Category Archives: In Pictures

July photo journal

July 31 2024

We hope you’re enjoying a fine summer.

It’s been a scorcher in south west France this week. On Monday, we came on the train down to Spain on the hottest day of the year so far at home. Our three-night stopover in Hondarribia, not far from San Sebastian and on the border with France, is our brief summer holiday away from Bauduc, and we return tomorrow. Let’s hope August is sunny, indeed, but not so hot – the poor vines can’t cope with the sort of temperatures around Bordeaux below for long.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo journal of some of the things that happened in July. Of particular interest, if your summer barbecue is in use, is how we cook our beef these days (about half way through this missive).

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May review and photo journal

May 31 2024

May is always a crazy month and this year’s no different. The weather has been less than clement of late, with rather a lot of rain, and we need the sun now before the all-important flowering in June. The vines are in fine shape though and the forecast for the next week looks pretty good, so we live in hope as always.

Here’s what’s included below by way of a photo journal:

  • 911 for Marathon Man Tom?
  • ‘The 25 best château stays in France’
  • Château DIY? Leaving it to the pros
  • Down in the vineyard
  • Comparing the same vines on the same day over several years
  • Bauduc Fantasy Premier League 2023-2024 winners
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Going green – March photo journal

March 29 2024

Good Friday is one of those strange days when it’s a day off in the UK but not a holiday in France – like Boxing Day in fact. A sensible compromise might be for us to take half a day off.

Angela is breathing a sigh of relief because we were intending to send out my ‘Bordeaux 2023 weather and crop report’ as our end-of-month newsletter. However, we’ve decided not to tarnish everyone’s Easter and to hold off before sending it out in a couple of weeks. That will also give some time for Jancis Robinson to check up on the numerous yet thrilling graphs and tables before she publishes the report on her leading wine site and for Liv-ex – the fine wine exchange – to do likewise.

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January photo journal

January 31 2024

Our 2023 whites and rosés have just been blended in the winery and they’ll be bottled at the end of February. They won’t be released until the spring and we still have a few cases left of the current vintages to see us through until then.

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November review and photo journal

November 30 2023

Not that we habitually write our end-of-month newsletter at the last minute – good Lord, no – but we’ve been blending the 2023 whites and rosés this morning. And really good they are too (even if we would say that). We haven’t mixed all the wines from the stainless steel vats together en masse just yet but we have checked what fits together – with the help of an assortment of large test tubes and one of Bordeaux’s finest consultant enologists or oenologues (as in someone who knows what they’re doing). We’ll be bottling those wines here in February and there’s much to prepare before then.

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Harvest – a photo journal, Sept 2023

September 29 2023

Yesterday we finished the Merlot for our red, with the last of the Cabernet Sauvignon to follow soon. We started picking the whites for our Crémant and our Sauvignon Blanc way back on 28th August so it’s been a fairly long haul.

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The white harvest begins – a photo journal

August 31 2023

Not so much a monthly review, given there’s been a lot of activity in the last week. It is, in fact, the start of our 25th harvest at Bauduc. We’re not celebrating 25 years just yet – our first full season in charge of the vines was 2000 – but we moved into the farmhouse at the end of August in 1999 and helped to bring in the crop we’d acquired that was already on the vines, albeit with the formalities to be completed some months later.

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May news review and photo journal

May 31 2023

As ever, rather a lot to cover this month. Perhaps we should add a mid-month newsletter to break up the end-of-month drivel?

The vines are pushing on in the vineyard and it’s a hectic time for the team to keep up. The photo above is from last Saturday when we had a 10-strong group of seasonal workers removing excess, energy-sapping shoots in the sauvignon blanc.

That’s not really something you need to know about, as with so much with wine. But we think the UK duty increase in August will soon be worthy of your attention as, at over 50p a bottle, it’ll be the biggest rise in 50 years. Can you believe that 50% of an £8 bottle from 1 August will be UK tax? More on that in due course.

The thrilling items in this month’s missive:

  • The Bauduc Fantasy Premier League results
  • Mo(o)re on hooking up with the Stein family
  • My Bordeaux 2022 articles in Harpers
  • A quiet lunch with the Swiss
  • Comparing the same vines on the same day over several years
  • DQ at 90
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Bordeaux 2022 weather and harvest report – and photo journal

March 31 2023

This report was published on Jancis Robinson’s fine wine website and also on Liv-ex – the fine wine market site.

With the world of fine wine descending on Bordeaux to taste the latest vintage in April, here’s my report on how the weather in 2022 shaped the wines. It will serve as a backdrop as to why the wines taste the way they do – even at this early stage, of course, for the reds – and to put 2022 in context by comparing the conditions with recent years.

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February 2023 photo journal

February 28 2023

Last month we pictured the goats in front of the château, so it seems only fair that we should show them near the vines under the glorious winter sky last week. We promise not to have them headlining in every photo journal this year but they are rather lovely.

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