Category Archives: Chateau Bauduc

Bauduc 2014 – what a difference a year makes

October 22 2014

We’ve been here a tad over 15 years and have just completed our 16th harvest. Crikey. (Sophie, below left, was two when we arrived and Amelia and Tom were both born here. Georgie, away studying at Bristol, was four.) Another question we’re frequently asked is about how many bottles we make. It can be a sore point, especially with 2013 in mind, as the answer is anywhere between 50,000 and 200,000.

We pick at weekends to keep staff costs down. Sophie, Amelia, Angela and Tom at Bauduc.

We pick at weekends to keep staff costs down. Sophie, Amelia, Angela and Tom at Bauduc.

004269-BAUDUC-bb2013-AWOL

2013 ‘cuvée grêle’ back label

It is with some relief, with the crop safely in, that we can now move on from the cuvée grêle (right).

Actually, we’re quite stubbornly proud of our hail blend; despite the *ahem* challenges, the 2013 is the house white at Rick Stein’s and Gordon Ramsay’s eponymous three Michelin star restaurant in London. It’s a crisp, dry and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc. There just wasn’t much of it though and, worse still, we had to be draconian with the selection of the final blend before bottling.

So, what of 2014? Tasting all the fermentation tanks again last night, the whites are showing well. All ten parcels, which are vinified separately to help us understand the character of each block, are good enough to be included in any assemblage, I reckon. I rank them in order of quality and compatibility, and have already decided on the blend for five separate ’lots’ at this stage. These ten blocks are being added together to form the five interim blends as I write.

Whether we blend it all remains to be seen and it may be that we don’t put tous les oeufs dans le même panier. Our private and restaurant customers simply want the best wine we can produce for a reasonable price, and that remains our primary focus. We are naturally mindful that to bottle, label and box up the wines costs 80 centimes per bottle: our golden rule, which dawned on us after some time and several costly errors, is that we don’t bottle anything unless we’d drink it ourselves. Keep reading

Harvesting in the dark – in pictures

September 24 2014

We like harvesting in the dark. We started the Sauvignon Blanc at Bauduc on Tuesday 16 September and over the next ten days we harvested just a parcel each morning by machine. Thanks to the fine weather, we’ve had the relative luxury of being able to wait for each block of vines to ripen, instead of having to rush everything in at once – and the grapes have been brought in during the coolest part of the day. Although picking by hand has more romance about it, I’m a big fan of picking Sauvignon Blanc when it’s comparatively chilly and away from the glare of the midday sun.

Bauduc 23 Sept 2014 - 060 - Version 2

It’s been a hot and sunny September, yet we faced a worrying shower on Wednesday night (17/9) and then a brief storm on Thursday afternoon. That storm brought hail to some growers up the road, poor sods, but we survived with just some heavy rain for a few minutes.

Keep reading

Hand-picked start to Bauduc 2014 harvest – in pictures

September 16 2014

We kicked off the 2014 harvest at Bauduc last week by picking some white grapes by hand. These were from young Sémillon vines that we planted exactly ten years ago.

The most effective way to harvest white bunches by hand is to cut and sort them into small, stackable crates called cagettes. I say ’sort’ although what we really mean by this is to cut out any ugly, mouldy bits. This process is used by many of the leading Bordeaux chateaux nowadays for their reds, with many having switched to using cagettes in the last few years.

The advantage with stackable crates is that the bunches don’t get crushed, so the grapes stay intact and the juice doesn’t oxidise. You don’t want a soupy trailer full of grapes and juice warming up under a midday sun. And since the beginning of September it has been sunny and, mostly, pretty hot.

With the brilliant Nelly and Daniel 'Ramone'. 2014 is our 16th harvest together.

With the brilliant Nelly and Daniel ‘Ramone’. 2014 is our 16th harvest together.

We have a small team of around 16 pickers and four porters, in addition to Daniel, Nelly and me. For the mornings only mind, as the afternoons are too hot to harvest – not for the team, but for the grapes. Freshness is the key. Keep reading

Photos of the 2014 harvest

September 09 2014

You can see our pictures of the 2014 harvest at Bauduc and across Bordeaux by following me, Gavin Quinney, on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We also have a Chateau Bauduc Facebook page and I’ll be posting weekly updates on this blog. (Yes, there’s still time to bring in 60 acres of grapes, albeit with help from the redoubtable Daniel, Nelly and team.)

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of our three dogs and the cat in the vineyard. Keep reading

The eve of the harvest

The white harvest kicks off this week at Bauduc with the hand picking of grapes for a new wine. For some reason, we thought we’d have a crack at making a sparkling wine, which around here means a Crémant de Bordeaux. Then it’s the turn of our Sauvignon Blanc and, touch wood, the best crop we’ve had. The vines are fairly bulging with delicious bunches.

More on the Crémant and the hand picking shortly. Meanwhile, we’ve got to hurry and clean the cagettes (the small plastic crates). The plan is to hand pick the young Sémillon, which is destined for the sparkling wine, and then wait for the Sauvignon Blanc until the week beginning 15 September – all being well.

Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc
Semillon destined for Crémant
Semillon for the Crémant
Semillon for the Crémant
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Gris

Waiting for the storm

June 09 2014

We’ve had our fair share of hail over the years. And tonight, the forecast is for a huge storm running from the South West of France, heading north.

 

The G-word – Grêle – is the one we fear most. It’s rare to see mention of giant grêlons in advance.

Keep reading

Mis en bouteille au Château

March 28 2014

Lafite in May iPhone - 27We’re bottling our 2013 dry white and rosé this week. A massive mobile machine is temporarily installed next to the winery, and a team of ten are labelling and packing the bottles into cartons of six, our preferred pack size from now on. The same outfit – from Thierry Bergeon – can also been seen at Chateau Lafite (right), so we’re in good if somewhat expensive company.

In order to have the words ‘bottled at the Chateau’ on the label, the wine can’t be shipped off in bulk and bottled elsewhere. Although we have our own bottling machine, we’ve been using these guys for a few years now and using outside contractors is common practice, even at many of the top estates.

This company is also far better equipped to deal with both Stelvin screwcaps and corks – for this bottling, we’re using just Stelvin+ for white and rosé. They have the skilled manpower to pack everything up quickly and efficiently, not least because we have separate labels for Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay and Hotel du Vin, as well as the regular Bauduc label.

Below is a gallery of photos. Keep reading

New Bauduc labels, new boxes

March 27 2014

004269-BAUDUC-bb2013We’ve added a ’when to drink’ image to each back label and removed the QR code. If you’re wondering what a QR code is, that’s why we’ve ditched it. We have also taken on board what the lovely sommeliers at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant observed when they changed ’Chateau Bauduc Bordeaux Blanc’ to ’Chateau Bauduc Sauvignon Blanc’ on the wine list.

Roni and Jason suggested that they change the title of our wine on the list, and sales have gone up fourfold. We also asked our friend Laura Clay, who hosts many Bordeaux tastings in the UK, to briefly survey the audience at one event. 58 out of 60 people said that they would be more likely to buy a wine called Sauvignon Blanc than Bordeaux Blanc.

Finally, having scanned the shelves of supermarkets in England at Christmas, there were an awful lot of cheap Bordeaux Blancs on offer. Of course, there are cheap Sauvignon Blancs too but it’s a popular grape; so we’ve decided to go with Chateau Bauduc Sauvignon Blanc.

Our old-vine Sémillon label, Les Trois Hectares, hasn’t changed. Keep reading