En Primeur 2007

The en primeur 2007 is nearly at an end. Pretty much all thats left to declare their prices is Petrus, and they usually wait until about the middle of July. We have bought quite a bit this year, about £15k altogether including two cases of Mouton for £5200. Weve mostly gone for the good stuff, Palmer, Ducru-Beaucaillou, Pichon-Lalande Comtesse, Rauzan Segla, La Fleur Petrus, La Grave a Pomerol and Cos d'Estournel. The 2007's arent going to be a keeping vintage by all accounts, at least according to the reporting from the mass of tasters, buyers and journalists who were part of the en primeur tastings earlier in the year. But perhaps thats a good thing. Certainly in most cases the prices were down on last year, still expensive, but as far as fine is concerned it seems to be a sellers market just now. Were just starting to see the 2005's arrive just now, Ive already had the Mouton, Lascombes and Pichon delivered, Im sure there will be more to come over the next few months.

Another Mouton Post.

Two guys in the brasserie ask about Chateau Talbot. Currently we only have the 2005 in the cellar, which is way too young. So they ask me for a suggestion.
Suggestion no 1 - Reserve da la Comtesse 99, second wine of Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. I think its pretty good value for £67 on the list.
Not enough money they say, go higher. (Talbot would be around £75-90 on the list depending on the vintage)
Suggestion no 2 - Les Pagodes de Cos 1996, second wine of Cos d'Estournel. £95.
Still too little, they say, go higher.
Suggestion no 3 - Chateau Gruaud-Larose 1996 £130.
Nowhere near high enough they say, higher still.
Suggestion no 4 - Les Forts de Latour 1985 £280
At this point one of the fellas points to the wine underneath it, thats more like it, he bellows, well have that one there.

Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1988 £560.
The colour was a ruby red with a definite brick red tinge about the rim. On the nose it was vibrant, smoky with peppers, soft black fruits and a cedary almost tobacco finish. On the palate it was silky soft, the flavours of currants and brambles mixed with a woody spicyness and a touch of peppery salsa. It had a pretty long length to it, with the flavours gradually fading. My last bottle for now, but we are stocking up with some stock ex-chateau. I cant wait until its all here.

Smith Haut-Lafitte Blanc 1998

I must say that I do like a good white bordeaux. The crisp freshness of Chateau La Freynelles bordeaux blanc is a marvelous summer sipper and great with a wide variety of food. But spend a lot more and the result is heaven in a glass. For me there is no better bordeaux blanc that Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc, and I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of cases of the 98 from a broking list the other week. Ive been itching to try it, and last night I got my chance. It has quite an aromatic nose, slightly more exotic that Mark was expecting with a defining aroma of dried apricots or peaches. I was getting a bit of dried white fruits, but perhaps more of golden sultanas. I didnt taste it as I had a funny slightly metallic taste in my mouth at the time. The customers loved it though, so thats what counts. Now I plan to sell the hell out of it tonight!!

The estate is one that wasnt really held in much regard in the wine industry, but that is all changing under the new owners the Cathaird family. They have invested heavily in the estate, including building a new 2000 barrel cellar and the heart of the estate is the Source des Caudalies Spa and hotel. For a short while I entertained the idea of maybe taking my better half there for a short weekend break over the october half terms break, but then I saw the prices. Perhaps not! Especially on my salary!!

Oenoeous Pedophilia? 2004 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande.

