Burgundy 2009: An interview with the Bachelet-Monnot Brothers

By all accounts they have made another superb Maranges in 2009. This really is a domaine to watch...

Xu Lei unveiled as the latest Mouton Rothschild artist

The speculation is over; Mouton 2008 will indeed wear a label painted by a Chinese artist. He’s not exactly a household name, but Xu Lei’s profile is sure to rise amongst wine lovers if no-one else. According to the Chateau's press release, 'Xu Lei's ram asserts the role of a great wine as a link between people and cultures, from one hemisphere to the other of "planet wine"’. Presumably the eastern and western hemispheres...

Conjecture over the nationality of the latest Mouton artist started at the end of 2009 and the price has been rising steadily since. After the announcement, the 2008 has traded at £7800 per case on Liv-ex, some way behind the Lafite 2008 (£13,643/cs), but nevertheless, an enormous increase on its release price (£1750/cs).

Burgundy 2009: An interview with Guillaume d'Angerville

In which Giles asks Guillaume about the similarity between the 09 and 05 vintages, and the rise and rise of his Volnay Champans...

Mont Redon Cotes du Rhone 09

17 points from at a mere £65 cs ib.

Having sent out a mailer on the deliciousness of Mont Redon's 2009 Cotes du Rhone, it was nice to read Julia Harding's similarly complimentary view of this excellent value little wine on www.jancisrobinson.com

"Ch Mont-Redon 2009 Côtes du Rhône 17 Drink 2011-2014
Bottled. Fresh dark fruit leaps from the glass. Dark cherry and plum. Wonderfully juicy within a well-judged framework. Tannins and acidity both clearly present but playing a supporting role to all that lovely fruit. Fine bite on the end and a long finish. (JH) 14%
£65 per case ib Justerini & Brooks"

2009 Burgundy - Roundup

Two weeks, 800 kilometres, and not a vegetable in sight, until, (hurrah!) a solitary carrot was to be found sitting on my supper plate last night. Praise be to the people of Chablis. This morning saw the last of my 46 visits, at the charming Tributs in Poinchy near the town of Chablis. The last stop en route to the A6, Paris-bound. Rather like in the Cote de Beaune, the white wines of Chablis have really surprised me. They have a similar profile to the wines further south: Round, not very high overall acid but distinctly long and fresh, often with a very distinctive minerality, they are certainly not cloying or heavy. Alot of noise is being quite rightly made about the 2009 reds but for the majority of top flight Chardonnay growers who picked early, they have found a tremendous balance in their wines of smooth textures, fruity flavours and long fresh finishes. Talking with Patrick Javillier in Meursault, yesterday, he concluded that although total acidity was not high the low phs indicated a high natural tartaric acid element within the "total acidity" and it is this, he beleives, that is giving the wines such long flavours, even at villages level.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent pretty well entrenched in Vosne-Romanee, no bad place to be. Domaine Eugenie, Etienne Grivot, Meo-Camuzet, Emmanuel Rouget, Anne Gros, Francois Lamarche, Domaine du Comte Liger Belair, provided a formidable line up. A detour to Cecile Tremblay, then to Morey St Denis to see Louis Remy, Clos des Lambrays and Clos de Tart completed the tour of the Cote de Nuits.

There are many excellent wines, so fruity open knit yet powerful. Particularly in the Vosne cellars there are some wines that rival the very best vintages. Cecile Tremblay has proved what a sensation she is, her wines have gone to another level, if only there was more if it! In the Chateau du Vosne Romanee cellars at Domaine du Comte Liger Belair, the 2009s are incredible. They are in such a different style to other greats like 2006 or 2005 so it is difficult to compare in terms of quality. However tasting them from barrel they were so gorgeous and seductive, with a deep complexity and enormous length of flavour, that is difficult to think of another vintage that as enjoyable to taste. La Romanee was the icing on the cake, unforgettable.

So there we have it, it seems to be an excellent, seductive style vintage for reds, perhaps most of all with the higher or cooler terroirs in the Cote de Nuits, Volnay and around Corton. Whilst for white wines, a very good and really quite suprising vintage, different to 2008, in most cases equal and certainly superior to 2006, though not quite the level of 2007.

Burgundy 2009 - The Second Half

A leisurely weekend saw the buying team take in some 2009s from Sylvain Cathiard, Bruno Clair and Jean-Marc Millot, and more window shopping in and around Beaune's Place Carnot than I care to remember. The rest was good and, though it may not have seemed it at the time, was well needed. For the second half approached. 27 Domaines down, 20 to go until Thursday. Today was spent back in the Cote de Beaune. 8.30am at the affable Vincent Dancer (pictured)in Chassagne was a breeze, such were the poise and moreish minerality of his fine-tuned wines. The wines needed to be particularly good today, the weather has turned and gets fouler, colder and wetter by the minute. Fortunately the wines "turned up on the day", as a premiership football manager might say. Again the cooler zones have proved themselves successful in 2009: Rully, Monthelie, Aloxe Corton and Pernand Vergelesses chez Suremain, Follin and Rollin were all pure, unbridled pleasure. The day finished on a massive high, Ghislaine Barthod has produced one of the most thrilling line ups so far.

Since Saturday there have been some magnificent wines but there are three that stand out, all from the cooler zones of their appellations - Vosne En Orveaux 1er Cru Cathiard, Gevrey Clos St Jacques 1er Cru Bruno Clair and Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Fuees Ghislaine Barthod. Three different wines but all ethereal, haunting and with spine-tingling elegance. If these three don't sit amongst the critics' top spots, then the world is a very unjust place.

Burgundy 2009 - First impressions of the Cote de Nuits

There aren't many vintages that would have me leaping out of bed for a tasting in Pernand Vergelesses at 8.15 at the end of a hard week's tasting, but 2009 is proving to be one of them. The last two days have been a tour around 11 Domaines, 2 in the Cote de Beaune and 9 in the Cote de Nuits, among them Chevillon, Leroy, Rousseau, Roumier and Mugnier to drop just a few names. Again, as in the Cotes de Beaune, the key seems to have been picking early in 2009, most Domaines finishing by mid September. Also the cooler terroirs seem to have done particularly well, Latricieres, the high Chambolle and Gevrey vineyards, the cooler parts of Chambertin.

Burgundy seems in rude health, not only are the top growers making good to excellent wines every year but the average age of these top growers seems to be dropping. I have seen two such young stars in the last couple of days. Christian Gouges' nephew, Gregory, has made superb 2009s that mix classic Henri Gouges structure with a fair dose of finesse and baskets full of fruit. They should age seriously well whilst being more approachable in their youth. Its true that THE highlight so far has been an Henri Gouges Les St Georges 1958 thats shows remarkably vivid, youthful fruit, but rather selfishly I want to get some pleasure out of my 2009s and not leave that luxury soley to my children!

The other star is Arnaud Mortet who has arguably been even more successful. I was blown over by the definition and finesse his 2009s show, equal to the intensity the Mortet wines habitually demonstrate. This is a balance never before achieved at Domaine Denis Mortet.

The wine of the day goes to Chevillon's Vaucrains, it left me stuck for words, I have never know it be so expressive and yet retain such concentration and power.

Saturday morning promises the chance of a lie in, Vosne-Romanee at 9.30, followed by Marsannay and then again back down to Nuits. More of that and another taste of the Cote de Beaune on Monday.

Burgundy 2009 - A taste of Cote de Beaune

November has come around all too quickly, but so much the better! For the autumnal colours and bright skies are a joy here in Burgundy, and the temperatures are unusually balmy. The first three days of our trip has been spent in the Maconnais and Cote de Beaune.

