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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Bauduc Farmhouse for 2024

October 31 2023

This month’s missive is devoted to our Bauduc farmhouse, as we do our best to make our guests feel welcome and the ‘price and availability’ page for 2024 is now live on our website. This terrific holiday home is let out by the week from April to October and, as most of the slots were taken up this year, it’s best to book early.

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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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July news review

July 31 2023

UK duty goes up on the 1st August and we’ve seen the worst outbreak of mildew across Bordeaux – but mercifully almost none at Bauduc – that anyone can remember. It’s fun times at Château Fawlty.

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A guide to UK duty hikes on wine

June 30 2023

An increase of 53p a bottle might not seem much to some but with 50% of an £8 bottle of wine soon to be UK tax, it’s worth considering how much is spent on a bottle. And perhaps, more than ever, ‘drink less but better’ might be the message.

I’ve tried to make it easier to grasp with a fancy graphic of typically-priced bottles, above, and roughly where the money goes at each price point when you buy from larger retailers. And, in a separate picture, in restaurants.

There’s also an in-depth look at the data behind the duty on wine. I hope it’s of interest and, aside from perhaps sharing in our frustration, I’d like to think you’ll be better informed to make smart decisions when it comes to buying and enjoying the stuff.

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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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My Bordeaux 2022 ‘en primeur’ reports in Harpers

May 30 2023

The top wines from Bordeaux 2022 are sold ‘en primeur’ by merchants during May and June, as soon as they are released by the châteaux and on through the Bordeaux trade. I wrote two articles on Bordeaux 2022 for the UK trade magazine, Harpers Wine & Spirit, for the April and May issues. The first was on how the weather shaped the vintage, the second on the wines themselves, along with some production stats.

For my other published reports on Bordeaux 2022, see Bordeaux 2022 weather and harvest report and Bordeaux 2022 – lower yields to mean higher prices?

The Harpers articles are probably easiest to view by downloading the two pdfs below, though the text is underneath if you need it:

Harpers April 2023 – Bordeaux 2022 report pt. 1
Harpers May 2023 – Bordeaux 2022 report pt. 2
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Bordeaux 2022 lower yields to mean higher prices?

April 28 2023

As a follow-up to my detailed weather and harvest report for Bordeaux 2022, I’ve crunched some of the numbers on the yields across different appellations. The data was released by customs and the CIVB – the Bordeaux wine bureau – at the end of March and, although it won’t be of the slightest interest to most sane wine lovers, it’s fairly clear what’s going to happen to prices for many of the most sought-after wines en primeur.

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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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