Best Bordeaux vintages: the years worth your money
Updated
Nine post-war years make any serious list of the best Bordeaux vintages: 1945, 1961, 1982, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2016. Four of them carry a plain drink call today: 1961, 1982, 1990 and 2000, according to Jeff Leve's Wine Cellar Insider chart. Wine Spectator's Left Bank chart, checked on 7 August 2026, still marks 2010 (99 points) and 2016 (97 points) hold, a word its own legend defines as "most of the ageworthy wines have yet to fully mature". So the best year for your cellar and the best year for Saturday are two different lists, and confusing them is how people spend four figures on a case they cannot open for a decade. Two further wrinkles: the Left Bank and the Right Bank do not mature at the same speed inside a single year, and for anything before about 1975 the condition of the bottle now decides more than the year printed on it.
Which Bordeaux vintages are actually great?
These nine, according to the two vintage charts you can read without a subscription: Wine Spectator's and Jeff Leve's Wine Cellar Insider. Here is what each says, side by side, with 1989 and 2015 alongside because both complicate the picture.
| Vintage | Wine Spectator, Left Bank | Wine Spectator, Right Bank | Wine Spectator status | Wine Cellar Insider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | not rated | not rated | listed only as "notable older" | chart starts at 1959 |
| 1961 | not rated | not rated | listed only as "notable older" | 96, drink |
| 1982 | 95 (banks not split) | 95 (banks not split) | Drink | 96, drink |
| 1989 | 98 (banks not split) | 98 (banks not split) | Drink | 95, drink |
| 1990 | 97 (banks not split) | 97 (banks not split) | Drink | 96, drink |
| 2000 | 95 | 93 | Drink or hold | 99, drink |
| 2005 | 98 | 97 | Drink or hold | 98, hold |
| 2009 | 97 | 96 | Drink or hold | 98, hold |
| 2010 | 99 | 98 | Hold | 97, hold |
| 2015 | 94 | 97 | Left drink or hold, Right hold | 97, hold |
| 2016 | 97 | 94 | Left hold, Right drink or hold | 99, hold |
Two things to know before you use that table. Wine Spectator keeps its pre-1995 Bordeaux on a separate chart that does not split the banks at all, and that chart scores nothing earlier than 1972: 1945, 1961 and 1970 appear only in a closing line of "notable older vintages", with no number against them. And the numbers do not mean the same thing on both charts. Wine Spectator's bands run "95-100, classic; 90-94, outstanding; 85-89, very good". Leve says his rankings are "not awarded for a mathematical average of scores" but are "scored using a rough average based on your chance of randomly purchasing a bottle of Bordeaux wine from the vintage of your choice and having it offer a reasonably good, wine tasting experience". One is a ceiling. The other is an average outcome. That is why 2000 sits at 95 for Wine Spectator and 99 for Leve.
What is the difference between a great vintage and a great drinking vintage?
A great vintage is a claim about the ceiling. A great drinking vintage is a claim about tonight. Wine Spectator separates them explicitly: drink means "most of the wines of the vintage are ready to drink", hold means "most of the ageworthy wines have yet to fully mature", past peak means "most of the wines are declining rather than improving".
Run that against the table and the ranking inverts. The 2010 vintage carries 99 points on the Left Bank chart, the highest score on it, and still sits on hold, according to Wine Spectator. The same chart gives 1990 a 97 and marks it drink. If you are opening a bottle this month, the 97 is the better wine and it is not close. Thomas Parker MW of Farr Vintners put the same point about the 2016 vintage more bluntly in his November 2024 note on Château Montrose: "it should drink from 2030 and will outlive most of us."
Why do critics disagree about when the same bottle is ready?
Because a drink window is an opinion, not a measurement, and the opinions are further apart than anyone admits. Take one wine: Château Margaux 2016, a blend Farr Vintners records as 94% Cabernet Sauvignon. Seven of the windows Farr collects for that single bottling:
| Critic | Score | Drink window |
|---|---|---|
| Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com | 97+ | 2023-2083 |
| Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate | 99 | 2024-2063 |
| Tim Atkin MW | 96 | 2024-2036 |
| Derek Smedley MW | 95/97 | 2025-2040 |
| Neal Martin, Wine Advocate | 97/99 | 2026-2070 |
| Jane Anson, Decanter.com | 97 | 2027-2050 |
| Jancis Robinson MW | 18.5 | 2030-2050 |
Those critics disagree by seven years about when to pull the cork and by forty-seven years about when the wine dies, according to the windows Farr Vintners collects. Nobody who tells you 2016 needs another decade is quoting a fact. They are quoting one of these seven people. The useful move is to look at the spread rather than pick a champion, and then weight it with what owners are actually doing with their bottles.
Why does one year produce two different vintages on the two banks?
Different grapes, different soils, so the same weather writes two different wines. The short version, according to Jeff Leve's appellation guides, runs like this: in the Médoc "the most popular grape used for Bordeaux wine from the Medoc is Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Carmenere", across Margaux, St-Julien, Pauillac, St-Estèphe and the Haut-Médoc; in Pomerol "Merlot and Cabernet Franc are the two most important grapes". Scale is lopsided too. Leve lists 800 hectares under vine in Pomerol and 5,565 in St-Émilion, against "give or take 13,727 hectares planted with vines in the Medoc".