My expectations were, tentatively, high. These 2009s that appeared so flattering and round in May, will they have lasted a summer in barrel unblemished? The answer is resoundingly yes. Initial reports seemed to indicate a great red vintage but I have found that there are some incredible whites too. Dominque Lafon thinks is the best vintage he has made for white wine, whilst not everyone can say that there plenty of beauties up and down the Cote nonetheless. Certainly those who have picked early, before grapes became too overripe, have made wonderfully balanced Chardonnays, admittedly less racy than in 2007 or 2008 but with absolutely tremendous balance: Silky, ripe, fresh and strong mineral identity, and, it must be said, huge length of flavour even at villages level.

I have not made it to the Cote de Nuits yet but this seems to be a quite excellent vintage for Cote de Beaune reds, particularly Volnay. My tasting with Marquis d'Angerville was exhilirating. Whilst you can not really say for all of the wines that they are better than 2005, I think you can for the Champans, it was simply breathtaking. And as a whole range, from villages upwards, I think they are a hair ahead of 2005. In general the Pinots have the silkiest of textures without losing precision or characteristic varietal bitter-sweetness.

More updates from the Cotes de Nuits on the weekend and over the coming weeks look out for video interviews on the 2009s with some of Burgundy's top growers.

Lucky 8

There has been much speculation that Chateau Mouton Rothschild would commission a Chinese artist to adorn their 2008 label. But, not to be outmanoeuvred by their neighbour, Chateau Lafite Rothschild has announced that their 2008 bottles will all feature the Chinese symbol for the number eight. Lafite, already the darling of the Chinese market has seen the price for the 2008 soar from £9000/cs to £10,400/cs in just a day.

Cynics may be tempted to say Lafite is cashing in with a shameless marketing gimmick, but I’m sure those who bought a case en primeur will not be complaining too much. A spokesperson from Chateau Lafite said that the ‘shape of the symbol seems to offer a perfect representation of the slopes of the vineyard (in the Penglai peninsula) and commemorates the launch of our Chinese wine project’.

First impressions

Whilst in Bordeaux last week, Hew and I had the opportunity to revisit a few wines from 2008, 2009 and even got our first glimpse at a 2010. Starting with 2008, the wines of Chateau Latour displayed real breed. The Forts de Latour was somewhat closed, but there is enormous potential here. The Grand vin was by contrast extraordinarily expressive, open and utterly seductive. We also tasted with Denis Durantou at Chateau Eglise Clinet. His 2008 Eglise Clinet is very smart indeed. Flavours are precise, cool and classy; a very serious wine. Denis’ 2009 is off the scales in terms of richness and concentration. It has fleshed out in barrel and is now the most exotic, most decadent Eglise Clinet we have sampled. There is wave after wave of sumptuous velvety fruit – a truly exceptional wine. Denis then shocked us by asking if we would like to try his 2010. He only finished picking on the 2nd of October and there we were on the 19th tasting the final assemblage... Malos will not finish for some time, but the colour was an incredibly vivid purple and the wine was already displaying great depth of flavour and big structure.

Analytically, the 2010s are off the charts. Sugar levels are exceptionally high, whilst the lack of rain has resulted in tiny berries with thick skins, so we can expect good colours and lots of structure. We look forward to tasting more in April...

Bordeaux UGC - The 2008s

The Bordeaux circus rolled into town today. There was not too much talk of industrial action and petrol supplies running out; we were all gathered to re-taste the fascinating 2008s. Many of the Chateaux are still harvesting their Cabernets and they couldn’t resist telling us about their 2010s; remarkable quality, but tiny yields. Many spoke of the young wines as real contenders to the 2009s, but we shall reserve judgement until April.

Back to the 2008s. When we first tasted these in April 2009, the economic outlook was bleak to say the least. The metrological reports suggested a summer that had been even less glorious than 2007, so, it was fair to say that the prospect of tasting and selling the 2008s was not something we were particularly looking forward to. However, we made the trip and we were pleasantly surprised by many of the results.

Despite the cool August, the best wines had a real concentration, coupled with really precise flavours and good acidities. Not `Classic` meaning bad, but `Classic` meaning good, to steal a phrase from RUN DMC. The economic outlook remained gloomy, so Chateaux such as Angelus, and the 1st growths made the bold decision to release first and at very attractive prices. The market place tentatively bought the top ten or so wines, but it wasn’t until Robert Parker waxed lyrical about the 2008s, that merchants and customers started to by a wider range of Chateaux. The rest as they say is history.

So, how are the wines showing now that they are in bottle? This is not a consistent vintage; we were very picky and we advise customers to be cautious with their purchases too. Yes the best wines are fabulous, but there are some stinkers too. The big question is, has Parker stuck his neck out too far on this one? Many wines achieve similar or better scores in 2008 than they achieved in 2005. 2008 is no 2005, but there are some fine wines. On the basis of today’s tasting, Pontet Canet, Lynch Bages, Pichon Baron, Leoville Poyferre, Beychevelle, Conseillante, Haut Bailly, Domaine de Chevalier, Rauzan Segla and Leoville Barton are all very smart wines and will offer collectors much enjoyment. The biggest surprise is the improvement of the Margaux commune. We were very disappointed by our initial tastings, but many of these wines have improved in barrel. Despite the weakness of sterling, many of these offer very good value (particularly when compared the magical 2009s). Other than the wines mentioned above, there were particularly strong showings from Ormes de Pez, Lafon Rochet and Poujeaux. The dry whites are crisp and classic, whilst the unsung sweeties are delightfully crisp with beautifully precise flavours. There is enough botrytis present, but these are not blockbusters. Guiraud and de Fargues were the richest offerings on show, whilst Climens was the most complete.

All in all, there are some jolly good wines from 2008, and the fact that this is not a 2005 or a 2009 is reflected in the prices. If you pick carefully, 2008 offers some of the best value buys on the market today.

Picking in Piedmont - Harvest is over!

GAME OVER GAME OVER GAME OVER !!!

Yes, we are finally done, we can start breathing again, we are all tired but happy.

We finised picking on Wednesday, it has been a long month. Non stop, no days off, 15-20 hours of work per day, but I can finally say, now that it’s all safe in the cellar, that 2010 will be a GREAT VINTAGE for Piemonte.

So cheer up everyone, excellent results for all the grapes, Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo, and of course Barolo.

The few rain showers that we had didn’t effect the vineyards nor the quality of the grapes, and even if at the end we were literally running, because we were afraid of mould and infections, we still harvested very good quality grapes.

There are a few more weeks of work in the cellar ahead, pressing, racking, putting the wine into barrels, preparing for malolactic, everything now seems quick and easy, as we no longer need to rush in the vineyards anymore.

All the wines are turning dry easily; becasue we just use our indigenous yeast sometimes the wines tend to remain sweet, but it’s not the case of this year, almost everything is dry now.

This harvest has been an other great experience for all of us, to work close with a very good team makes life much easier, we all worked hard, we were all tired at night and but smiley in the morning...and now we all look forward to the big “harvest crew” dinner that Elio always offers us, and we always make sure he picks the fanciest restaurant in the area, the biggest menu and the nicest wines :-)

See you next year!!

Silvia

Cornas news - Harvest complete.

A further installment from the delightful Matthieu Barret at Domaine du Coulet. It would seem, with the exception of the painfully low yields this year, things are looking good in 2010...

"Hello all,

I was not able to write to you as regularly as I wanted to keep you informed about the harvest in 2010.

