Bordeaux 2024 weather and crop report

February 28 2025

My annual Bordeaux vintage report is published on JancisRobinson’s fine wine website and on Liv-ex – the fine wine marketplace. To find previous ones, see ‘Bordeaux reports’ in the menu above.

Here’s my annual report on the amount of wine produced in Bordeaux last year, and how the weather shaped the size of the crop, and the wines, in 2024. (The top image is of the Cabernet Sauvignon harvest at Château Lafite Rothschild on a sunny October day. Below is a sorting table at Château Figeac in Saint-Emilion, also in October 2024.)

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Duty changes and some personal news

January 31 2025

Mid-winter may feel a little bleak right now but there are, we trust, some brighter days ahead.

We’ve been preparing the blends of our white and rosé 2024 for bottling next month and they’re both excellent, touch wood, albeit with lower yields all round.

The UK prices of our reds will have to go up from today, regrettably, as the new duty rates kick in after midnight tonight. We warned our customers earlier this week, so we’ve been busy with a flurry of orders.

There’s also been a big birthday in the family this week – where has the time gone? – but we’ve also placed a sad announcement in today’s Times. More on these below.

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Your guide to UK tax on wine

November 30 2024

Sandwiched in between the joys of Black Friday and Advent Sunday, we bring you glad tidings with a festive guide to the changes in UK duty which will kick in at the end of Dry January. You may want to adjust your wine purchases accordingly in the run up to Christmas to avoid a bleak mid winter soon after, and beyond.

There has been some confusion about how wine is going to be taxed and by how much, so here is a handy portfolio of tables, graphics and photos.

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Labour’s scary Autumn Budget for wine

October 31 2024

Ah, the Autumn Budget, and a new dawn? A 1p reduction in the duty on a pint of draught beer? Hooray! No doubt the pubs are getting the Bonfire Night bunting out.

A horror show fit for Halloween, more like, for the UK wine trade and their customers. You’d never grasp that from the analysis of the Budget in today’s papers, however. Below is my table of where we were last year with UK duty on wine, where we are now with the so-called ‘easement’ for most wines today, and where we’re headed. The future for many is not looking too bright.

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Our 2024 harvest photo journal

September 30 2024

September is harvest month for us, so unsurprisingly it’s been a busy one. Please forgive this lengthy journal of pictures, which is really designed for you to scroll through when you have the time and, indeed, the inclination.

Equally, after completing 25 growing seasons at Bauduc, we’ve nearly reached the stage where it might act as a useful aide memoir.

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Clocking up 25 years – August news

August 31 2024

A quarter of a century. Blimey.

It’s the end of the summer holidays, our twentysomething children have left this week and we made the decision yesterday, Friday, to start the harvest this coming Monday.

And if there’s one thing you shouldn’t do when you have an end-of-month newsletter to write it’s to start looking through boxes and boxes of old photos. (Note to self: digitise all the old photos, and write that bloody memoir.)

Anyway, it’s all go. We’ve been lucky enough to have had several weeks of glorious weather until the rain came on Thursday. It’s not an early vintage, by the way, it’s just that we need to pick the white grapes for our sparkling Crémant while they still have lots of crisp acidity and aren’t too high in sugar.

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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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Sunak’s wine legacy

June 29 2024

“So today, we are taking advantage of leaving the EU to announce the most radical simplification of alcohol duties for over 140 years.” Rishi Sunak’s Budget speech as Chancellor, October 2021.

Well, judging by his duty bands for 1 February 2025, that’s far from a ‘simplification’ and most wine drinkers in the UK wouldn’t say it’s ‘taking advantage of leaving the EU’.

Our newsletter at the end of June last year was ‘A guide to UK duty hikes on wine’ and below is an update. A 53p increase in duty per bottle for most wine (44p plus VAT) to £2.67 plus VAT last August was bad enough, but there’s trouble ahead.

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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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April review – Tom Gilbey, marathon wine guy

April 30 2024

For this month’s missive we’re turning our attention to our great friend Tom Gilbey and his fantastic achievement of running the London Marathon while blind tasting and guessing 25 different wines en route, with a brief pause to do so every mile.

What’s more, his efforts have gone viral with over 4 million views on Tiktok alone. If Instagram’s more your thing, do follow @tomgilbeywine and have a look at his pinned marathon video for more. Tom’s exploits have been all over the media, unsurprisingly  – search Tom Gilbey wine marathon. (Photo credit: Broni Llloyd-Edwards.)

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