Bordeaux Primeur Week

This week sees the annual tastings of the previous year’s wine kick off in Bordeaux. The week is devoted to the first-glimpse tastings of the 2011 vintage from all the Bordeaux wine regions. Wine professionals from the world over attend tastings held by associations and individual chateaux, the evenings are also full of organised dinners. It’s going to be a busy week.

My morning kicked off at our Le Chai in Castillon where today we are racking and blending the 2010 Syrah de Folie ready for bottling in 10 days’ time. Once things were under way I left operations in the safe hands of cellar master Petit Denis and headed for Saint Emilion.

Twitter had been buzzing all morning with the news of wine journalists, winemakers and wine buyers arriving in Bordeaux for the week’s events. My plan is to start in the Saint Emilion satellites and then over the next four days make my way tasting through Fronsac, Lalande de Pomerol, Saint-Emilion itself, Pomerol, Castillon, Sauternes, Entre Deux Mers, Bordeaux, Pessac-Léognan, Graves and up into the Médoc for Margaux, Listrac, Moulis, Pauillac, St.Julien and St.Estèphe.

Today I started at the Salle des Dominicans in the heat of Saint-Emilion Village and tasted firstly through Montagne, Saint-Georges, Lussac and Puisseguin.

The wines were very variable with a real mixed bag of wine quality. In general Montagne was good but with a noticeable acidity, Saint-Georges seemed riper, Pusseguin perfumed but acidic and Lussac much softer tannins.

I moved onto Fronsac and the big names of Châteaux Fontenil (Michel Rolland), La Dauphine and Haut Carles were my favourite of the day; all rich and balanced. But a new discovery for me was Olivier Decelle’s Chateau Haut Ballet which was tasting lovely. Canon-Fronsac seemed less quality but I feel quite a few were let down by poor sample preparation, always a problem when showing wines so early in the ageing process.

The cold morning had developed into a warm and sunny day and the start of bud burst could be clearly seen in the vineyards. People better get them canes tied down quick! Buds are so easy to knock off bending the canes down to the fruiting wire. It’s an early bud burst and the forecast for more cold weather means we are not out of the woods yet. Fingers crossed for no last-minute frosts.

In the afternoon I tasted Lalande de Pomerol which was very good indeed, good concentration with supple palates. It was great to see Bertrand Massonie – our Grand Chai Lalande de Pomerol source – turning out a lovely Château Perron and top cuvee La Fleur.

Tomorrow I am heading to the Medoc to see how their 2011s have turned out.

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A day in Provence

Handy late flight from Bordeaux down to Marseille; cuts out a huge amount of driving. Picked up hire car, spent a good five mins trying to find the handbrake (on the dash, merci Citroen) and headed for St Tropez. After many km's of winding road, I arrived late at the little town of Cogolin so it was head-down to be ready for an early start.

A sunny but blustery morning as I made my way to Celliers des Ramatuelle on the outskirts of St.Tropez.

Glad I got up early as the truck was an hour late. Further south you go the more laid back it gets … makes the Bordelais look punctual. However they get away with it, no grumpy, complaining old men truck drivers ‘a-la’ Bordeaux, here; the truck drivers are lovely young ladies! Well, this is Saint Tropez!

I was paying a flying visit to the cellar to ensure our delicate 2011 rosé doesn't fall at the last hurdle and is safely transported from the winery to the bottle without oxidising. That would turn that beautiful, classic Provencal pale-pink colour to a dull orange.

This is the place to be for Rosé. It’s big business here and rose makes up 80% of their total production. Ramatuelle village is up on the la Colline de Paillas, just south of Saint Tropez at an altitude of 130m. The combination of slate soil, cool nights and proximity to the sea gives lovely fruit-driven wines with low alcohol.

2011 was a good year for rose with a much-needed wet winter, warm and dry spring, and a good summer with the odd storm that thankfully brought no hail. The wines resulted in being very aromatic with great colour and a slightly higher acidity than previous vintages.

On arrival at the winery the president, aka the 'Doc Brown' of Provence,' was as animated as ever and began by drawing up a quite mad, over-complicated plan to get the heavy CO2 bottle up to the tanker. I was thinking "maybe a longer hose?", but that's nowhere near as exciting or dangerous as calling in a forklift and balancing a huge cylinder of CO2 on a rickety wooden pallet accompanied by a cellar hand for extra risk and lifting him up to the top of the tanker!

We got there in the end and I am very glad to say no injuries occured.

So with the wine avoiding every possible contact with air and no Doc Brown ideas given the chance of affecting the wine quality, we were soon on the way to the bottling plant in Brignolles.

The wine will be available soon so give it a try, remember you can drink rose all year round. I do.

Job done and back to the Aeroport de Marseille-Provence for a hop back up to Bordeaux. Need to be at Le Chai first thing as Les Secrets des Etoiles comes out of barrel tomorrow … mum’s the word!

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JMS’ Big 50th Bash

This weekend saw JMS turn 50 and what a party it was! To celebrate, a reception tasting and dinner was held at the magnificent Vintners Hall in London. The turn out of guests from the wine world showed just what a great winemaker and character JMS is and I felt most privileged to be present with family and friends.

The evening kicked off with a tasting of 50 wines ranging from my own La Voute Chardonnay to 1988 Château Haut Brion! I didn’t manage to taste many of the wines but I liked very much the Haut Brion ‘88, Domaine l’Hortus ’09 and Château Thieuley 2000 (red).

After the tasting we headed downstairs to the incredible dining room where I was seated next to Libby, Kaye Laithwaite and Jamie Goode. Libby also shares the same birthday as JMS – the 10th of March – along with one Hugh Johnson, also present at the dinner so a Happy Birthday to them too!

However tonight was about JMS, who has been with Laithwaites for 20 years and who is still head winemaker, Bordeaux buyer and also juggles owning his own Rioja Bodega Altos. How; I don’t know. (Well I do, actually. Lots of planes and very fast driving!)

The four courses of salmon, grouse, cheese and desert were matched with four delicious wines that were chosen by JMS:

Château Thieuley 2009 white
Pigeage Altos Rioja 2007
Château Gigault 2005 (magnum)
1962 Port specially blended by Andresen for the occasion

All the wines matched beautifully, but there wasn’t a wine to go with the shotgun pellet I found in my grouse breast.

A fantastic evening was finished with a 1962 cognac and, of course, Poire in magnums. Bon Anniversaire JMS and a grand merci!

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