We have been cutting grapes for the last three weeks with a small team of 10 people. The harvest is healthy and ripe and over the third week we collected grapes with a very big phenolic maturity. This last week, we harvested the summit of our mountain (which is the base of Billes Noires) and the East hillsides (which is one of the bases of Terrasses du Serre).

I ‘ve decided not to make any “Gore” cuvee but a “big” Billes Noires

in 2010 which will be, in my opinion, a great vintage of elegance and fruit in the spirit of the 2007.

We brought in 11 plots which oscillate between 12.7 and 13.9 % of potential alcohol. The yield per hectare is close to 15 hl which is a little bit frustrating as it is way too low! This is the third vintage in a row, below our technical objectives which are 20 hl / ha (which is not very pretentious…).

This week we shall begin to draw off the first tanks for the first press - always good moments to share.

Our grape-pickers' team made a beautiful sorting with

a lot of precision, which allowed us to vinify almost all the tanks without SO2.

I enclose two or three photos of the grape harvests to make you share these beautiful moments in the life of the estate.

See you soon,

Matthieu"

Viviani awarded 3 Bicchieri in 2011 Gambero Rosso

The Slow Food movement began in 1989 and continues to gather pace around the world as a grass roots, not for profit organisation that promotes and recognises small, locally focussed food and wine producers. In 2010 the organisation joined forces with Italy's most highly esteemed wine publication Gambero Rosso. Together they taste literally thousands of wines each year, including in the review only those wines they deem to be above average. The highest accolade they award is the much coveted Tre Bicchieri (Three Glasses), indicating an "extraordinary wine"

For the 2011 edition, and for the 10th time, our newest listing, the already highly popular Viviani, has been awarded 3 Bicchieri for their stunning Amarone, Casa dei Bepi. Anybody who tasted it at our tasting will surely agree, for their style is quite different to most of the Amarones we had ever tasted before. The key to their production is their situation in the cooler Mazzano zone, right at the highest limits of Valpolicella production with vines at around 450m above sea level. It's a family domaine, tiny in size, run by Claudio and Sandra Viviani. Talking to them you get a sense that their other great wine love it Burgundy, and tasting with them you get a real sense that this love transfers across to the way they produce their Amarones. Delicate, elegant and full of finesse, they are surely some of the leading wines in the appellation.

Picking in Piedmont - Larigi Time!

Finally we are done with the Dolcetto picking, pressing and racking. We have now started barbera and the vineyard we decided to start with is Larigi.

Larigi is one of our oldest vineyards, it was planted by my grandpa Giovanni in 1948, and the vines still look healthy and in good shape...just like baby vines.

The production is always very limited, not just because of the age, also because we do a drastic green harvest in July-August to reduce the yield perhectar.

Since we had a very hot and dry summer, the grapes look really really healthy, in some spots even a little bit dry, they almost look like raisins, which tells us that the plant has been suffering a bit from drought (see pictures below)

The picking is done by hand and it usually takes a while because you have to look carefully at every grape and at every single berry to make sure there are no damages, and if see any, you pull the berry out and you throw it away, but this year we were picking as fast as superman, no need to check, Larigi was perfect!

Plus we had the supervision of Mr. Talin, 85 years old (and pictured below), our oldest but fastest picker of the cru. This is the first time he is not picking because of some health problems, he has been work ing the harvest with us for 70 years and he knows every single vine one by one, I’m sure he has names for all of them!

Once all the grapes have been harvested we took them to the crusher-disteammer, and big surprise: 25,5 brix sugar, this will be an other big juicy wine.

Once Larigi is totally picked, we will move on to our regular barbera vineyards, and then soon, the nebbiolo.

Cornas news - The harvest is under way at Domaine du Coulet

Matthieu Barret, the man in charge of the brilliant Domaine du Coulet, always innovating in a constant effort to improve his techniques, sent us this last week detailing the goings on in the run up to the harvest....

"Saturday the 25/09

It is now three days since the harvest started under a beautiful rising sun and a fairly high temperature for the season. We started with our vines in Cotes du Rhone which will give birth to our small production of Côtes du Rhône "No Wine's Land" very ripe with a nice acidity which should give a good balance to the final wine, generally seductive and elegant.

We followed with the bottom slopes vineyards of Cornas in the "Lieux dits Genale, Mazards and Patronne. We found some spots of "vers de la grappe” - Grape worm that we had to sort rigorously. The harvest seems very promising yet we will have a better idea in a few weeks of the precise level of quality after the first fermentations.

We have improved our system this year with the use now a conveyor belt-elevator to feed the vats by gravity. This is very satisfying for us as it increases the amount of full berries in the vat to enhance the fruit aromas in our wines. The potential alcoholic degrees are quite high as we reach 13,5% approximately which is higher than our average of 13%.

Despite a few problems of equipment badly repaired before harvest by our suppliers which made us loose time and energy, we can say that all is going well for the moment!

We had to stop cutting today as we have a small rain of 10mm which forced us to stop. It shouldn't be a problem for the rest of the harvest regarding the small amount of water we had.

The first juices in vat have a superb and dark color which confirms the high phenolic maturities. We have done no intervention on our vats for the moment to able the intra-cellular fermentation to happen so to gain fruit and elegance and bring this very delicate wine texture that I seek and love over all for the fluidity it confers.

I will be in touch with more news, photos and facts from the harvest 2010 at Domaine du Coulet.

All the best,

Matthieu Barret, Domaine du Coulet"

News from Etna: Harvest 2010

News just in from Marco de Grazia where the Tenuta delle Terre Nere harvest is under way...

"We just picked the best white grapes ever, and are starting with Feudo di
Mezzo. It looks very good to excellent, and could even rival 2008 if the
weather holds, particularly in Calderara.
Ciao,
Marco"

Sounds promising.....

The Burgundian harvest bodes well...

The 2010 Cote de Nuits harvest continues at a pace. Even though harvest had already started in the Cote de Beaune last week, there weren’t many Cotes de Nuits vignerons in their vineyard parcels. The first secateur cuts in the Cotes de Nuits would only have been this weekend just gone. My original assessment of the grapes on Monday 21st gave me reason to think that this will be a good quality vintage. Sugar was there, acidity though still a little marked at the time, has since fallen notably during the last 10 days of beautiful weather. This bodes well for a nice balance between alcohol and acidity in the final wines. The fine weather certainly allowed phenolic maturity to progress considerably in the last week and by the weekend full ripeness had nearly been reached. Now the work really starts...

Silvia Altare, Picking in Piedmont

(this post was written a little over a week ago and due to technical problems with our blogging site we have only just been able to get it posted)

Here we are, back to the crazy days, when heart beats a little faster, finger nails get dirtier and sleeping hours get shorter and shorter! Nothing has changed from last year at the Altare winery, we have the same old…or I should say “expert” pickers in the vineyards, and in the cellar you have me, Tes-san the Japanese super manga hero, Robert the winemaker from Cullen’s in Margaret River and Sorin the Romanian Mr. Fix it and Mr. Reliable...and of course Elio supervising all of us.

We are doing much better with foreign languages this year so much so that we are all experts in swearing and giving orders in each other’s languages. Working for a vintage in a cellar is a cheap and fast way to learn a language; perhaps we should start a new trend and have people coming for free work just to learn the language!

We started picking Dolcetto last week, finally back to the usual time of picking.Yes, we are expecting a great harvest, I know I should talk about harvest only when everything is picked and safe in the cellar, but I cant help it, grapes look amazing, the weather is just how it's supposed to be, the picking crew is all excited, and we are all here ready to work hard to make some good juice! The first pressing we made 2 days after crushing.