In an effort to live up to our marketing departments claims of a 1000 bins on the wine list, I was put in a position where Ive had to list some really quite young wines on the list. Particularly prominent amongst them are the 2003, 2004 and now 2005 clarets that we have in stock. They are causing me something of a dilemma. Do I keep them off the list until they are ready to drink (my prefered option) or do we list them and hope that people will perhaps have enough knowledge to realise that really the wines are not anywhere near ready to drink. Well I kind of lost the arguement and they ended up being listed. So now what do I do when a customer order the wine?
Well this is a situation that I faced tonight. A table of four, amongst them a fairly prominent young chef, with a michelin star to his name. Am I being tested to see if I will pick up on the fact that the wine is a bit on the young side, or perhaps the customer is a wine pedo, he likes his wine young, tannic and under-developed. Im not in the business of correcting customers, and I dont want to offend the guy who ordered the wine, so my tactic is to present the bottle and then offer this gem - " Bearing in mind the youth of the wine, I think it might be prudent to double decant the wine in order to open it up a little bit" The guy shrugs ok and somehow I still dont quite feel absolved of any responsability for serving something so strikingly young. It doesnt get much better when we open the wine and it comes across as green as a green thing. Tight on the nose with hints of fruit behind a shield of greenness that the green lantern might use. Decanting it seemed to release some fruit on the nose and make the wine seem a bit more expressive ( possibly more due to the warming influence of being decanted from a cellar cold bottle into a warm decanter). On the palate it was still fairly tight and unforgiving, the fruit tantalisingly close but still seemingly locked up in a tightly bound tannic structure than threatened to strip the enamel off my teeth.
I give it a swirl and pour it over into a second decanter, trying to give it as much motion as I can without it being spilt everywhere. The smell coming from the wine is truly delicious, generous red fruit character with a touch of green wood character, still raw and fresh. On the palate it seemed to have softened a little bit, but at least I still had about an hour in the decanter until it would be needed. It was going to need every possible minute to soften and open up enough.
Pichon is one of my favourite wines from Pauillac, if somewhat out of my budget. One of my top ten wines that Ive tried was the 89 Pichon Lalande when I was working at Amaryllis. This wine has the potential to be as good, but in about ten more years perhaps. Hopefully I will still have some left by then!

Chateau Bauduc Rose.

I got some disappointing news the other day from Angela at Bauduc. It seems that they have run out of the Rose 2006 and are in the awful position of having rejected the 2007 rose as unsuitable for bottling they are now without a rose until 2008 vintage is ready sometime in 2009. Now that puts us in a spot, it sells really well, we are about to enter summer, and hopefully the weather will be really hot, meaning we are potentially loosing out on a bit opportunity. My boss is pretty pissed off about it. I on the other hand am kind of proud of them. By rejecting the vintage they are showing a commitment to quality and a pride in their wines. Now I dont know what happens to the wine. Perhaps it gets blended into the red (though I doubt it, surely it would lighten the wine), maybe they will keep it for their personal consumption (again doubtful but likely) or perhaps they pour it away (costly!!) but whatever happens they have lost that revenue stream. All the time and effort in the vineyard growing the fruit, the time in the winery turning the fruit into wine, and the time in the tanks waiting, wasted. They arent Mouton-Rothschild or Lafite, they are a small family winery so thats got to hurt them financially. And the scary thing for them is that all those customers who would have bought their rose will now find an alternative. And perhaps they might not buy Bauduc rose again. So not only have they lost this years business, but potentially they have lost next years too.
They wont lose my business though, because I applaud their choice, their integrity and their courage to take the decision they did. Perhaps it might work in their favour, because if they had released a substandard rose then they definately would have lost business the following year. So unfortunately we wont have their delicious rose this summer, but that makes the anticipation of the 2008 vintage all the more delicious. Good luck to them.

(Gavin and Angela Quinneys wines can be found at Bauduc.com.)

La Conseillante 1989

First time Id tried it, but it has been recommended to me by many previous customers all of which seem to like big expensive claret.

The colour was a deep purple core with a slightly redder rim. On the nose the aromas were very plummy, mulberry fruit, totally different to the Margaux. I would have to say that the nose was quite youthful, certainly not what I would have expected from a wine that is about 18 years old. On the palate there was certainly bags of fruit flavour, again plummy, mulberry, almost mixed fruit jammy kind of flavours. But wrapped around those flavours was a layer of earthy tones- cedar wood and tobacco, almost musky - like an eighties "macho" aftershave. On the palate it is a smooth as the proverbial babys bottom, soft silky tannins wrapped around the flavours of ripe victoria plums and greengages with the underlying essense of a fine cuban cigar. Over time this really opened up nicely. Pricey at £600 a bottle, but bloody good, I must seek out another bottle.

Chateau Margaux 1983

Sold as a pair of wines with a La Conseillante 1989.

The colour was a deep cerise core with a slightly browning rim. On the nose the wine had a marvelous medley of aromas, predominantly forest fruits with cassis, a slightly vegetal tone and quite strong aromas of cedar wood, dark earth and mature tobacco. On the palate the wine was more red fruit flavours, soft and elegant with fine tannins, and a great long length which seemed to finish with smokier earthy tones. Very very good.

