Category Archives: Chateau Bauduc

A weekend wine tour of Bordeaux

June 10 2008

P1030794.JPGWe’ve just spent a great weekend with some friends from Norfolk who rented our farmhouse.   Dinner at the château on friday evening – local Agneau de Pauillac served with, er, Pauillac – was followed by two leisurely days on the Right and the Left Banks of Bordeaux.

On Saturday, Otto Rettenmaier showed us around his chai (winery) and his vineyard at Chåteau La Tour Figeac, right next door to Cheval Blanc in St-Emilion on the border with Pomerol.  La Tour Figeac is one of the many up-and-coming estates in Saint Emilion making terrific wine at a fair price, and Otto is a very genial host.  After a light lunch in the old town, and an opportunity in a restaurant to sniff what a ‘corked’ wine smells like, we drove around some top spots – Pavie, Ausone and so on – and then trod some of the hallowed ground around the plateau of Pomerol. The most eye-opening part is the 100-fold current price difference of wines from the 2005 vintage, between one vineyard and its next door neighbour – Pétrus and Gazin in Pomerol, with almost as much of a gap between Ausone 2005 and Belair 2005 on the hillside above St-Emilion.

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Article from Bauduc Gazette in Guardian

June 09 2008

I was talking to a customer who works at the Guardian about an article I was writing for La Gazette – our printed newsletter that’s sent out via La Poste – and this article appeared in the paper before the Gazette had even landed on the doormats of our customers.

In the Gazette article I discuss how the high rate of UK Duty has an impact on cheap house wines in restaurants – the duty costs more than the wine itself. Have you ever wondered why UK restaurants charge at least £14 for a bottle of wine now? The full Gazette article – Darling goes over the top – is included in this blog.

The Best Wine List in the World?

May 29 2008

And a steal for €600 a bottle

P1030580When I was a young man growing up in London, my friends used to squirm in trepidation when I had my hands on the wine list in a restaurant. Their fears were justified: to paraphrase George Best, I spent most of my earnings as a 25 year-old computer salesman on fine wine, football and a fast car – the rest I wasted.

Those happy, yuppy days are gone but some things – and blokes, I suppose – don’t change. So it was a real joy to be back in the toy shop yesterday when I was presented with the greatest wine list I have ever seen. And this wasn’t in Bordeaux, or Paris, or even in London, but in Girona, 100kms north of Barcelona in northern Spain and a short drive from the French border. (I drove the 500 kms from Bordeaux in our Toyota Previa, so something’s had to give.)

I was lucky enough to be invited to this celebration dinner at El Celler de Can Roca by a group of old friends from England, Belgium and Holland, and even more fortunate that (a) I wasn’t paying and (b) was given instructions to order only the best. The same group, minus me unfortunately, had eaten at El Bulli the night before and had ordered only Spanish wines, so their preference this time was for reds from Bordeaux.

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