Dolcetto literally spends only 2 days in the rotary fermentor, and it’s amazing how much color, tannin and aromas we can get after only 2 short days on the skins. We picked at 21-22 brix, less than usual, but we will finally get a light Dolcetto, exactly as it’s supposed to be.

Getting the juice out the rotary fermentor is easy, but to get the skins and the seeds out and put them in the press, that’s something else! Your hands turn purple and when you are among people there is not hiding that you are a winemaker!! At the same time we were picking the white grapes of Bosco and Albarola in Cinque Terre, Liguria, where Elio has started a little winery a few years ago. It originally started as a hobby, but is now turning into hard work…just what we needed!

We are planning on starting barbera by the end of this the week, in the meantime, so that we don’t loose the’ momentum’ that we have now, we are labelling, doing visits at the winery, delivering, and the most fun, which I get to do, running the office :-(

Harvest News - The pick of the bunch

Drumroll please...

The stage is set and a verdant hush descends over the vineyards of the Northern Hemisphere. Harvest is upon us with it the old world's wine world tenses in collective anticipation at this most heart quickening time of the year. Vintages can be made and lost in the coming weeks when the clemency of the early autumn weather is well and truly put to the test.

So it is with delight that we announce voices old and new to guide us through the trials and tribulations of the various harvests. From the bunch to the blog in the quickest time possible we have...

...from Bordeaux's right bank, the returning voice of Edouard Moueix, providing updates from Providence, one of the stars in their stellar collection of Pomerol estates. New to us year is Maxime Thienpont, son of Luc, giving us the left bank perspective from the vines of our much loved Margaux micro-property Chateau Clos des Quatres Vents. Lovers of Piedmontese wines will be delighed to hear that Buyers' Blog favourite Silvia Altare has kindly agreed to furnish us with more of her delightful reports from the frontvine, while further south Marco de Grazia has agreed to give us updates from the slopes of Mt. Etna and one of our estates of the moment, Tenuta delle Terre Nere. Last and by no means least, the extremely affable August Kesseler has agreed to keep us up to speed on events in the Rheingau.

There are more big names to come so watch this space, it is guaranteed to be something of a harvest festival...

Sheer Montrachet Magic

Its wines may well cost an arm and a leg, but Montrachet or "Le" Montrachet is one very special vineyard. Last night at an informative tasting and dinner with the hugely articulate and congenial Drouhin winemaker, Veronique Drouhin, a group of us tasted some lovely wines, red 2006s from both Cotes, a super Vaudesir Moulin des Vaudons 2008, not to mention a stunning barrel sample of 09 Clos des Mouches white but the star of the show was Montrachet Marquis de Laquiche 2007. Intense rich yet fine, taut and weightless, it totally flooded the senses and just went on and on and on... It does really take you to another level of wine enjoyment, too much of this and almost all other white wine would start to seem very ordinary.

Vincent Pinard upgraded to two stars in the Revue de Vin de France

France's historic Revue du Vin de France has been published monthly since 1929 and is cited by Jancis Robinson as "France's only serious wine magazine". It carries no little weight amongst the wine making and wine drinking fraternity of France. So it is with delight that we announce the entirely deserved upgrading of the Vincent Pinard domaine to a two star estate. The revue goes on to say amongst other glowing praise, that “progress has been more impressive than in any other cellar in Loire’s central vineyards (Sancerre & Pouilly.)”

Sancerre praise indeed...

Would you give someone your last BaRolo?

Not judging by our customers response to the 2006s on Monday. Despite the strike, customers were scrummaging ferociously for a sip of the best La Morra, Serralunga, Monforte and Castiglione Barolos money can buy. This is proving a really classic, structured vintage yet with enough generosity and fruit to allow us an exciting glimpse of even greater things in store. Wines from Gaja, Voerzio(pictured), Altare Scavino and Clerico, to name but a few, must make this tasting of Piedmont's best one of a kind in the UK

Two other highlights were Terre Nere's 2008 Etna Cru wines, arguably their best vintage so far, and a flight of undoubtedly the greatest ever wines to come out of Toro, the 2009 Teso la Monja wines were extraordinary and surely await high critical acclaim.

J&B named IWC Specialist German Wine Merchant of the Year.

The German section of our wine list has long been an area very close to our Chairman's heart. Over the past 30 years his love of German Riesling has been transformed into our extensive listings from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, The Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Franken.

So it was a delight to receive the award for the 2010 Specialist Wine Merchant of the Year. You could say it was just another riesling to be happy...

Doing it in Style...J&B House Red Burgundy featured in the Sunday Times

Both buyer Giles Burke-Gaffney and our house red Burgundy given two thumbs up by Bob Tyrer, Style's weekly wine columnist.



"Ever since a brute called Giles Foster tried to beat me for some schoolboy idiocy - the other prefects stopped him - I've had both a problem with authority and a wariness of Gileses. So it was a delight to come across Giles Burke-Gaffney, who shows no sign of beastliness. Perhaps that's because he has one of the wine trade's best jobs, as buyer for Justerini & Brooks, the royal wine merchants, and certainly one of its best views. From his desk, he looks up St James's Street towards the fleshpots of Mayfair. His Chairman, Hew Blair, sits opposite him with an even better vista down towards St James's Palace (and the black front door of Berry Bros & Rudd, the old rivals). On the day I popped in, the chairman was away, but he had left his dark-blue pinstripe suit neatly folded over his chair, facing our Giles. I swear I caught Giles bowing to it.

Justerini & Brooks has always been a bit of an enigma to me. Its fortunes rest on a popular whisky, J&B, yet the wine end of the business has seemed a bit aloof. When I dared to enter its splendid office as a mere punter a decade or so ago to ask about buying one of its wines, the responses ranged from nonplussed to sniffy. Things have changed, I think. Much of its trade is still with restaurants and traditional private clients, but it has a well-functioning website that, if you ignore the plutocratic bottles and search for JandB House, reveals a gem. Justerini & Brooks red burgundy, a house wine, costs less than £10 yet is much better than the price suggests. Giles won't say who makes it, but hints at an illustrious name who doesn't want to be associated with low prices. If I were the Queen, I'd cancel the Corton (about £500 a bottle) and serve this at my Buckingham Palace banquets with my own salmon or lamb.

I've been trying other cheap house wines from other independant merchants and I'm afraid that, so far, they've all gone down the sink. So, after St James's, it's off to Tesco and Waitrose for two more of the best bargains in the realm." Bob Tyrer, On the Bottle. Sunday Times Style, 05/09 2010

Cru Bourgeois - Comedy, tragedy and could be consigned to history...

The French are known for their flare in the kitchen and for producing scintillating wines. We should also add to this list of stereotypes a passion for bureaucracy. The lamentable Cru Bourgeois system has just been re vamped, and the latest incarnation looks set to be the most dysfunctional to date, although we wouldn't bet against future changes making it even more confusing for consumers...

So after the debacle of the 2003 reforms and the subsequent law suits, the Cru Bourgeois system reverted back to its original incarnation (of 1932). It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't all bad. Now in an attempt to glam up the classification, l'Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc have decided to appoint a third party tasting panel to judge whether a wine meets the criteria to be awarded Cru Bourgeois status. A good idea in essence, but this tasting won't take place until the wine is in bottle. The first vintage to be affected will be the 2008s; wines that we sold en Primeur over 12 months ago. It is conceivable that some wines that have been sold en primeur will have been incorrectly advertised as Cru Bourgeois, we won't know until the results are announced in September. It is also conceivable that an estate will produce a Cru Bourgeois one vintage and then a simple 'Bordeaux AOC' the next. Call us sceptics, but these reforms look daft and moreover, incompatible with the en primeur system of selling wines...

