It was a pleasure to welcome Jon Henley, The Guardian’s European affairs correspondent, to Bauduc last week. He was on a mission to find out more about the impact of a possible no-deal Brexit on Bordeaux wines, and his piece is scheduled to be in the paper early next week. Do look out for it – we’ll mention it on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – and we’ll link to the online version here when it’s available. (Update – it’s online here.) Keep reading
Category Archives: Chateau Bauduc
November review – three stars, four wines at Gordon Ramsay
November 30 2018
November has been a hectic month, though less so in the vineyard itself. We sometimes forget how beautiful it can be at this time of year, with the golden rows of vines set against the autumn backdrop of the woods.
New highs with Bordeaux 2018 – and UK duty: October review
October 31 2018
This month’s exciting review covers the Bordeaux 2018 vintage and how the weather impacted on the harvest. Below is a cutdown version of a longer article that Gavin has just put together for Jancis Robinson’s website and for Liv-ex (the London International Vintners’ Exchange).
September review – the sunshine harvest
September 28 2018
This month has seen our twentieth harvest at Bauduc. We took over the grapes that were on the vines when we arrived at the start of September 1999, so we haven’t quite clocked up 20 years, but the 2018 vintage is still a (frightening) milestone. Daniel was already here, and he still has no grey hairs, while Nelly joined us as a trainee. Pictured below, they’ve both put up with us ever since. Meanwhile, Michel, above, and better known as known as Papi, had already retired back then yet he’s volunteered to help in each and every harvest, and at 85 is still going strong. There’s hope for us all yet.
Véraison – 16 grape varieties changing colour
August 31 2018
Every stage of the grapes’ development is fascinating to some of us but August is the month when most of the bunches change colour (véraison) in Bordeaux, so you really get a visual perspective on how the different varieties perform.
As well as the Bordeaux varieties, we have some non-Bordeaux grapes too, planted around ten years ago as an experiment. Most visitors have little idea that we’re restricted to growing only certain types of grapes, but that’s the same for all protected ‘appellations’ in France: should we wish to make wine with non-Bordeaux grapes, like Syrah or Chardonnay, this would have to be under the basic Vin de France label. (Only a tiny fraction of wine from the Gironde is Vin de France, the rest ‘Bordeaux’ or one of its 60-odd appellations.)
This is a long post below with several photos of each variety, and you certainly don’t need to know all about this stuff to enjoy a glass or two of wine. However, to give you a picture of how different grapes ripen at different times, here are several reds in the same block, taken on the same mid-August day:
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- Merlot, 12 August 2018
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- Cabernet Franc, 12 August
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- Cabernet Sauvignon, 12 August
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- Pinot Noir, 12 August
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- Syrah, 12 August
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- Grenache, 12 August
August review – grapes, harvest and friends
Another dry and unusually hot month, and the white harvest has already kicked off in the more precocious Bordeaux vineyards, namely to the south of the city in Pessac-Léognan. Most white vines, like ours, are sensibly holding back just long enough until the managers, oenologists and staff return from their holidays.
Bordeaux 2018 – a game of two halves
July 30 2018
This post also appears on JancisRobinson.com and on Liv-ex, the fine wine market website.
I’ll keep the football analogies to a minimum but the end of the month in which France won the World Cup seems an appropriate moment to reflect on the pluses and minuses of the season so far. For wine growers, or viticulteurs, the business end of the season will soon be upon us.
Following on from a wet winter and a thoroughly damp spring, the start of the summer has been dry and hot. In fact, of the last 44 days, 22 have seen temperatures over 30°C around Bordeaux, with another 14 days over 28°C. July itself has been the third hottest in France since 1947, still behind 2006 and 1983 but knocking 2015 into fourth spot. Keep reading
How 2018 is looking, hail news and more… July review
A memorable month with friends, family, football and glorious weather. And, for some of us, Love Island. We’ve also had a record number of visitors to the château to taste and even to buy our wine, and there seems to have been no let-up in the number of online orders in the UK, which is great.
June review – our Rosé cocktail and what’s been happening
June 29 2018
We hope you’re enjoying the sunshine. As we’ve discovered of late, it is most definitely rosé weather.
April review and Bordeaux 2017 scores
April 30 2018
Normally we’d be a bit miserable with these seasonal showers (above) yet we are delighted to report that there has been no repeat of the late spring frost that half-trashed our vines at the end of April last year. Once the risk of ‘les Saints des Glaces’ have passed by around the middle of May, we’ll only have to stress about the weather for a further five months.