Les Forts de Latour 1985

Les forts is the second wine of Chateau Latour, and its a wine Ive always wanted to try. Its pretty difficult to get hold of, presumable a dual issue of quantity released (small) and demand (high), but I managed to grab two bottles from a broking list earlier this year when I got a bit of money to spend on mature claret.

The colour was fantastic - cerise turning brick red, with a lovely reddish-brown rim. On the nose the aroma that stood out for me was one of smoked red peppers - think Tex-mex food. Not one that I was expecting at all, especially from a decent claret. But the flavours were wonderful. Soft and elegant red fruit character with elegant soft tannins, finely woven flavours of oak - tobacco and hints of bourbon vanilla. The finish was exceptionally long and seemed to add different elements to the flavours. It wasnt cheap - its listed at £255 a bottle on the list, which isnt much more that what I paid for it, but I feel it was worth every penny and more. Next year Im going to try and hunt down some more!

(Image from Joy from Cooking blog - http://megpug.blogspot.com/)

In a homage to Chateau Petrogasm this is the image that I reckon would sum up the dish.

For £700 it ought to be better than "Yes its ok"

Danny was in an ultra-motivated mood yesterday, which was great. All we had to do was aim him at a customer and then fire him off, and he went off like an exocet wallet seeking missile. The first table to fall prey to this was Table 1, a random looking couple, in their mid to late fifties. The guy asks Danny if theres anything interesting in Pomerol he knows. Danny being who he is, naturally dives straight into Petrus ( I must teach him about la Conseillante and Le Pin!!), and persuades the geezer to go for an 81 Petrus at £700 a bottle.

Now the price seems quite low (for Petrus), and really its because 81 wasnt a great vintage, some communes seemed to fare better than others, Pomerol being one of those. But having said that, Im beginning to think that this wine has seen better days. The nose had quite profound aromas of tobacco, mushroomy earth then I started to sense the dark stone fruit aromas, slightly figgy, plums almost prunes and a faint hint of dates - sticky toffee pudding without the caramel. On the palate the flavours followed pretty much the aroma profile with less fruit seemingly evident than i was expecting. If Id forked out £700 for this, I think I would be quite disappointed, Id be wanting "WOW!, OMG!" not "Its ok". But you see here lies one of my dilemmas. This could be a fluke, a dud bottle that just hasnt kept, and my last bottle could be outstanding. There is just no way to tell until you pull the cork

Mouton Rothschild 2006 Barrel Sample.

Tasted as part of the tour of Mouton Rothschild with Edouard Thouvenot. The wine has seen just less than a year in oak, yet it really was quite stunning. It is only the second time that I have tasted wine from barrel before it is ready (the first was at Vallet freres in Gevrey). It was hard to judge it really, because it still has a number of years to go before it would be considered "drinkable", but damn if it wasnt exceptionally drinkable. There was lots of forward fruit flavours - cassis, brambles and other berry fruit. I even thought I was getting a hit of blueberry. But then the earthier tones came forward, tobacco, chocolate and just a touch of something more animal in origin. The tannins werent soft, but they werent aggressive either, coating the mouth in quite a pleasant manner. I suspect that the acidity of the wine was probably helping to keep that in check. Now there is still at least 6 months more oak ageing to go before it will be sent off for bottling, and then they told us theu believe it will require five years or more of cellaring to approach its drinking period. But I didnt want to leave this wine, in fact I actually held everyone up slightly in my efforts to finish my glass. I didnt spit this one out, oh no!!!

It was tasted alongside samples of Clerc-Milon and d'Armailhac, and not for the first time, have I found the former to be quite green and moody, while the d'Armailhac was much more fruity and approachable. I could have quite happily sat down to a bottle of either the d'Armailhac or the Mouton, but would have gone without had the Clerc-Milon been placed in front of me. I find it strange that all three share everything together, winery, vineyards, fruit, winemaker, oak barrels, cellar etc, yet the Clerc-Milon, to me, is almost completely alien to the other two. There obviously is something different in the way it is made, but I possibly wasnt listening to that part of the tour!!

Mouton Rothschild 1989 en Magnum

Tasted as part of a plethora of wines at Chateau Mouton Rothschild on the vendageurs trip. All the stock came from the cellars underneath the chateau, kept in immaculate condition.

