Category Archives: Ramblings and Rants

Bauduc Blanc 2009 is Jancis Robinson’s Wine of the Week

June 26 2011

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.

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Bordeaux 2010 Bandwagon: Running Out of Puff?

June 20 2011

Harpers Wine and Spirit Trade Gazette published my article on 3rd June, with my photo of a picker at Château Troplong Mondot on the front cover: “Massive prices for the 2010 First Growths, Super Seconds and Flying Fifths won’t deter investors, and buyers from the Far East, but will the Bordeaux en primeur bandwagon run out of steam further down the line?”

Harpers Wine & Spirit

Get the article here. pdfpdf – 769 kb

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001 cover 3 june.inddIt’s been a long haul, and we’re still not there. I’ll report back fully as the campaign draws to a close in the next fortnight. Here are my opening paragraphs from the article.

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2011 Season: 3 Weeks Early

May 26 2011

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.

p1030068_2Now 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.

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The Return of Oz

May 24 2011

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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.


dsc_0022‘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.

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Bordeaux 2010 Part Three: The Verdict

May 05 2011

I wrote this piece for Livex, “the insiders’ guide to the global fine wine market”, and was published on 3rd May.

Having previously reported on the wines and weather of Bordeaux 2010, my latest contribution covers this year’s en primeur tastings.

There was something different in the air this year, and it wasn’t just the constant tweeting of what the stuff tasted like.

dsc_0058En primeur attendances were higher than ever at the top estates, according to Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux (right).  Much in evidence there, and at all the Firsts, were the Chinese translations of the brochures, to add to the long-standing piles of English and French versions. Based on visits to the leading properties the week after the UGCs, these were still being snapped up by Bordeaux’s new best friends.

dsc_0033_2Perhaps that’s what’s changed. Opinions about many of the great wines no longer matter. For the top Châteaux, even huge Parker points or double asterisks won’t be required to sell the iconic brands and for most of us, some of the tastings were academic.

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Bordeaux 2008s: Those were the Days

May 02 2011

Having just posted my 2008 scores for the Grands Cru Classés in bottle, I made the mistake of flicking through the article I wrote for Harpers Wine and Spirit for the 1 May 2009 issue, just before Parker posted his scores from the barrel tastings.

img_5462Here it is, in full. Let me say that, from the bottle, I can confirm that ‘St-Julien and Pauillac produced some top flight efforts’ but probably more than a ‘few really exceptional ones’. As for the prices, especially of Lafite and Mouton – now trading at £13,500 and £8,000 a case respectively – I think I’ll go and weep. For the wines, patience is required for all those Left Bank wines from the top estates, contrary to what some critics have said.

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Bordeaux 2010: 300 Top Reds, A-Z, with Price Guide

April 28 2011

I’ve sifted through all the red barrel samples that I scored over 85 points out of 100 and here are my 300 or so favourites (A-Z), from over 600 tasted in April 2011. Of other leading wines on the Right Bank, I’ve yet to taste Chateau Lafleur in Pomerol and, in St-Emilion, the wines of my friend Jonathan Maltus (including Le Dome and Teyssier), Valandraud, Tertre Roteboeuf and Pavie Decesse.  On the Left Bank, I should go to Boyd Cantenac, Pouget, Pedesclaux and Sociando Mallet.

I have published them here for my April e-newsletter, shortly before Robert Parker publishes his scores. I’ve yet to look at any others but I’m sure we’ll all agree to disagree. As a price guide, I have included the En Primeur price, in sterling from the UK trade, of the same Chateau LAST year for their 2009 – another great, and possibly better, vintage. Do not expect prices to fall when prices are released over the coming weeks and months.

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Bordeaux 2010: 300 Top Reds, with Price Guide

I’ve sifted through all the red barrel samples that I scored over 85 points out of 100 and here are my 300 or so favourites (top down), from over 600 tasted in April 2011. Of other leading wines on the Right Bank, I’ve yet to taste Chateau Lafleur in Pomerol and, in St-Emilion, the wines of my friend Jonathan Maltus (including Le Dome and Teyssier), Valandraud, Tertre Roteboeuf and Pavie Decesse.  On the Left Bank, I should go to Boyd Cantenac, Pouget, Pedesclaux and Sociando Mallet.

I have published them here for my April e-newsletter, shortly before Robert Parker publishes his scores. I’ve yet to look at any others but I’m sure we’ll all agree to disagree. As a price guide, I have included the En Primeur price, in sterling from the UK trade, of the same Chateau LAST year for their 2009 – another great, and possibly better, vintage. Do not expect prices to fall when prices are released over the coming weeks and months.

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“Top Speakers Lined up for London International Wine Fair Conference”

April 25 2011

The headline from an article in Harpers Wine and Spirits actually says

Top speakers lined up for social media conference at LIWF on May 16.

But I wasn’t sure that the acronym LIWF means very much to our customers, as it’s a trade thing. However, I need your help.

“Anyone interested in communicating or making money through the internet is urged to attend the London International Wine Fair’s pre-conference event on May 16,” writes Richard Siddle, editor of the magazine.

“The half day event will include a line up of expert online speakers on how to develop your communication skills through the internet and the best way to invest in and make the most of social networking sites.

img_5460“The event, which is being chaired by wine writer and producer, Robert Joseph will include: Dan Jago, head of beers, wines and spirits at Tesco; Angela Mount of YourFavouriteWines.com; Rowan Gormley, of Naked Wines; Gavin Quinney of Château Bauduc; Sophie Jump of the International Wine Club Association; Antonia Branston, senior retailing analyst at Euromonitor International; and Guy Levine from digital marketing agency, Return On Digital.

“Key areas for discussion will include: the International experience; selling wines direct from the winery online; brands vs boutique wines online sales; how to engage the consumer online and keep your community interested; an overview of the current alcoholic drinks retail distribution landscape; how existing wine distribution channels are influencing online trends; opportunities across the price spectrum; how to build an effective website.”

Any feedback or ideas will be gratefully received, either as a comment below, or email me at gavin @ bauduc.com or on Twitter @GavinQuinney

Neighbour’s £120,000+ Loss to Oddbins: a Drop in the Ocean

March 28 2011

Fortunately for us, it’s not Château Bauduc that’s owed £152,000, but Château Lauduc. Hervé Grandeau, whose vineyard is 10 miles up the road from us, will have to accept 21p in the pound if the beleaguered chain survives a creditors’ vote this week, or less if not. Over 500 creditors are owed over £1000 each, including 100 wine and drinks suppliers who risk losing between £10,000 and £310,000. (Update, 4th April. As HMRC – see ‘The executioner’ below under CVA: will Creditors Vote Against? – refused to back the survival plan, Oddbins will enter administration today.)

15158Everything seemed fine last October and November, when Hervé supplied Oddbins with 50,000 bottles, or 15% of the production from his 59 Hectare Bordeaux vineyard. As a small-time negociant, he’d also bought wine from neighbouring Châteaux – about 20% of the total bill of €180,000 – to supply the chain.

‘Much better health’

There seemed little cause for concern towards the end of last year for outsiders, even if some people say that the writing was on the wall. Tim Atkin MW, one of the UK’s most authoritative wine writers, noted as recently as 24th November 2010: “Oddbins has not yet returned to its glory days of the late 1990s, when it was arguably the best wine retailer in the world, but it appears to be in much better health than it was two years ago, when the French company Castel sold the business to its current British owners.”

You can imagine Hervé’s dismay at the beginning of March, following weeks of not having his calls returned, when news broke that Oddbins was to close 39 of its 132 stores. “The business is being restructured,” read the ominous public statement. Keep reading