2003 White Burgundies....

Lunch on Friday and once again an extremely good bottle of 2003 white Burgundy. OK, so they are atypical with their low acidities and somewhat high alcohol levels, but the good ones possess a richness that offsets these two qualities. Somewhat paradoxically (hot vintages with low acidities are not generally touted for prolonged cellaring) they also appear to be the vintage least affected by premature ageing in the past fifteen years. This particular bottle was a Jean-Noel Gagnard Chassagne-Montrachet Les Chaumes 1er Cru 2003; ripe and rich, yet with a fine mineral component, sun warmed lemons, and a good deal of spice - it was extremely well received.

Rhone 2009 - The Septentrional Slog

After two days of Meridional marathon in the Southern Rhone, I embarked on an even more gruelling two days in the Septentrional North. I have visited 7 producers both yesterday and today(thursday)taking in the best of Cornas, Crozes, St Joseph, Hermitage, Condrieu, Cote Rotie and that well known Vin de Pays, Seyssuel! I have seen all of our regulars such as Chave, Domaine du Coulet, Domaine du Colombier, Perret and Rostaing to name a few, as well as keeping an eye on the regions young (winemaking!) talents, people such as Semaska, PJ Villa and Stephane Ogier. That makes 26 producers in 4 days. Now, before you all sarcastically get your violins out, actually this has not been such a tall order. Glancing at my schedule upon arriving late into Marseille on Sunday, I thought I had gone perhaps a touch o.t.t., but in fact the style and quality of this vintage has really made it feel rather effortless.

Whilst 09 is a small vintage in the south because of the very few bunches of Grenache that had formed on the vines, in the north it is a vintage of quality and quantity like 1999. Some producers in Cornas prefer the elegance of 08 to the richness of 09, remember that this appellation's sheer, exposed and well-drained slopes produced very good 2008s. 2009s in Cornas are enormously rich and intense, some top the charts at 15 degrees alcohol, too much wine for some people perhaps, but I am sure they will earn great critical acclaim in some quarters. Domaine du Coulet have made an incredible Gore Cuvee this year. St Joseph is particularly high performing, i think, perhaps some of the most balanced wines of the vintage, Perret's Grisieres is sublime and Villard has made the vintage of his life, in my opinion. Rene Rostaing was ebullient and rightly so, all three of his Cuvees were exemplary. Clusel Roch will be releasing a very serious Grandes Places aswell as a separate bottling of, for the first time, La Viaillere which that i thought remarkable and one of my personal favourites of the trip.

For anyone who remembers and still has examples of that great 1999 Northern Rhone vintage, I tasted a Grandes Places 99 with Brigitte Roch. On the basis of this 99s are every bit as wonderful as they were on release. Really impressive, one of the greats, but worth holding onto for at least another 5 - 10 years, it is still so young.

Hew's Views - The Final Roundup

All the 2009s have now been released; so it's verdict time. How has the market reacted to the Bordelaise's new pricing strategy? What should we buy from 2009? Our Chairman, Hew Blair has watched the campaign unfold and now gives his judgement in this, the final instalment for the Bordeaux 2009 campaign of Hew's views.

2009 - High Spirits in Chateauneuf du Pape

Monday and Tuesday have gone remarkably quickly and smoothly despite the crammed schedule. Chateauneuf is starting to feel like my second home now, my visits have inlcuded pierre usseglio, pegau, barroche, versino, vieux telegraphe, rayas, beaucastel, cros de la mure, clos des cazaux cayron, and clos des papes. Phew, thats a lot of grenache! Everyone seems really very content with their 09s if a bit rushed because 2010 is behind schedule and there is lots to do in the vineyard. The 09 wines our gorgeously lush open and fruity, even the usually more reductive styles are showing well. This is clearly a very good vintage,different to 2007 less black fruit and in many cases less alcohol, which was a pleasant surprise, though still quite high nonetheless, domaines like usseglio have produced wine at about 14.5 alc versus 15+ in 07.No doubt some 09s will be much higher than this, however. The profile of the 09s are rich incredibly smooth more red fruit perhaps than the black fruit of 07. There is definitely tannic power but this is hidden by glycerol and fruit sweetness. However tannins and minerality do seem to give the impression of freshness, for the best wines are certainly not heavy or sickly. Many growers, namely Vincent Avril of Clos des Papes, consider it as in between 2007 and 2005 in style, the sweetness of the former and the structure of the latter without being as rigid or austere as 2005. Mourvedre, Counoise and the cooler grenache zones have done particularly well

A word on 08s. Dismissing this as another 02 is plainly wrong. My tastings in bottle of the southern rhones over the last two days reaffirmed my barrel tastings. Ok there will have been some bad wines in this challenging vintage, but it is surprising how lovely the wines from the good growers are. Ripe, floral, refreshing acids and decent mid-weight smooth structures. Not one of the greats but as good as very nice vintages such as 1999 (or better for some like Vincent Avril)

Aalto 2007 and Ossian 2009

Aalto is the impressive collaboration between former head of the Ribera DO Javier Zaccagnini and Vega Sicilia's winemaker of 20 plus years, Mariano Garcia. It is the result of blending the best parcels from 7 different communes in Ribera del Duero, vine age a minimum of 40 years old. Not only does each commune have its own unique terroir, be it sand limestone or clay soils but just as importantly, if not even more so, each commune tends to have its own very unique clones of the Tinto Fino grape that make totally different wines to eachother.

Ribera has had a wet,cool Spring and early summer, the landscape looks so lush, green and floral, such a difference to the desert I visited this time last year. I am here to see the restless Javier Zaccagnini and taste his 2007, to be released in September this year. It was a very extreme year, really dry but cool aswell, no bad thing for this usually rather hot climate. It did mean a great deal of work in the vineyards to ensure proper maturation of the grapes, but ripen they did. There is no PS in 2007, it has all gone into the main Aalto blend, which is as a result incredibly complete silky and complex, with a very moreish and refreshing acidity so typical of this cool vintage. 2007 might not have the blockbuster richness of a 2005 but the balance, refinement and drinkability will make for a very serious bottle that can be approached early or after several years bottle age and it should work tremendously well with food.

We then head south to Ossian in the southern zone of Rueda. I used to call this one of my favourite whites outside of Burgundy, now i just call it one of my favourite whites. 2007 and 2008 were phenomenal vintages, cooler years perfectly suited to the style of wine made here. 2009, though a richer vintage, clearly betrays the benefits of Ismael's (pictured in one of his 250 year old vineyards) and Javier's experiences since their first Rueda vintage in 2005. The continuing refinements and improvements they have made has resulted in a sublime, silky, long and concentrated wine. The scary thing is they are still learning. No where else in the world does the each barrel of the same wine taste so different (according to the vineyard plot it comes from) and they are still trying to understand why. The wine is 100% anicent vines Verdejo yet the barrels range in flavour and style from Riesling, to Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc depending on the plot you taste. This makes for an unforgettable and incredibly harmonious blend.

Follow me to the Rhone next week, where I will be casting and eye on the 2009s.

2009 Toro and some smart Rioja

Nothing like a nice Rioja to revive the senses after a 4 hour drive from Priorato. Well, certainly, if its one of Marcos Eguren's. The Egurens are the vinous Kings of Rioja, if not all of Spain. Their wonderful San Vicente was one of the original modern Riojas, hand made from a low yielding single vineyard La Canoca in the Rioja Alta zone, which produces the region's most subtle, elegant wines that combine fresh acidity with fine fruit and tannic backbone. It is regularly voted best red wine in Spain, by the Spanish great and good, and you can see why.

