Bordeaux 2023 weather and crop report

April 11 2024

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.

With the world of fine wine descending on Bordeaux to taste the latest vintage in the second half of April, here’s my report on how the weather in 2023 shaped the wines and the size of the crop.

It should help to serve as a backdrop as to why the wines taste the way they do – even at this early stage for the most sought-after reds – and to put 2023 into context by comparing the conditions with previous years.

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Going green – March photo journal

March 29 2024

Good Friday is one of those strange days when it’s a day off in the UK but not a holiday in France – like Boxing Day in fact. A sensible compromise might be for us to take half a day off.

Angela is breathing a sigh of relief because we were intending to send out my ‘Bordeaux 2023 weather and crop report’ as our end-of-month newsletter. However, we’ve decided not to tarnish everyone’s Easter and to hold off before sending it out in a couple of weeks. That will also give some time for Jancis Robinson to check up on the numerous yet thrilling graphs and tables before she publishes the report on her leading wine site and for Liv-ex – the fine wine exchange – to do likewise.

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Official wine for Rick Stein’s UK tour – Feb news

February 29 2024

We’re delighted to report that Château Bauduc has been chosen as the Official Wine of the Tour for ‘An Evening with Rick Stein’ at 15 venues across the UK in the second half of March.

The theatres each have a capacity of 1,200 to 1,500 guests and tickets are selling well, with quite a few set to sell out. Do try and book as it should be fun.

Rick will have a glass of Bauduc and the bottle with him on stage – either the Sauvignon Blanc 2022 or our Rosé 2022 with his signature labels – and at some point in proceedings he’ll talk about his long-term friendship with us.

We haven’t had to cough up for this or for Rick to say nice things about us – it’s just that we’ve been working together for years. More on all that, below.

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January photo journal

January 31 2024

Our 2023 whites and rosés have just been blended in the winery and they’ll be bottled at the end of February. They won’t be released until the spring and we still have a few cases left of the current vintages to see us through until then.

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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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