The wine was poured from the bottle, whether it had been double decanted was hard to tell, but there was no evidence of sediment, so I would surmise that it probably was. The nose was pleasantly earthy, with tobacco and forest floor aromas, undertones of berry fruits, ripe and succulent. On the palate, the berry flavours were quite evident along with the tobacco/cedar/humidor like flavours coming from the oak. The tannins were soft and elegant, and the wine had a pleasantly long length, the flavours gently disappearing from the mouth. I reckon I must have had about four or five glasses of this wine, it was simply divine!!!

Dinner at Chateau Mouton Rothschild

We were collected by coach from the hotel and driven to the Chateau to arrive promptly at 9pm. As we were early, we had to sit and wait behind the chai (cellars) of Clerc-Milon, Mouton's sister estate (Classified 5th Growth Pauillac). Apparently when the invite says 9pm, you are required to turn up at 9pm, not 8:58 or 9:01, but 9:00pm on the nail. Sods law, as we sat there and waited it started to rain a bit, and as we pulled up to the gates of the Chateau people were there with umbrellas to escort us up to the door.

We were dining in what used to be the barns where the animals were quartered, until Baron Phillipe had it converted into a grand barrel cellar and his living quarters. Apparently he did not wish to live in the Chateau, so he lived out his life in the converted barn. We were shown into a magnificent room, small but decorated with art works recovered from a great French liner, and proudly displayed. An aperitif of Pol Roger was served with canapes of nik-naks and bugles (yes the crisps!!! how bizarre!!), before being called through to dinner in the dining room next to the grand chai.

The grand chai was a revelation of its time, built in the 1920 its massive room is completely unsupported by pillars, a masterpiece of engineering at the time. At its capacity it can accomodate over a thousand barrels of wine, and as we dined the barrel hall was virtually empty, the new barrels for the 2007 vintage only starting to arrive over the next month.

As we split off to our tables the meal was served. We started with a starter of Salmon in Aspic, with red pepper and peppercorns. This was paired with the white wine of Mouton Rothschild - Aile d'Argent. The predominantly semillon blend with its rich smokyness paired well with the picquant spicyness of the pepper and the big chunks of mi-cuit salmon hunkering in the aspic. I think the vintage was 2004, but it may have been 2005, whatever it was really fabulous. The rolled out the red wines then, starting with the Baron d'Arques, Mouton's Languedoc red, followed by the d'Armailhac 1995 which continues to impress me with its solid structure and richness of flavour. Its amazing that this is still only a fifth growth, as for me it puts many third growths to shame. Then it was time for the big boy. Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1989 en magnum. OMG it was good. Rich, earthy nose with dominant flavours of red fruit, tobacco, cedarwood humidor aromas all intertwinned. I must have sunk nearly half a magnum of this one, it was marvelous. This was all paired off with a cutlet of lamb, from a local farm, rolled in cepes and wrapped in crepinette, served with minted new peas (mushy!!) and caramelised baby onions with a rich red wine reduction. It was divine! Cheese was a selection of camembert and some mimolette, followed by dessert of fig fool, with the figs coming fresh from trees around the estate.

As coffee was served, Xavier de Eizaguire, Executive Director of Sales & Marketing gave a quick speech. He told us our yield for the day, how much fruit we had picked, and he seemed to be genuinely impressed with the quantity. We had been harvesting parcel 105, a 1.5 hectare plot of merlot noir grafted onto Vitis Riparia. The plot contained around 9,202 vines. We had harvested 950 cachets (grey plastic tubs) with an average weight of 12kg each, to provide a total yield of 11,400kg of fruit. He told us this was the equivalent of 875 cases of wine or 10,500 bottles. Now considering that Merlot constitutes around 12% of the blend, we can expect that the fruit we picked will be present in around 87,500 bottles of Mouton Rothschild or its second wine Le Petit Mouton. Not that bad really for a days graft. We were then all presented with certificates from the Chateau declaring us Vendageurs d'Honneur de Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

The evening drew to a close just after 1am and we all headed back to the hotel, with our certificates and a large poster depicting all the labels from 1945 to 2004. The poor Americans/Canadians had to leave at 5am to catch a flight home, but for the rest of us, we could look forward to a slight lie in before being collected again at 10am for a visit round the Chateau and a tasting of the 2006 barrel samples. For some of us thought, the hour long journey back to the hotel was time to catch forty winks.

Aw bless!!

Easy pickings? I think not!!!!

