(Wine-Searcher) - The first taste of the 2015 vintage in London reflects the above-average growing season.

"You can't lie about the weather," a well-known journalist said as he collected his glass for London's first taste of the 2015 Bordeaux wines last week.

The Grand Cercle des Vins de Bordeaux, a loose grouping of 183 properties from Bordeaux Supérieur to Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé, Pessac-Léognan to Saint-Estèphe, always comes to London a couple of weeks before En Primeur proper starts in Bordeaux.

As such, it's a snapshot of the vintage and of the mood – which this year is decidedly upbeat. If you compliment a vintner on the crunchiness of his fruit or the suavity of his tannins, the response is likely to be a broad smile and "Mais bien sûr, ça c'est la vendange!"

However much the Bordelais may be accused of hyping their wines, the weather is a fact. From flowering to just before harvest, 2015 was blessed. A warm spring gave way to a hot and dry July and cooler August, with a few showers to hydrate the vines, then warm days and cool nights in September. That month also saw rain, with 50-60mm falling in Saint-Estèphe and slightly less in Margaux.

This caused some problems with Cabernet, and on the (very cursory) evidence of last week's tasting, the higher up the Médoc you go, the more likely you are to encounter astringent tannins.

But the overall picture, at this early stage, is of wines that are balanced and fresh, with delicate, perfumed fruit (seductive aromatics will be a hallmark of 2015), soft ripe tannins and brisk acidity.

"We had good maturity, the quality of the grapes was consistent, it was an easy vintage without any problems," Francis Bouteny of Château Haut-Lagrange in the Graves said. Remarking on the balance of his wines, he said "if we'd had 10 per cent more tannin, it would have been too harsh."

The wines, especially those with a high proportion of Merlot, are finely wrought, the best of them with energy and precision. Many show classic proportions – fresh grippy tannins dissolving to juice at the end palate.

Many vintners echoed Bouteny, describing a problem-free harvest without the kind of rigorous sorting that has characterized the past couple of vintages. Jean-François Quenin, of Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé Château de Pressac, told Wine-Searcher he has just bought state-of-the-art sorting equipment, including the revolutionary Tribaie machine, which measures berry density. “But this year we didn’t use them once.”