We’ve just said goodbye to our great friends, the Gilbeys, so here’s a photo-journal of the last 10 days, spruced up towards the end with a few pictures from the archives.

Before that we have a quick look at the bunches in the vines as véraison is well under way in the vineyard as the grapes change colour. There’s a way to go, and we don’t want to tempt fate, but with any luck 2025 will be another to follow in the sequence of very good Bordeaux vintages every year ending in zero or five since 1990: 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020…

We were married on Bastille Day in July 1990, in fact, and back then we couldn’t have imagined we’d experience the vast majority of those harvests, with 2000 being our first full season in charge here.

We’ll keep you posted on the next one.

What a scorcher. Though to be fair it’s probably as hot here as it is for any of our readers at the moment: 40˚C is the forecast for 1 July. Crikey.

So that heralds the return of the famous Bauduc Rosé summer cocktail as a headline act, shown below. Our Crémant 2021 however is hard to beat as an alcoholic refreshment, and the visitors and buyers at the château this month have almost always included some Crémant as part of their order. The Rosé wasn’t far behind.

The vines are in good shape so we’re hopeful that they’ll withstand the summer heat for a while, touch wood. It’s been a hectic month and we’re only scratching at the surface of what’s been happening with this photo journal.

Some sad news though as we pay tribute to Pavie, the last of our ‘three musketeers’ and a true, small dog of the vineyard and of the Bauduc family.