank wines (Pomerol and St-Emilion) are much thinner than the excellent 1995 or the great 1998 vintage. 

The wines are usually "light" with little concentration and even sometimes have vegetal tannins. Better to drink until 2008 as only few will last much longer. 

But one region has really produced exceptional wines: Sauternes-Barsac - 1997 is the best vintage for sweet white wines since the magic trilogy 1988, 1989 and 1990 ! (see the article on our Sauternes 1997 tasting)