As we head into the Bank Holiday weekend – Friday 1st May in France, Monday 4th in the UK – below are the links to not one but two videos uploaded by our great friend Tom Gilbey on YouTube in April.

Angela and I are in the Médoc today, north of the city of Bordeaux, after a long week. We’ll return to the serious stuff of running the vineyard another time.

Bordeaux 2025 latest

It’s been a long week of tasting the 2025s at many of the top châteaux around Bordeaux: waiting for the next one with our Swiss importer Philipp Schwander MW, Master of Wine and of the power nap. Photo by Bruno Straessle, head of the Zürich branch of the Commanderie of Bordeaux (a geeky wine club).

This is the schedule I’d arranged for us, which is a thing of beauty, taking into account most of the top names on both the right bank and then the left bank of Bordeaux in three days. I couldn’t squeeze in several others so I’ve visited them alone the week before. I write an ‘en primeur’ report for Harpers Wine & Spirit, a UK trade mag, and Philipp dispenses with his wine merchant hat temporarily as he writes a piece for Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a leading newspaper in Switzerland.

I’ll put together a photo journal of the wines, châteaux and winemakers once I’ve recovered.

Pic of us by the car here

Angela kindly volunteered to be our chauffeur for the week, because I’m not to be trusted with a schedule like this and we obviously can’t afford to lose Philipp, who has already bought 75,000 bottles of our 2025 white and rosé combined for his thirsty customers.

While we’re on the subject of Rosé and 2025, Victoria Moore had included ours in a selection of Bordeaux to look out for in the Easter issue of the Telegraph magazine. (The others were all reds, which is 80% of Bordeaux.)

I’d been to see Victoria in London, along with tasting the rosé and other wines with Charlie Stein for the family restaurants, courtesy of Sophie’s Soho.

Now for our mate Tom Gilbey’s exciting videos. The first one, which lasts about 12 minutes, is “Wine Heaven with Gary Barlow”. More on that in a moment, but to go straight to the video on YouTube, here’s the link.

The second has the title “Best Merlot in the world?” talking about Saint-Emilion wines. The title’s debatable, as we shall see later on, but it’s catchy. Here’s the link to that one.

Wine heaven with Gary Barlow & Tom Gilbey

For the first video, the subtitle is “Gary and Gav in Bordeaux”, with me described as their ‘resident little wine nerd’, which is fair enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rWJJLDNZ3AGary and Tom stayed with us at Château Bauduc for a couple of nights, and over the course of two days we went to Saint-Emilion, Pomerol, and then up to Pauillac via Saint-Estèphe. Click the image above to link to the video, or here.

We went to a top Saint-Emilion estate called Château Troplong Mondot, where we were met and entertained by Aymeric de Gironde, who’s the chief exec. Aymeric gave us a tour in his Land Rover around the vineyard, which I think must be his party piece, and then the winery. 

We then had a tasting and lunch at the beautiful Château. During the tasting, I mentioned that Aymeric’s 2018 vintage was a ‘work in progress’, which went down well. 

After lunch, we left Saint-Émilion and went next door to the vineyards of Pomerol, where en route, Tom had had this brilliant idea that we would taste two wines, one costing £60 and the other costing £600 from neighbouring vineyards.

After this little debacle, we went to Château Clinet in Pomerol, where we were looked after by the owner Ronan Laborde and his wife Monique. 

The following day, we were up in Pauillac at Château Pichon Baron. Our friend Corinne took care of us with an outstanding tour and tasting.

The evening view from the terrace of the new tasting room at Pichon Baron isn’t too shabby.

For our photo journal of Gary and Tom’s trip to us it’s here.

Best Merlot in the world? In Saint-Emilion with Tom Gilbey

Here’s Tom’s second video, which is well worth a watch. Click the image above or this link. I’d forgotten in the scene above that I’d accused Tom of drinking more of the wine than spitting it out as most pros might be expected to do.

Tom, his son Fred and the team arrived at Bauduc with no plan whatsoever. So we had hatched one over breakfast. In the video, you can find out why the view from near the public loo in the car park at Saint-Émilion train station is a useful spot for understanding the wines of the area.

We had an impromptu tasting at one of Saint-Émilion better wine shops, with Tom’s son Fred, left, very much in charge.

It’s not straightforward to fix a visit on the day to the leading vineyard right next to the town but I found a way. Knowing the estate director and Tom having over 700,000 followers on Instagram certainly helped.

Sophie at Clos Fourtet looked after us impeccably. When asked which old vintage wouldwe like to taste I went for the 2003. A very hot year (like 2025) but Clos Fourtet made a lovely wine that year.

Then it was back home to Bauduc, where Ange and I allowed Tom some downtime.

That evening, we put a slab of beef on the bbq and re-tasted the wines we’d bought at the wine shop. It’s not our normal spot for the Webber, but it was more photogenic, according to director Fred.

More on ‘Best Merlot in the World’

We were back in Saint-Émilion this week – it’s less than half an hour from us. It’s a beautiful place when there aren’t too many tourists. It’s also home to some great wines, but many would argue that the ‘Best Merlot in the World’ is made nearby in Pomerol.

Wine collectors and well-heeled enthusiasts pay enormous sums for great Pomerol. This was Château Lafleur at the end of August 2025, just after they announced that they were leaving the Pomerol appellation to become Vin de France. One of the main reasons was to be able to help the vines with ‘soil replenishment’. So from 2025 onwards, they can’t use the word Château nor, more importantly, the name Pomerol on the label.

Jancis Robinson wrote an excellent article for the FT on the news. https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/problem-thirsty-vines

I was reminded of that article during this last week while speaking with the main characters that were mentioned.

Baptiste Guinaudeau at Lafleur. Labelled as such or not, it’s still in Pomerol.

Fiona Morrison last September during the harvest in Saint-Émilion, and Jacques Thienpont at Le Pin in Pomerol on Tuesday.

With the utterly charming Christian Moueix last week. And, right, his son Edouard.

The best merlot in the world? The prices paid for Petrus and Le Pin are extraordinary. That’s the average bottle price, by the way, according to Wine Searcher.

And Lafleur is quite expensive too. It’s one of the wines that Tom Gilbey, Gary Barlow and I taste in the video above, right next to the vineyard. I forgot to mention it to Baptiste this week. Damn – he would have been amused.

I’ve included the price of Bauduc Les Trois Hectares for comparison, as it’s marginally more affordable. Also majority Merlot – it’s a funny old world.

Onwards and upwards.