After what seemed like a milliseconds sleep, the alarm went off and the second day of our visit to Mouton was about to begin. After a traditional french breakfast of croissants and pastries we were collected at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am in the morning. The sun hadnt even got up by then!! Edouard met us at the hotel and drove us to the chateau where the vendageurs were gathering. The "tourists" were given a separate parcel of vines, parcel 105 which was all merlot. We were all given a quick briefing, then assigned our row of vines and off we went.

We soon discovered what back-breaking work it is. The vines come up to the middle of your chest, roughly four foot tall. The grapes we are interested in are those below the top supporting wire, so generally from three and a half feet down to the ground basically. So harvesting the grapes involved bending either the back (not a clever idea) or more often the knees, which soon started playing havoc with the backs of everyones legs. We all had a little trolley with two of the grey tubs pictured above, which we filled then returned to the tractor to swap our full tubs for two empty ones. Each tub holds roughly 12 kilos of grapes. While in the vineyard we were to try and remove as much "pouritoure" or mould as possible. Once the trailer was full with fruit then it returned to the chateau where the fruit would undergo a triage before being de-stemmed then a second triage before going into the vats.

The fruit looked to be in quite good condition, there was very little mould, some bunches were starting to raisin a bit, but we were told by the "foreman" that this was a good sign and the juice would be more concentrated. At first we were all working quite quickly, moving through the row snipping the fruit from the vines and making numerous journeys backwards and forwards to the trailer. But after about an hour or so, the novelty soon started to wear off, knees were creaking, backs were starting to twinge, fingers were being cut and scratched. We stopped for a break, and they set up a picnic table with a range of pastries, mini baguettes filled with ham and cheese or saucisson, coffee, tea, water, beer and several bottles of Mouton Cadet. Luckily the weather held out, and although overcast it stayed dry, and several times the sun poked through, gradually encouraging everyone to shed layers of clothing until t-shirts remained.

It was bloody hard work picking the fruit, and I think we were all glad when the foreman starting directing those who had finished their rows to help others finish theirs before we headed back to the chateau for lunch.

Lunch was a big affair, held in the tractor sheds, huge rows of tressle tables laid out with plates, baguettes and cutlery. Once everyone was seated, you could see there was a right mixture of people gathered for the harvest - students, travelling peoples, locals, farmers, young and old. Then an army of wifes and girlfriend of staff all swarmed into the room dispensing a starter of ham and cornichons, before the main course of green beans and steak, grilled on massive barbeques in the back yard of the chateau. A small wedge of cheese and an apple completed the repasse and was all washed down with a little quarter bottle of Mouton Cadet Merlot. Edouard told us the 1/4 bottles were introduced this year after a horrific crash involving a vendageur who had overindulged in the wine over lunch.

Lunch over we returned to our parcel of merlot to continue picking, our pace by now slowed considerably as Im sure we all dreamt longingly of the hot shower awaiting us back at our hotel. After a couple of hours it must have been obvious to the foreman that our hearts were no longer in it, as the professional pickers were moved over from their parcel to finish ours off. As we boarded the bus to return to the hotel, all talk was of hot showers, jacuzzi's and massages at the spa. I drifted off to sleep and woke up just before we got back to the hotel, where we were to prepare for an evenings meal at Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

Mouton Visit day one.

I got back, late last night, from my little three day visit to Bordeaux. I had a fantastic time, and it's given me an added perspective of what they do there.

On Tuesday we met up at Gatwick airport for the flight to Bordeaux. We flew posh - British Airways, Im more used to flying Easyjet or Ryanair, so that was quite nice. There was four of us altogether - Edward from Rules Restaurant in London, Daria from Pied a Terre also in London, Lara from John E. Fells, the UK agents for the Rothschild wines and of course myself. We were met at Merignac Airport by Edouard Thouvenot from Baron Phillipe de Rothschild, who is the Export Director responsable for the UK. We were taken to our hotel, the Golf de Medoc to refresh ourselves then into Bordeaux for dinner.

