Join me at the ‘Three Wine Men’ tasting
3rd and 4th December, at Lord’s, London NW8
Prize draw for free tickets
Come and taste our stuff at the ‘Three Wine Men’ event at Lord’s next weekend, hosted by Oz Clarke, Tim Atkin and Olly Smith. There are scores of other wines to try as well.
Oz will be standing on his soap box at the Château Bauduc table at 2pm on Saturday. No doubt he’ll be quite rude about us. Keep reading
If it hadn’t been for Steve Jobs, I wouldn’t have read the sad news on my iPad this morning, or be typing on my Mac now. Our kids wouldn’t be playing games on my wife’s iPhone, and there wouldn’t be any iPods lying around.
Of course, we’re not the only family surrounded by all things Apple but if it hadn’t been for Steve Jobs, the company’s co-founder, we probably wouldn’t be living in this château.
It was the announcement of the original Apple Macintosh in 1984 that got me into the micro-computer industry (as it was called back then) which would eventually give me the chance to buy a vineyard. Before then, my CV consisted of two jobs in different fields, and two dismissals. Keep reading
With the growing season almost three weeks ahead of last year, the harvest of our white grapes at Château Bauduc kicked off at the end of August. It wasn’t the easiest vintage, as we had four months of near-drought from March to early July and a tad too much rain from mid-July to the beginning of September. The summer was cool overall but at times it was very humid, which caused problems. In the end, after getting hands-on in the vines to sort the grapes, we’re pretty pleased with the result.
Here’s the story of the white harvest in photos. Click on an image to enlarge it.
Update, Summer 2012: if you’re in the UK and would like to sample the fruits of our labour, you can order the wine here. Keep reading
Our personalised labels have been going down well, so we’ve tightened up on the process and can price them attractively at £1.50 a bottle surcharge. A minimum order applies and advance planning is recommended to avoid high shipping bills.
We can’t think of many Bordeaux Châteaux that print bespoke labels for weddings…
The cost is £1.50 per bottle surcharge, with a minimum one-off fee of £180 – which covers the first ten cases of 12 (120 x £1.50). The ten cases can be made up of different wines – white, red and rosé. For more on the wines, which cost between £7.95 and £9.75 per bottle in the UK for the regular labels, see here.
Essentially, we use the classic Bauduc label, with our special raised print, and can add 3 lines of personal text below the drawing on our label. Keep reading
‘Points v prices’ often throws up some anomalies but we couldn’t resist these scores by Jancis Robinson MW, the UK’s most respected critic. (Source: www.jancisrobinson.com). Prices are per bottle, UK.
Château Mouton Rothschild blanc 2009 £70 16 points/20
Château Bauduc blanc 2009 £8.95 16.5 points/20
Château Haut Brion blanc 2009 £750 17 points/20
Yes, Haut Brion blanc, a rare wine, is £750 a bottle from leading UK merchants. The Bauduc blanc is available online here. Keep reading
We’ve completed our harvest, which is a relief. More on the fun and games shortly: a judicious mixture of hand picking and machine harvesting.
We’re often asked how long we’ve been here, to which we usually reply ’10 years or so’. Hang on. This was, in fact, our 13th harvest.
“Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself… You’ve got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?”
Many old friends will be familiar with this Bauduc summer cocktail but you can add another optional ingredient: cranberry juice. This is a great drink that you can prepare in advance of a small party. Without any vodka, it’s pretty low in alcohol too.
Bauduc Rose Cocktail
For 25 long drinks, pre-mix in a very large jug:
2 bottles of Château Bauduc Rosé 2010
50cl Cranberry juice
Lime cordial
A squeeze of fresh lime juice
Slug of vodka (optional)
Keep the mix cold and slice up 3 limes into wedges. When guests arrive, put ice into some tall tumblers and half-fill with the Rosé mixture. Then fill each glass completely with Canada Dry (you’ll need about 2 litres in all). Garnish with fresh mint leaves if possible, and squeeze a small lime wedge over each glass and drop it in. Keep reading
Last week was a busy week, what with the biennial Vinexpo trade fair taking place in Bordeaux. After tastings and meetings, and five dinners on the trot (two small ones here, three flashier affairs at neighbouring châteaux), I was flagging a bit when a short email came through to team@bauduc.com from Jancis Robinson MW OBE on Thursday morning: “Hope Vinexpo is treating you well. Much enjoyed your 2009 white, even if it is not based on the usual vines. What is the RS pse?”
Angela was about to reply ‘£8.95’ before checking with me at the show. ‘The Residual Sugar is 2.94 gms/litre’ was the answer Jancis was looking for. ‘Why?’ we asked. HRH replied “I’m planning to make it wine of the week on my website tmrw.”
Now that is good news at the end of a long week, and somehow all the effort we put in after the hail in May 2009 seems worth it. Here below is Jancis’s article on the wine, taken from the freebie part of her site. (Subscription costs £69 a year for ‘Purple Pages’ – essential reading for any wine nut.) Jancis then kindly tweeted the link to her 90,000 followers on Twitter. I did the same for my, er, 1,193.
An early start to the growing season, then lovely weather for the all important-flowering in the vines – three weeks ahead of usual – seems a little too much of a good thing.
Now what we need is a little divine intervention for some much-needed rain and, with any luck, no natural disasters. We have, after all, had one or two catastrophes strike in May (hail, 2009) and June (hail, 2003).
Budburst kicked off early this year, towards the end of March.
It’s five years since Oz Clarke and James May came to Bauduc at the start of their Big Wine Adventure – the video of the day is on the home page of our main Bauduc website and on the blog here. Oz has been back a few times since, the most recent visit being in March.
Here are his thoughts following his visit, with his kind permission. A slightly shorter version appeared in our Gazette, the newsletter we printed and posted to UK customers in May. You can view La Gazette online here.
‘Right, I thought – time to hit the 2010s. So I stopped off at my old mate Gavin’s place, Château Bauduc, and tasted at least 10 barrels of rather fine Merlot before we hit the real business of the evening which was to actually drink as much Bauduc as he could possibly afford without bankrupting him. Which we did – we bankrupted him. We drank the lot.