2007 was a small, cool and late harvest, picking did not finish until the beginning of November in some vineyards. An absolutely wonderful vintage not a rich blockbuster, far from it, but intense, fine and fresh. I always have a soft spot for San Vicente Rioja, i don't think there is better value wine in Spain, the 07 exemplifies its typically sophisticated, nuanced style. However for sheer quality Amancio was something else. Another single vineyard wine but most of the fruit goes into other cuvees, only 8% of the vineyard's grapes, the creme de la creme, are used for Amancio. All flowers, high notes, minerals and forest fruits, understated yet so powerful. It will be a wine for ageing, if a still far too young but equally impressive 2002 is any indication.

Further south in Toro the Egurens have been busy fine-tuning their Teso La Monja wines. They sold their Numanthia Termes estate in a bid to make something more elegant. Their idea was to buy only high altitude, mainly north facing vineyards ranging from 40 to 100 years old, with a view to prolonging the vegetative cycle and make a more refined style of Toro. 2009 conditions were great and combined with the experience gained from the two vintages already under their belt, has made for staggering results. They are not as massive, thick or extracted as the Numanthia Termes wines were but they are even more intense, more floral finer and longer. In general the best Toros taste like very good wines but without any particular identity that marks them out as specifically being Toro. This is where Teso la Monja excel, they are quite simply sumptuous seductive and unique. Dios mio! their top wine, Alabaster, left me breathless - smooth silky floral but with a marathon finish. As soon as journalists and wine trade professionals have had a chance to taste, it will surely not being long before its consider one of Spain's true greats.

Nou Wave Priorato

So to the land of El Bulli and FC Barcelona, Catalans show as much flair in the kitchen as they do on Nou Camp's glorious turf, the region has become a must visit for the most serious of gastronomes. The wine is catching on, too. Home of Priorat and its rugged, slate-rich hills. A unique land where red grapes are grown on dangerously steep, crumbling hills of slate.

The region is rediscovering its identity after the unwieldy, heavily oaked Cabernet Syrah and Merlot influenced wines of the nineties. Over the last 10 years the region's top producers have concentrated on the land's more traditional grape varieties, in particular the area is awash with seriously old vines Garnacha and Carinena (Grenache and Carignan.) Ok so the wines of Priorat are never going to be shrinking violets, but from today’s top producers they are definitely unique, potently moreish wines with an unmistakebale mineral streak running through them. There are about a dozen top flight producers and I have come to taste three of my favourites: Vall Llach, Mas Martinet and Mas Doix.

I am here to taste 2008s and 2007s. Two very different vintages. 07s remind the contagiously enthusiastic Sara Perez (of Mas Martinet) of the 2004s, full of richness , velvet texture with a nice but very gentle thread of acidity running through it, wines for hedonists. 08s are altogether more ethereal, in one of her more artistic moments Sara describes 2008 as a “clouds” vintage, by that I think she meant a vintage of high tones, as opposed to the more obvious but immediately seductive 07s. I adore the finesse and terroir complexity of Sara’s wines, characteristics that are perhaps more marked in 2008 than 2007, they don’t always wow the journalists because they are not all upfront, but how incredibly fine they are and they age wonderfully. The glorious, wild cherry-infused 2000 Clos Martinet that I tried at the estate will attest to that. The Vall Llach and Mas Doix offerings were exquisite, too, albeit in a slightly different style to Martinet, super sumptuous and silky yet with wonderful bright mineral lift. I believe that a certain someone across the Atlantic concurs, both of their 2007s are in the Wine Advocate’s top 10 of the vintage.

Viva the revival!

2009 Update

Apologies for the recent lack of blogs. After weeks of inactivity we have been inundated with releases in the last few days. Prices have resembled the weekly salaries of some of our under-performing football players, but the market has decided that they offer much better value for money. In fact it's now a race to see whether the campaign will finish or the England squad will return home first. My money's still on the England team...

The biggest news is that Lafite, Mouton, Latour and Margaux have released. Due to unprecedented demand the Chateaux have released only a fraction of their production onto the market. We will continue to buy on the secondary market and wait for further traches before we offer at an amalgamated price. There is no real prix de revente for the first growths, but we can tell you that the first tranche has been around 550 Euros per bottle to us. We wait with apprehension for the further releases...

Recent headlines from the campaign include:

- Magnificent La Mission is out at £6200.
- Palmer releases this morning – Second tranche is released after lunch...
- Leoville Barton sells out in one afternoon; we await a second tranche.
- Big hitters, Leoville Poyferre, Montrose, Pichon Baron and Conseillante are out and will be allocated.
- Rauzan Segla and Troplong Mondot are approaching the end of the first tranche.
- Second tranche of Beychevelle now available at £650.
- Bordeaux negociants arrested for working a 35 hour day.
- Hindsight is a beautiful thing - bag a 2008 bargain. `08 Clarence Haut Brion £430/case.

Domaine Clos de Tart

How time flies. It is now twenty years since Justerini & Brooks first became involved in supplying and developing the Singaporean fine wine market, and over those years it has become increasingly filled with very serious connoisseurs and some genuinely world-class cellars. Though we meet with our customers in restaurants and private houses all over the city, the private dining room within the Jiang-Nan Chun Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel has been J&B's prime venue of choice for entertaining throughout this whole time. There have been many spectacular dinners held here over the years, and a few days ago we added another. Sylvain Pitiot, from the Burgundy Domaine Clos de Tart, flew out to join us for two dinners focused on the vintages made under his stewardship of this Grand Cru monopole estate. It is no longer a secret that since his debut in 1996 this ancient estate has been producing its finest flight of vintages in decades, and the dinners more than proved that point.

The 1996 was drinking beautifully , with mature wild plum and cherry flavours and silky tannins giving the wine a wonderful complex finish.

The 1999 was still very youthful and firm , but packed with ripe, luxurious and explosive fruits.

The 2001 had a beautiful pinot noir definition; fresh, seductive aromas and a perfect balance of fruit and minerals. A real star.

The 2002 was still a baby. Tight, concentrated, intense and pure. It is waiting to show its real colours.

The 2003 was big textured, rich and sweet, and seduced with damsons and black cherry, yet had that Pinot Noir structure to counter the wonderful bold ripeness.

The 2005 was glorious; that simple. Full of rich, ripe, dark fruits, yet balanced by a powerful minerality. A truly complete and grand Clos de Tart.

2006 is a vintage Sylvain rates particularly highly. Youthful yet harmonious and refined; a terroir-dominated vintage. Subtle , complex berry fruits, fine tannins and a haunting sweet yet mineral finish.

2007 is lovely, seductive, ripe Pinot. Fleshy and sweet black cherry and sloe fruits follow through. A real charmer.

The 2008 was cool, refined and with a purity of fruit that would be hard to match outside the best Grand Crus. Quite simply it is a great wine and even in its youth reflecting the best of a grand terroir.

What was so special about this flight was that without exception each wine was true to the conditions experienced during the growing season and harvest, and to its unique Grand Cru terroir. What is evidently clear to us is the talent of Sylvain Pitiot in both the vineyard and cellar in guiding Domaine Clos de Tart through a new golden age.

Helmut Donnhoff: Dry whites and Soil Diversity

Legendary Nahe winemaker Helmut Donnhoff took a few minutes to discuss with us the impace of the warming weather on acidities in his dry wines, and the relative effects of his slate and volcanic soils.

Loving the Loire!