We dined at le Pavillon des Boulevards, a lovely restaurant just off the beaten track in the older part of the city. Lara and I dined from the A la Carte menu while Daria, Edward and Edouard dined from the ten course menu surprise. I had a fantastic starter of langoustines which came in two parts. The first part was a small bowl with half a dozen langos split with some julienne of carrot and baby rocket. Over this was poured a hot stock of sauternes with ginger and spices, which "cooked" the langos. It was really delicious. The second part was a quartet of langos with an apple cream sauce and was lovely. I actually thought it was my main course and was completely confused when my main course actually followed. The main course was lobster with vanilla mash and sauternes sauce. It was divine, and the 2004 Aile d'Argent we had for the starter just set it off perfectly. By this time Edward and Daria were starting to flag and they were only on the seventh of ten courses. I nearly killed myself with my dessert which was a fanned pear with caramel mousse and spun sugar. The spun sugar pierced my tongue and it started to swell a bit nearly choking me, but soon when down when I applied wine to it (a 2004 medoc Mouton Reserve). By now we were all getting a bit tired and frankly a bit concerned that Edouard would be driving us back to the hotel having watched him sinking a fair few glasses of wine. Luckily he had arranged a taxi for us, and as he lived only a block or two away he planned to walk home. We slunked off to our rooms and prepared for an early start.

Im going to Mouton!!

Im getting all excited now, because next week Im going to Mouton Rothschild!! Its only a short three day trip, but Im really looking forward to it. I fly from Gatwick on tuesday morning then we are staying at Mouton for two nights. Wednesday morning we are due to be picking in the vineyards before touring round the estates in the afternoon. Im hoping to borrow the hotels digital camera for a couple of days to capture some of the action.

Mouton Cadet Reserve

Cyril dropped in to see me the other day with Conor from J.W. Lees. They wanted me to try their new range of wines under the Mouton Cadet Reserve label, as well as their Chilean wine Escudo Rojo. I was familiar with the Escudo Rojo having first come across it many years ago in Glasgow. At that time Mouton was under Paragon Vintners portfolio, and the guy from Paragon sent me a mixed case of samples that included such gems a a bottle of La Grande Dame, Cloudy Bay, Escudo Rojo, Baron d'Arques and several other fabulous wines. The Escudo Rojo is a bordeaux blend from Chile, with consulting input from Moutons winemaking team. Its actually very good, and for a while I listed it, until one afternoon, cruising around the wine-section at the local Costco I came across a pile of cases of the Escudo at around half the price we had paid for it. I went ape and it ended up being delisted. Ever since then Ive had somewhat of an aversion to certain wines, and Mouton Cadet was amongst them.

The Reserve de Mouton Cadet is a range of appellation wines from the major communes of Bordeaux. There is a Graves, a St Emillion, A Sauternes, A Graves Blanc, and a Medoc. The presentation is a bit less "commercial" than the Cadet and the use of the word Reserve gives it a slightly more "upmarket" feel. Daft, I know, because legally the word actually has no support, in much the same way that "vielle vignes" or old vines has no legal definition. But there is definately quality in the bottles. The labels are rather plain and understated, but after all its the contents of the bottles that should do the talking. Ive only tried one of the wines, a box of samples with the rest arrived yesterday marked for my attention. All I await now if the prices to see if they will fit into our list.

Cyril also showed me the Barons range of wines, which I was led to believe was exclusively on-trade (must dig around to disprove this!). A slight step up from the reserve range, again there are a range of appellations for this wine - Pauillac, Medoc, St Emillion, Graves and Sauternes. I tasted the Pauillac Baron Nathanial, which if I remember from my brief visit to the Estate was the person who bought Brane-Mouton and renamed it Mouton Rothschild in early 1850's.

So a potential new line of wines to be looking at, subject to the right pricing of course, and they could well fit the bill.

l'Hospitalet de Gazin 1997 en Magnum.

These came in as a slightly botched purchase from a brokers, who had incorrectly identified them on their broking list as bottles. I was well chuffed to discover I was getting twice the volume for the same price, so we took them. l'Hospitalet used to be quite popular on Andrew Fairlies wine list when Johnnie Walker was the sommelier there, and even when Niall Keddie took over from Johnnie it sold quite well. A combination of a cracking wine at a good price from Pomerol is always going to help.

L'Hospitalet is the second wine of Chateau Gazin, one of the larger estates in Pomerol, with some 24 hectares of vineyards planted mostly to Merlot with some Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The heavy clay soil is rich in iron oxide, giving it a distinctive red colour, and allowing the Merlot to "keep its feet wet". The estate combines the best of modern equipment - stainless steel vats for fermentation sit alongside concrete vats- with traditional techniques of viticulture and vinification. The grapes are all hand harvested and undergo a rigorous triage before being fermented between 15 and 25 days. Upto 18months oak aged in mostly second fill casks (upto 33% new) provides the wines with the perfect pedigree and their well deserved reputation for quality.

