Category Archives: Ramblings and Rants

Bordeaux 2009: ‘Exceptional’

October 14 2009

This post was also written for the Liv-Ex blog.  The London International Vintners Exchange is the leading exchange for fine wine, and their site is a superb resource for knowing the value of top Bordeaux. They kindly asked me for ‘An Insider’s View‘ on 2009.

dsc_0019“Exceptional”. That’s the refrain at the leading châteaux in Bordeaux in 2009. Since mid-June, it has been warm, dry and sunny, and the glorious weather in the last ten days of September and the first week of October has allowed the top estates – on both Banks – to pick their Merlot and Cabernets in perfect condition.

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Hail? What Hail?

October 09 2009

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As we come to the end of our harvest at Bauduc, we have hardly had a chance to reflect on an extraordinary vintage of triumphs and disasters. Everything looked great until the hailstorms in May. Then we lost a huge slice of the crop. Since the hail, the weather has been fantastic – so we were on the verge of a Perfect Storm: watching other vineyards enjoy a beautiful summer and early autumn, after ours had been badly hit. Salt on the wounds.

So how come we have made more white, more rosé and more red than last year?

Here’s how. It’s not a short or simple story, but this is France.

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The Quest for Vines

September 23 2009

Given that we’d lost most of our 2009 crop (and a fair chunk of 2010) to hail in May, we could either have thrown in the towel, or gone in search of more vineyards to buy, or take under lease. We were tempted by option A, but umpteen, welcome messages of support from customers – some on this site – persuaded us to get off our butts.

If we’d been in, say, New Zealand, we’d simply have gone out and found some grapes to make up the 80% loss. It would have been up to us – not the State – to ensure that the quality is good enough to go into our ‘brand’: about 70% of the grapes that go into Villa Maria’s consistently good wines, for example, come from contract growers. Keep reading

2008 En Primeur: Surprise, Surprise

April 04 2009

DSC_0094We’ve just had the week of trade tastings in Bordeaux, when the world of fine wine annually descends on the region to taste the wines from the previous vintage. A few surprises too: many 2008s are far better than most outsiders would have thought, after gloomy reports of a damp summer.

The real surprise though is that there seems to be a genuine desire to launch a quick ‘en primeur’ campaign, with the possibility of the First Growths – Latour, Lafite, Margaux (above), Mouton Rothschild and Haut-Brion – coming out with an opening offer in the next couple of weeks, before most of the lower ranks. And that would be big news here as it would turn the normal routine on its head. Keep reading

Dinner with Oz and a Private Book Signing

September 24 2008

Our good friend Oz Clarke came to Bordeaux last night to launch his new book, ‘Bordeaux – the wines, the vineyards, the winemakers’. I’ve got a copy or two of the earlier version, published by Webster’s, but the updated hardback from his new publisher, Anova, is a far more impressive affair. The Bordeaux Wine Bureau (Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux) were handing out free French versions to invited guests, with Oz signing merrily. I took one as a birthday present for Daniel, our vineyard manager, but we can’t decipher what Oz wrote.  Keep reading

The Bordeaux Marathon

September 09 2008

We hosted a small team from Gordon Ramsay’s this weekend as they took part in the Médoc marathon on saturday. ‘Taking part’ is an apt expression because it’s more of a stage show or a carnival than a serious race. A glimpse of the 8000 competitors from all over the world, mostly in fancy dress and running through the vineyards of some of the most prestigious estates in the world, is certainly worth a detour.

Stuart Gillies, the chef from Boxwood Café in London, organised the trip as a birthday present for his boss, Chris Hutcheson. Chris is the father of Gordon’s wife Tana, and he runs the Ramsay empire while his son-in-law does his stuff in front of the cameras or in the kitchen. Keep reading

Saint-Emilion on the Left Bank. In Paris.

September 05 2008

One perk of being an accidental wine critic (for Wine & Spirit magazine) is that I get invited to taste some very good wines in lovely surroundings. This time it was a line-up of mature (or maturing) vintages of Premiers Grands Crus Classés from Saint Emilion in a private dining room at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. With the TGV taking just 3 hours from Bordeaux – and costing around €60 each way for a first class ‘IDTGV’ ticket booked over the web – it’s an easy and affordable day trip.  The lunch was arranged by the Groupement de PGCCs de St-Emilion for a handful of wine writers from around the world to meet the owners of the 14 chåteaux involved. For me, there was the added advantage of catching up with people like Neal Martin (above right, chatting to Philippe Castéja of Château Trottevielle, with Nicolas Thienpont of Pavie Macquin looking on). Neal has had a meteoric rise to wine-writing stardom since his Wine-Journal website was merged into erobertparker.com a couple of years ago. Keep reading

In Praise of White Bordeaux

August 07 2008

The UK’s most influential wine critic, Jancis Robinson MW, posted a great article on the ‘subscribers only’ section of her website with the headline ‘In praise of white Bordeaux’ at the beginning of August, following a tasting for British Airways.

“I strongly urge you to take advantage of the revolution in white winemaking in Bordeaux. I know I have said the same about Rhone wines but that doesn’t make it any less true of Bordeaux. If only there were a similar revolution in Burgundy…”

Strong stuff, but as a vinespotter in Bordeaux and not Burgundy, I’m not rushing to complain. Days earlier, Eric Asimov, the New York Times’ wine critic, posted this equally positive piece, entitled ‘A Bordeaux of a different color’, on his excellent blog, The Pour. ‘For good white Bordeaux, 2007 is a superb vintage’. Keep reading

Saint-Emilion Classification: a French Farce

July 06 2008

The long running saga concerning the re-classication of the top estates of St-Emilion took another twist this week when a court in Bordeaux ruled against the recently revised rankings.  The whole affair has been widely reported, as in The Daily Telegraph, and by Sophie Kevany on decanter.com.  Wikipedia’s current entry on this debacle is now right up-to-date and includes the useful, but now suspended, 2006 classification.  

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New AOC Rules: Forgive me for yawning

June 17 2008

There are significant changes afoot with new rules surrounding the Appellation Contrôlée system. From the 1st July it’s all change: previous controls about guaranteeing the authenticity of a wine from Bordeaux are being replaced by, er, a brand new set of controls.  The changes are for the good, just like stopping drink-driving is for the good, but we’ll have to wait and see just how well the whole scheme is implemented and policed.

I was invited to what I thought was going to be a routine meeting this afternoon, between a few fellow vignerons and a Directeur from the Syndicat de Bordeaux.  I realised when I walked in to the Salle André Lurton in Grézillac that the session might go on for a bit longer than I had anticipated, as there were 200 people in the room and more arriving.  There was a choice of standing room only at the back, or a seat in the front row, and I realised my mistake in opting for the latter when the main presenter gave everyone a peep at just how many Powerpoint slides he was about to share with us all as he set up his laptop with the overhead projector. There was to be no escape.

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