A trip to the immensely diverse Loire valley provides a welcome respite to the rife speculation surrounding Bordeaux 2009 prices and England's chances in the World Cup. I am here to taste the new red white and rose 2009s and take another look at some of the red 2008s in bottle. My (already very great) admiration for some of the Loire's top growers has just got greater. Not only does their fervent passion see them produce excellent wine in even the most challenging of climactic conditions but they also have a distinct awareness of market realities and the standard of competition that exists in the form of Bordeaux Burgundy and the new world. I can't think of any other region that has so many growers who know so much about the top wines from the Cote d'Or or the Cru Classe of Bordeaux!

Much ground has been covered already: Coteaux de Layon, Saumur Chanmpigny, Bourgueil, Chinon, Montlouis, Vouvray and some Touraine wines in Noyers sur Loire, so it makes picking out highlights difficult. One of them has to be the first day with the large and charismatic Jo Pithon (pictured.) After a rogue bat briefly interrupts our tasting in Jo's cellars I taste one of the Loire's great but unknown whites, 2008 Anjou Coteaux des Treilles, a vineyard with volcanic soils that has a strata of coal several metres below the surface. Seek it out. For me it is one of the Loire's top dry whites along side Taille aux Loups Remus and the Pouilly Fumes from Didier Dagueneau.

Another high point has been the reds, namely the 2009s,(surprise surprise!) but also the 2008s. The 09s are intense ripe and suave, dense but with finesse and what's more there is no talk of raising (already very reasonable) prices by 50 or even 15%! Yannick Amirault, Domaine de la Butte and Joguet have all performed extraordinarily well. Even all of their 2008s were showing quite brilliantly - all ripe fruit and silk - not as massive as the 09s but they are certainly no weaklings and are beautifully refreshing to boot. So 2009 is one of the "greats" for Loire reds like 2005 or 2003. It also looks very promising for the sweeties, too, the best since 1989 according to Huet's Noel Pinguet.

So much pleasure its almost exhausting, and I haven't even got to Vincent Pinard, Lucien Crochet, Francois Cotat and Didier Dagueneau yet, thats for tomorrow.

I'm putting my head on the block here, but what I have seen over the last few days underlines the huge strides the Loire has made in the last 5-10 years. The valley is the source of some of the world's great red and white wines whether from perceived "great" vintages or not, its now becoming foolish to ignore them.

Champagne Pommery: An antidote to football?

‘In victory we deserve it, in defeat we need it’. (Winston Churchill)

For every person wishing the England squad good luck for their coming few weeks, there will doubtless be another for whom the beautiful game holds no allure at all.

If you wish to escape the World Cup melée, the Sanderson Hotel’s top chefs and our champagne agency Vranken Pommery have come together to create a champagne and food matching extravaganza to give you an alternative evening to football. The first champagne dinner kicks off on Saturday 12th June at 7pm - probably just around the same time as the referee’s whistle. There will be a second champagne dinner on Friday 18th of June. And should England proceed through the stages, the dinners will continue...

In the UK we have a tendancy to only drink champagne as a celebratory tipple or an aperitif. The French on the other hand have long considered champagne as a perfect partner with food.

The evening starts, on the fabulous al fresco dining Terrace, with a tutored champagne tasting exploring the different combinations of grape varieties and cuvees that make up some of Pommery’s finest champagnes. The tutorial starts with Apanage , created by our Chef de Cave, Thierry Gasco as a champagne specifically for food; then Summertime, a refreshing Blanc de Blancs from our ‘Seasons’ range; a Pommery Grand Cru from 1999, and Apanage Rosé, the newest addition to Pommery’s pink portfolio.

After the tasting we will then combine the champagnes with a gastronomic dinner created by the top chefs at the Sanderson. We will look at why certain champagnes work wonderfully with certain foods, such as the Apanage with an ‘Amuse’ of Seared Scallop and Confit Suckling Pig Belly, or why a Blanc de Blancs has the structure and finesse to compliment a Halbibut Boulangere. If you think champagne and seafood are the only match made in heaven, we will take you through a meat course of roasted Bresse Quail , Mushroom Cannelloni and Albufera sauce matching with Pommery Grand Cru Vintage.

So if an evening of gastronomy and fine champagne is a welcome escape from hours of football call the Sanderson Hotel on 0207 300 1444. Tickets are priced at £90.00 per person, plus Service.

The Courtyard Garden

Sanderson

50 Berners Street

W1T 3NG

Top tens – Best values

`Best value` is probably the most interesting and most disputed category in our `top tens`. Value after all adds another level of subjectivity. 31 wines appeared in our lists and not one wine made it into all eight tasters’ selections. Haut Batailley and Clos des Quatre Vents both made the cut for 7 tasters, but failed to achieve the elusive full house.

There were strong showings from Langoa Barton, Lafon Rochet, Phelan Segur, Durfort Vivens, Lagrange, Moulin St George and the highly tipped Saint Pierre, but sadly we were not alone. Robert Parker has positively raved about Saint Pierre and our other surprise recommendation, Malartic Lagraviere. Huge scores from these two will probably push release prices to stratospheric levels...

The same rules apply; 10 points for a first place all the way down to 1 point for tenth position.

Haut Batailley - 45
Clos des Quatre Vents - 40
Langoa Barton - 37
Lafon Rochet - 34
Moulin St George - 31
Lagrange - 28
Phelan Segur - 25
Beychevelle - 15
Durfort Vivens - 14
Saint Pierre - 14
Blason de l`Evangile - 14
Petit Bocq - 12
Chasse Spleen - 12
Cantemerle - 12
Chateau Valade - 11
Grand Puy Lacoste - 10
Brane Cantenac - 10
Pagodes de Cos - 10
Calon Segur - 9
Haut Marbuzet - 7
Tour du Pin - 7
Meyney - 7
Ormes de Pez - 6
Gloria - 5
Grande Maye - 5
Malartic Lagraviere - 5
Clerc Milon - 5
Sociando Mallet - 4
Domaine de Chevalier - 3
Beaumont - 2
Les Fiefs de Lagrange - 1

The campaign gathers pace...

After the VINEXPO lull, Chateaux owners have been making up for lost time with a flurry of releases. Despite the British bank holiday, Monday saw the release of a fine quartet: Bernadotte (£140/case), Lacoste Borie (£175/case), Chasse Spleen (£210/case) and Fonbel (£165/case). Bernadotte was delicious and improvements by the Pichon Lalande/Roederer team are clearly paying off; not a green note in sight, this is a really polished, fleshy offering.

Xavier Borie's Grand Puy Lacoste and Haut Batailley regularly feature in our best value selections and for those looking for a bargain Pauillac, Lacoste Borie (the second wine from GPL) is a snip at £175/case.

Chasse Spleen won the battle of Moulis for the J&B team. Yes Poujeaux (£210/case) is exceptional, massive and long-term, but Chasse Spleen charmed the socks off us. Alain Vauthier’s Fonbel was the cherry on the cake. At 40% above the 2008 release price, it made us gulp, however, this comes from good terroir (just below Ausone) and is made by the Ausone team, so £165/case looks far from excessive...

Typically, today has been somewhat quieter... but to bring you right up to speed, we have Cantemerle (£240/case) and l’Arrosee (£330/case). Both receive 92-94 points from Mr Parker and both are up there with the best vintages ever made from these properties. We particularly recommend Cantemerle, which really shone at the Moulis, Listrac and Haut Medoc UGC.