I hadnt experienced this wine in magnum before so there was a slight degree of trepidation. On the nose I was very surprised by the rich spicyness of the nose - very savoury with clove, cinnamon and nutmeg all quite dominant. Over time the spicyness took more of a backseat and allowed the fruit to show more - victoria plums and elderberry, with a forest fruit jammyness. By the end of the meal, the customers where really loving it.

To Buy or not to Buy? En Primeur 2006

Silly season is due to start any day now. The bullshit is already starting to pile up, and we face a challenging decision ahead of us. Should we "invest" any money in 2006 bordeaux or give it a bodyswerve. My gut instinct is to give it a miss this year. The skinny Im getting from a few folks on the inside is that the 2006's arent worth the money they are anticipated to be offered for. Many merchants went wild on the 2005's and some are still sitting on stock of them to shift. Parker has just given 2005 another big thumbs up, and a slightly more reserved praise for a select few estates in 2006.

Our dilemma lies in the fact that if we skip purchasing this year, we damage our potential to purchase next year - particularly with Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Its made slightly worse by the opinions that generally Pomerol is the region to watch this campaign. That inevitably means Petrus and its stable mates - La Fleur Petrus, Hospitalet de Gazin, Hosanna, La Grave a Pomerol all the glory wines of J.P.Moueix. Still I think we need to rethink our purchasing plan and so my instinct to skip it still holds strong. But until we see the prices, we cant say for sure what way we will go.

Bordeaux Day Three (our last day boo hoo!)

I woke up early (despite the offer of a lie in) and took a wander around the vineyards in the early morning mist, before settling down for the traditional French breakfast. We were all still a bit full from the night before, but after our daily dose of caffiene and croissants, we were ready for our last visit of the trip - Chateau Coutet. Maria and Damien had both done stages there while studying Oenology and so they had a connection to the estate. Not to mention the fact that Chateau Manos, the Cadillac they produce is owned by Monsieur Niotout, who for twenty years was the Maitre de Chai (Cellarmaster) at Coutet. Manos was his hobby vineyard, and he has consequently turned over the management of the vineyards and wines to the Lamothe team on a long term contract.

Coutet is a lovely little Chateau in the Barsac region of Sauternes, which like so many estates we had passed over the last two days was undergoing some serious renovations and building works. We were shown round by the wife of the current Maitre de Chai, Mademoiselle Constantin.

It was interesting to hear about their wood management program for the casks. They buy 30% from Demptos, 30% from Seguin Moreau, 30% from another major producer, then they play around with the next 10% buying from smaller coopers to try out the wood and see how it affects the wines. The last few days have really altered my persective of how the wood influences the wines. In the past, I had always considered (or been led to believe) that the choice of wood was crucial to the further development of the wines. To the extent that the exact forest the oak came from being a critical factor. However as was pointed out to us at Demptos, each forest is different, the trees are all different, so to say that Alliers oak is the best, or Troncais oak is, is kind of a falacy.

From the barrel store we went through to the pressing room, where the grapes are recieved during the harvest. Coutet has the original wooden troughs that the grapes were first pressed in, by the feet of the labourers no less. Nowadays they use basket presses with pnuematic lifts.

There are little railway tracks in the cellar floor to move the trolleys that hold the baskets around. The juice is squeezed from the grapes and runs though the little spigot in the side of the trolley and down into a steel vat. From there it is pumped into barrels for fermentation. We were treated to a taste of the 2005 from cask, and although Im not really into sweet wine, it was a very nice wine, rich without being cloying, still fairly sharp with acidity and a lovely long fruity finish - golden raisins, a touch of mango and tropical fruit flavours.

It was all over. Time to head back to Lamothe for a spot of lunch before heading of to Bordeaux airport and back to Blighty. Damien took us on a slight diversion so we could see Chateau d'Yquem.

And so our trip came to an end. I would like to thank Damien, Maria and Anne for their fabulous hospitality and for opening their home to us and looking after us so very well. Thanks also to Nige from Rodney Densem wines for inviting me along. I plan to list a few of the wines that we tasted on the trip, so more about them later.