Merlot ripens early and buds early. Cabernet ripens late. A cool, wet June punishes one; a dry September rewards the other. Wine Spectator's two charts price that divergence year by year:
| Vintage | Left Bank | Right Bank | Who won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 91, drink | 87, past peak | Left, by four points and a maturity band |
| 1998 | 88, drink | 95, drink or hold | Right, by seven points |
| 2015 | 94, drink or hold | 97, hold | Right |
| 2016 | 97, hold | 94, drink or hold | Left |
Jeff Leve explains the mechanism for that last row in his 2016 harvest report: "record setting amounts of rain through most of June" and "we're talking 600-700 mm of water", then a dry second act, then "40 mm of rain on September 13 and September 14, which was perfect for the Merlot", then more at the end of the month, "which was exactly what the Cabernet Sauvignon needed". His conclusion was that "the clay and limestone soils in the Right Bank will produce the best wine and the gravel hills in the Medoc is where you are going to find the gems".
The divergence runs finer than banks. Comparing(/guides/2010-bordeaux-vintage) with(/guides/2009-bordeaux-vintage), Leve calls 2010 the better year in St-Émilion, 2009 the better year in Pomerol, 2009 "a much better vintage" in St-Estèphe, 2010 better in Pauillac "for most producers, 2009 the nod in Pessac-Léognan, and St-Julien and Margaux a judgement to be made on a wine by wine basis". Buy the address, not the headline.
Which celebrated Bordeaux vintages are past peak?
Two modern years carry Wine Spectator's past-peak flag on both banks: 2003 (89 Left, 88 Right) and 2013 (84 Left, 86 Right). On the same Right Bank chart, 1996 (87) and 1997 (86) are past peak while their Left Bank counterparts are still drinking, according to Wine Spectator. That is the cheap warning, and it is free to read.
The expensive warning is the one nobody updates. Leve's 1990 report said "most of the wines are now reaching full maturity" and that, well stored, "they should remain at this level until at least 2025, before slowly declining". That date has passed. Nothing dramatic happens on a deadline, but a 1990 bought today is a wine whose own advocate stopped guaranteeing the plateau, and the price should reflect that rather than the reputation.
For(/guides/1961-bordeaux-vintage) and 1945 the vintage barely matters any more. Leve records 1945 as a year whose yields were cut by a deep winter freeze, harvested from 13 September, made with "massive levels of tannin" that "took decades to develop", and of which the best examples "still show well today". A frost struck 1961 "at the end of May", and Leve records several top estates reporting yields of "11 hectoliters per hectare". Both facts explain why the survivors survived. Neither tells you anything about the specific bottle in the catalogue, which is 65 or 81 years into a storage history you cannot see. Fill level, capsule, label condition and the chain of custody are the whole assessment at that age. We score those separately from price and never blend them, for the reasons set out in our methodology.
Is 1982 still worth the money?
At the right address, yes. At the wrong one, you are buying a reputation. Wine Spectator scores(/guides/1982-bordeaux-vintage) at 95 and 1989 at 98 on the same pre-1995 chart, which is worth sitting with: the year everyone quotes is not the highest-rated year of its own era.
Leve's report puts the Right Bank's smaller appellation ahead in 1982. "Pomerol was much more successful than St. Emilion", he writes, and "the wine of the vintage, Chateau Lafleur came from Pomerol. Conditions in the Médoc were perfect allowing several legendary wines to be produced", and Leve names Château Latour the wine of that bank. On St-Émilion he is blunt: "In 1982, only Cheval Blanc was truly exceptional."
Forty years on, that spread showed up in the glass. At a tasting on 28 March 2023 recorded on the International Wine and Food Society blog, Joseph Temple found Ducru-Beaucaillou "on a perfect long plateau of special drinking pleasure" and Beychevelle "quite delicious now", while La Lagune was the weakest bottle of the night with "slightly stemmy-musty notes". One vintage, one evening, two outcomes.
Which vintage should you buy, given when you will open it?
Work backwards from the date you plan to drink it.
Opening within a year. 1990 and(/guides/2000-bordeaux-vintage), plus 1982 from a top address. On the 2000s, Joseph Temple's January 2025 notes on the IWFS blog found d'Armailhac "on a lovely plateau of enjoyment now" and Montrose "probably will develop further", which is the profile you want: no urgency, no risk.
Opening in five to fifteen years.(/guides/2005-bordeaux-vintage) and 2009. John Stimpfig tasted 2005 at Berry Bros & Rudd's St James's Street cellars for Club Oenologique in October 2025 and reported that "almost all have now entered their drinking windows", with "the best performing wines from the tasting good for another two decades at least. Leve's 2005 report warned the vintage will require time to develop"; twenty years on, that time has largely been served. 2009 is the plusher option, though Leve is direct that "the vintage is not homogenous", so wine selection matters more than in 2005.
Filling a cellar for the 2040s. 2010 and 2016 on the Left Bank, both still on hold at 99 and 97 points respectively, according to Wine Spectator. Leve's verdict on 2010 was that "the vintage requires patience". Sixteen years on, both charts still agree with him.
Thin-float wines change the calculus. For something like Pétrus, where almost nothing reaches retail, the vintage you can buy is often the vintage you get, and the question becomes what you pay rather than which year you choose. Our fine wine market index tracks how those vintage premiums move against each other.
Buy the year you will actually drink
A vintage chart tells you how good the weather was. It does not tell you whether the bottle in front of you is climbing, resting or falling, and that is the only question that decides whether you enjoy the wine or store a mistake. Our vintage maturity charts put every Bordeaux year on one axis with its drink-from date, its plateau and its decline, built from published critic windows and from what owners are actually opening rather than from a single reviewer's guess. Check the year before you bid, and you will spend the same money on a better night.