by Juel Mahoney
After two days, our impressions of the left bank are very mixed. 2012 is not a uniformly good vintage for Pauillac, St-Julien, St-Estephe and Margaux. There are some good to very good wines but there are also some fiercely tannic, extracted and very difficult wines. As Ben Collins said on the way over the bridge to the right bank, …
by Juel Mahoney
We only have one CD in the car as we drive around the superstar chateaux on the left bank of Bordeaux: The Best of Rod Stewart. “It was only £2.50,” said Ben Collins, unwrapping it from its plastic, “No wonder went HMV bust.” We wondered how he could have paid so much – much as we wondered …
By Juel Mahoney
The En Primeur season is about to start and Bibendum’s Fine Wine team will join the rest of the international wine trade to taste the Bordeaux 2011 vintage for a week….
Of The Greatest Wine Region In The World.
Yes, there is a tendency towards superlatives when it comes to Bordeaux.
The greatest, the best, the grandest. Bordeaux is a region of celebrity wines. Star-studded …
By Juel Mahoney
“HEADING BACK TO BORDEAUX NEXT WEEK TO TASTE 2011s – ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST IN THIS VINTAGE IF MY instincts are correct.” 14 March, Robert M Parker, Jr on twitter.
The collective gasp could be heard across the London Wine Trade.
One tweet from Robert Parker is like a bombshell just before the world’s wine trade trade heads off to Bordeaux to taste the 2011 vintage.
For better or …
By Rob Pickard
Last year I sat here and wrote about the stellar vintage of 2009, with the Burgundy growers making their annual pilgrimage to the UK on the back of a fantastic year for all involved. Weather wise it was pretty much perfect, ideal conditions throughout the year had created superb quality drinking across the board, with hugely fruit driven, …
by Gareth Groves
There’s been one main hot topic of conversation today: the name of Alex’s soon-to-be-born baby. With a surname like Marton the options are clearly limited. The current favourite option is Anthony Leoville Marton. Daddy is secretly hoping it might get us an extra big allocation.
Apart from Marton Jr, we’ve been talking about the weather …
by Gareth Groves
The first wine of en primeur week is always the toughest. Without reference to its peers, without some sort of context, it is very hard to rate what is in the glass. Usually we kick off at a First Growth – all good fun but hardly the most representative of the vintage as a while – but this …
After the hustle and bustle of the rest of the week, Thursday was pretty light. We had just four appointments, three with chateaux and one with Easyjet. This was the home stretch. We began at Haut Brion in the dark. Our appointment was for a rather early 8am but fuelled by the fear of getting lost in the back streets of Pessac (we …
By Gareth Groves
Hidden amongst the back streets of Pauillac
There is nothing like a minor hit and run accident to get things going in the morning. After a late night discussing Scandinavian monopoly markets with the Bibendum Europe team, we were behind from the word go on Wednesday.
Breakfast was …
By Gareth Groves
We have tasted some superb wines today – but also less than stellar numbers. After a near perfect hit rate amongst the big guns of the left bank yesterday, we have found a bit more inconsistency in St Emilion and Pomerol. The highs on the right bank are still very high indeed, but further down the scale you have …
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