Bordeaux Day Two

After an amazing nights kip (its wonderful what not being woken up by a gobshite of a child at 6am can do for you!!) we had a busy day ahead of us, or so we thought at the time. After the traditional french breakfast - coffee and croissants, we set off for the Demptos Cooperage, one of the main cooperages in Bordeaux. Truthfully, I wasnt expecting much from the visit, but it turned out to be really interesting and informative. Our guide for the day was full of interesting facts and bits of information, and the scale of the operation is quite mindboggling really.




Firstly you are greeted by piles and piles of wood, sitting in the open air to season. We discovered during the morning that the wood sits outside for a period between 2 years and 34 months. Each palate of staves contains enough oak to make ten barriques. Each barrique sells for roughly 600 euros. So each palate is worth roughly 6,000 euros. There were loads of palates, easily several hundred if not thousand. Our rough working outs (we were all slightly hungover after all!!) reckoned on a value in the region of 20,000,000 euros all sitting there in the yard. And thats just one cooperage. The place was a hive of activity, and it was really quite cool to watch the craftmanship that goes into making the barrels that shape the character of Bordeaux most famous wines.

After our visit to Demptos we set off for St Estephe where we were to dine at Chateau Pomys. They apparently opened especially for us, which was very good, because the food was outstanding. We had a set menu of Scallops in a vermouth sauce followed by a breast of chicken on a tranche of duck foie gras with grape sauce reduction, and chips!! Dessert was a fabulous creme caramel parfait with dark chocolate mousse. All washed down with a very very good bottle of Cos Labory 1998.

We set off refreshed and pleasantly sated for out appointment at Lafite. The omens were not good, with the snotty email Nige had recieved from them dictating the timing. " A tour has been (reluctantly) arranged for you, not at 1pm, not 1:30 but 2pm (Sharp!)" It was very interesting, and while our tour guide perhaps lacked charm, at least he was full of information about Lafite and the history of the cellars. Our tour ended in a cavernous circular "temple" under the vineyards, that wouldnt have looked out of place in an Indiana Jones film. We were given a meagre sample of 1994 Lafite while we watched the cellar team racking the barrels of 2005, prior to being bottled in the immediate future. We all thought perhaps we might have been allowed to sample this, but it was not to be. After watching them rack a couple of barrels we were escorted out the cellar and into the harsh, but glorious sunlight of the vineyard and it turned out, the end of our tour. 40 minutes. Apparently that was the VIP tour, so I would hate to see what the plebs get!

So it seemed we had plenty of time to kill, so we set off touring the region, visiting Mouton (also couldnt get on a tour, but they did let us watch a film about Mouton), Palmer, Cos d'Estournel and Pichon Lalande. It seems our luck was out, as we couldnt get a visit anywhere. So after the obligatory poses for photos we set off for Bordeaux and a cool demi of French beer in a cafe on the street.




(Bless, it all got a bit much for our Nige, who took the chance for 40 winks!)

We hit the streets of Bordeaux and managed to get a bit of retail therapy in before settling in for the night at the CIVB headquarters where they have set up a tasting bar to sample a selection of wines. We all started off with a Cremant de Bordeaux, made from semillon, which was interesting. Before making our own way down the wine-list. I chose a 2005 Chateau La Freynelle bordeaux blanc, lovely and fresh with crisp acidity and a lingering fruityness. Andy decided to hit the hard stuff and went for a 2004 Pomerol, while Nige and Paul opted for a St Estephe red that the sommelier recommended. If you are ever in Bordeaux I would really recommend going there. The pours are 15oz which is enough to get a decent taste, but not too much to limit your tasting options. The prices were really good too, my La Freynelle was only e3.00.

Suitably lubricated we were ready for dinner at La Tupina. Nige had been raving all week about this place, and it sure lived up to the hype. Rustic inside with a large open range where they spit-roast chickens and the meat is all cooked on a griddle over a roaring fire. The portions were huge, I opted for the chicken and must have been given half a large bird with a platter of chips big enought to feed my family. Damien chose a fillet steak and was presented with what must have been a full 20oz barrel fillet. By the time it came to dessert we were all stuffed to the gills, but we just had to see what they were. It was like a scene from Monty Python at the end, all we needed was for a waiter to come and ask us if we wanted a "teeny weeny wafer thin mint?"

And so our second day came to and end, one short drive back to Lamothe (and Nigels persistant Curiousity about the Red Light district and "ladies of negiotable affection") and we were all ready for an early night.