"Viticultural Paradise": An interview with Steve James

Having provided us with detailed harvest reports throughout February and March, and with all wines safely in the winery and beginning their elevage, Steve James joined us in London to taste a superb range of Voyager Wines. Hearing him talk about Margaret River it is hard not to be seduced by this remote corner of Australia. 3 hours south of Perth, green forests rolling down to the gravel hills and on to the white beaches, sea on three sides and a cooling breeze, good winter rainfall and a consistent, dry and warm late summer harvest period. It is a "viticultural paradise" with croups of well drained, red and brown gravel where each year the winemaking teams compete in a surf contest. It has a certain pull, does it not.

While here Steve organised a masterclass with some of London's top sommeliers, pitting Voyager's wines against the likes of Cos d'Estournel, Sassicaia, Moss Wood, Bonneau de Martray's Corton Charlemagne and Craggy Range Le Sol. Quite a line up. Quite a brave challenge. The results surprised the sommeliers, though not Steve who proved once again that at a fraction of the price his wines really can and do hold their own in exalted company.

Here we ask him how they do it:

On the Road to Chablis

As I leave the Cote d'Or the clouds part and out comes the sun. Bright blue skies see me all the way up the autoroute de soleil to junction 21, Nitry. I head, with great anticipation, into the rolling hills of Chablis' big country and its long straight roads, a spoiling programme that includes Fevre, Brocard, Moreau Naudet, Vincent Dauvissat and Laurent Tribut lying before me.

I taste the 2008s which are all in bottle, even Dauvissat's Clos at long last! Well, they are as great as they were last November, perhaps even more thrilling. They have an electric acidity, a lush ripeness, great mineral Chablis character and huge power without ever comprising finesse or balance. Any 08 from a reputable grower should be snapped up.

The 2009s will I am sure be more controversial. They are very powerful wines but just about the most easy and enjoyable to taste before bottling than any other recent vintage. No doubt their low acidities will be talked about by some, but they are intense and show very fresh, clear fruit flavours, surely owing to that kimmeridgean clay minerality, and for many the alcohols aren't too high either, between 12-13 degrees natural. They, of course, have very smooth, friendly textures but show some structure, too, it will be interesting to seem them after a summer's elevage but for now they look very seductive.

The grape escape: 2008 Burgundy Revisited and a peek at 2009

Narrowly avoiding the ash clouds that nearly prevented my annual escape from the London Wine Trade fair, I head to Burgundy for a chance to re-taste 2008 and take an early peek at the already well-reputed 2009s.

Most Red 2008s are now ready to be bottled and though, admittedly, its a perfect time to taste, they look fabulous, even lovelier than from barrel in November. It may not be a totally homogenous vintage but there are so many great examples of red 08s from the top producers. Every grower I have spoken to this week considers it a genuinely top vintage for Pinot Noir and I have to admit I am totally seduced, too. Such a balance of Pinot purity, freshness, ripe fruit and roundness, with a nice little tannic kick. Freddy Mugnier himself describes it as "a vintage I adore, like 2001 but better, more refined." Anyone who has been lucky enough to drink any of the quite glorious Cote de Nuits 2001s recently will know this is praise indeed.

Then there is the small matter of 2009. The most flattering vintage I have tasted at this early stage, more so than 1999, even the likes of d'Angerville's Clos des Ducs and Liger-Belair's La Romanee, the most serious of wines, were impressively forthcoming; whilst Cecile Tremblay appears to have made a sensational range from top to bottom. There is still plenty of time and elevage to go for these 2009s, I will see in November how the summer has treated them so lets not be hasty, but it has to be said in their current state they are difficult to resist: Suave, very fruity and with a smooth texture that belies their great power and persistance. Mostly it seems a decent size crop (fingers crossed this is reflected at allocation time !!) Picking date was a fine balance as fruit ripened at a pace, so it is feasible there may be one or two disappointments more than with the extraordinarily reliable 2005s, we shall see, but there will plenty of absolute crackers to feast on I have no doubt.

Liv-ex 100 storms to record high

With all the excitement and hysteria surrounding Bordeaux 2009, we seem to have missed something of a landmark. The Liv-ex 100 has powered its way back to an all time high at the end of March, surpassing the July 2008 figure of 264.14. April’s figures show even more positive growth closing at 281.21, a rise of 6.1% for the month, an 18.6% rise for 2010 and a staggering 31.8% increase for the year.

Although all the talk is of 2009s, there appears to be no let up in demand for older vintages of classified growth claret. And who knows, the current trend for record release prices from the Place could have a further drag effect on landed vintages...

Bordeaux 2009 - Hew's Views

As the campaign gently unfolds we take a moment's pause to discuss pricing of those wines that have released, and consider what we can expect in the coming weeks.

Bordeaux 2009 – Ascension Day

It’s a public holiday in France, so no releases today, but the campaign must go on. This morning we offered Chateau Providence (£700), one of the most recent acquisitions in the JP Moueix portfolio. This is a spell-binding wine, which possesses enormous power and extraordinary complexity. Positioned right at the heart of the plateau in Pomerol, Providence has an exceptional terroir and is rapidly asserting its place amongst the top table of right bank Chateaux.

There were also two other exciting Pomerols released this week; Gazin (£545) and Certan de May (£700). Both are well reviewed by Robert Parker and are selling fast... Other notable releases so far have been Haut Marbuzet (£325), Clos des Quatre Vents (£285) and La Fleur de Gay (£720).

We don’t expect any releases tomorrow as the Bordelaise enjoy an extended weekend; however, next week could be busy. With just one full week before VINEXPO, surely some of the top Cru Bourgeois and lesser classified growths must make their move... we hope.

Bordeaux 2009 - Mouton Rothschild

An interview with Herve Beland at Mouton Rothschild in which he discusses their 2009, the quality, the price and the comparisons with other vintages.....

Sweet success

This short week has been dominated by politics and sweet wines. Most Sauternes and Barsac estates have now released with just a few big names such as Yquem, Climens and de Fargues still to come. This is an exceptional vintage with both quantity and quality. In fact most producers have never witnessed such a straightforward harvest. Rather than the usual headache of multiple trie spaced weeks apart, wine-makers enjoyed a uniform transformation in their vineyards as botrytis spread and concentrated sugars in the grapes. Countless estates told the same story; all grapes harvested in a single week, large yields (comparatively) and exceptional quality. Residual sugar levels are high, but these are balanced, fresh, complex, mineral, really engaging wines that are close in quality to the 2001s.

The star releases include Suduiraut (97-99), Rieussec (95-97) and Coutet (96-98). All scores are taken from The Wine Advocate issue 188. We were also particularly impressed with Doisy Vedrines, which, at £245 per case looks tremendous value.

As with the Left Bank and the Right Bank, we asked our tasting team to list their top five Sauternes/Barsac. Unsurprisingly, Yquem and Climens run out as clear winners, but there were strong showings from Rieussec, Doisy Vedrines, de Fargues and Coutet. Our results can be found below (in order of preference):

Yquem
Climens
Rieussec
Doisy Vedrines
De Fargues
Coutet
Doisy Daene
Suduiraut
Rayne Vigneau

Weekending: Riesling Greats....

Not a piece on tourism, though we are rather taken by the area. Merely a couple of photos of some of Germany's most famous vineyards to demonstrate just how steep, imposing and impressive these steep sites are.

The famous Brauneberger Juffer vineyards comletely dominates the scene in the town of Brauneberg, seen here from Oliver Haag's window.

Looking down the river from the Prum's, with Wehlener Sonnenuhr at left and off in the distance the down of Graach and the Domprobst and Himmelreich vineyards.

Piesporter's Goldtropchen in the distance, a steep, suntrap of a vineyard.