Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

AlexR

Danny, Great to read your post which made me very nostalgic. This is where I spent the first 18 years of my life. As a teenager I hated it! All it took was to travel and return and see how nice it is... The climate ain't so great (hot, humid summers, and it's on the snow belt) but I do like places w...

AlexR

Thanks for setting me straight, Tom! 2008... I have attended the March barrel tastings for the past 5 or 6 years. The decrease in attendance this March (for the 2008 vintage) as compared to tastings of the 03,04, 05, and 06 vintages was impressive. This reflected the prejudice against the 2008 vinta...

AlexR

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/healt ... ng.html?em

Alex R.

AlexR

Hi Jon, The month of August has been decisive. The expression you're bound to hear in vintage reports is "août fait le moût", in other words, the weather during the month of August determines the ultimate quality of the vintage. Like most sayings, of course, the truth only goes so far... A...

AlexR

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/09 ... oing-fine/

Alex R.

AlexR

Messing people around like that can get you in trouble.

The two names are too similar, the quality is too dissimilar.

I sure hope the wine buyers at Waitrose find out about this.

Why not write them a letter?

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Ian, Many thanks for your report. It has been a couple of decades since I went back to my home town (on Lake Cayuga). As fewer and fewer people are interested in agriculture in that area, large tracts of land have been bought by the Amish. But something tells me they don't make wine there... All the...

AlexR

Nic,

Thanks for sharing your notes on a very interesting set of wines.

Just goes to show that Canada offers a lot of scope to wine lovers.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Ian, I'm from the Finger Lakes region, but left there so long ago that I'm sorry I cannot be of much help. Most NY State wine is made from hybrids and, I can tell you now, you will dislike almost all the reds and most of the whites. So, the thing to do is to target wineries producing Vinifera wines,...

AlexR

Hi,

In fact, they're Swiss, but I wanted people to know in the header that they are in the French language.

http://www.plonkreplonk.ch/

Even if you don't understand French, some of the pictures are hilarious...

Just go to *catalogue* and I suggest using the zoom function.

All the best,
Alex R.

AlexR

I posted this on two other boards. I was shot down for being politically incorrect in my use of the word Chinamen. I had no idea that anyone could possibly take offense at such a term! You don't say "a French" or "an English", you say "an Englishman" or "a Frenchma...

AlexR

Richard, I think you've nailed down the Bel-Air style pretty accurately although I would stop short of comparing it to a Bx. Sup. It is widely available in French supermarkets at a very attractive price. Ht. Bages Aveyrous exists no longer. It is now called Echo de Lynch Bages. Haven't followed the ...

AlexR

Richard,

Many thanks for this insight.

Glad to read about Paveil de Luze.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Hi,

In fact, they're Swiss, but I wanted people to know in the header that they are in the French language.

http://www.plonkreplonk.ch/

Even if you don't understand French, some of the pictures are hilarious...

Just go to *catalogue* and I suggest using the zoom function.

All the best,
Alex R.

AlexR

This, in any event, is what the Syndicat des Bordeaux et Bordeaux Supérieur have just decided. However, they now need approval from the INAO (whose initials have stayed the name, but now stand for Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité) before the name can be used. I wonder if they will obt...

AlexR

Interesting wine.

The Côtes de Castillon is Happy Hunting Ground for good value wines, of which Ampelia is not really typical
(not saying it's bad, just not typical).

All the best,
Alex R.

AlexR

http://books.google.com/books?id=EUOU7RYsoHQC&dq=vin+de+bordeaux&lr=&as_brr=3&hl=fr&rview=1&source=gbs_navlinks_s I had heard of this book by Biarnez for years and once seen a (very expensive) fac-simile edition. So, I was delighted to find that Google, for some weird and won...

AlexR

A Belgian wine writer once described the best wines of Moulis as "des Margaux de l'intérieur".

I hope you have other bottles to age!

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Hi guys, I asked my friend (a wine writer) who was kind enough to serve the wines, about Houndsong's remarks. His answer came in two parts: 1) From Bernarnd Ginestet's book on Saint-Julien: "Bien que Léoville-Bartton et Langoa réunissent beaucoup de caractéristiques communes, leurs vins ne se r...

AlexR

I was served these blind on Friday night. Knowing that my host's wife works for Ph. de Rothschild, I guessed a) wines from the same appellation (Pauillac), b) Clerc Milon and Mouton R. c) 1994 Well, I was pretty far off.... The difference between the 2 wines is really great although I'm told they're...

AlexR

My luck with old La Gaffelière has not been good either... In fact, the declassifation (since overruled by the courts) of the other de Malet-Roquefort great growth, Tertre Daugay, was wideley seen as a warning shot with regard to La Gaffelière. I believe that the message has been received loud and c...

AlexR

Thanks for the notes.

It seems to me that Pape Clément went through an over-oaked phase, but that it has come well and truly out of it and is a fantastic wine.

Can't those 99s be just lucious?

All the best,
Alex R.

AlexR

Danny, Whose notes were they? I am fortunate to have a 98 Evangile (which I bought yesterday) and a 98 Vieux Château Certan in my cellar, which I would love to serve at the same meal. I checked Cellartracker : both of those wines have good press. I makes me thankful that there are more sources for t...

AlexR

Izak, Robert Parker's role in the world of (fine) wine has been very important for a couple of decades. Like anyone: Obama, Sarkozy, Wen Jiabao, Pope Benedict, or Britney Spears, his works and viewpoint are subject to analysis and criticism. I am not a systematic opponent of Parker by any means. I h...

AlexR

Nic,

Your nightmare sounds as bad as the French "administration"!!!

It will all seem trivial in time.

Bon courage,
Alex

AlexR

Hi Harry,

It's true.

The normal reaction reading your notes is - are their different bottlings, or or you comparing wines stored differently?

All the best,
Alex
P.S. I have a bottle of this in my cellar, which shows I was on the way to salvation even before I met you

.

AlexR

Please, guys, let us not forget that the market for fine Bordeaux is worldwide. That Parker got in there first with the 82s in the US is inequivocal. But no one will ever convince me that he, a relative newcomer, had a better handle on things than professionals of many years' standing. Best regards,...

AlexR

William, As I said, in Bordeaux there was no doubt from the first about the quality of the 82s. You would know better than I about a few dissenting foreign journalists. You wrote: "Oh, one more thing, isn't every vintage from Bordeaux the vintage of the decade at least when judged by the locals...

AlexR

William, I was in Bordeaux working for a wine firm in the spring of 83 when the wines went on sale. Everybody in the trade knew it was a great vintage at a very early stage. There was really no debate, as you say, not in Bordeaux anyway. If there were debate in the US or UK, who was this from? Best ...

AlexR

Urban myths die hard. Parker's innovation was not to praise the 82 vintage. Parker's innovation was to get in there and dso QUICKLY and enthusiastically, with a brand of tasting notes not seen before. Sure he rocked the boat. But it is wrong to say that "he saw what the others did not see"...

AlexR

Good price, good vintage, good wine.

I used to think that organic/biodynamic/sustainable viticulture was horseshit.

But I've changed my mind.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Baron von Twickel's Bulgarian Cabernet Franc?

Surely you jest...

Alex R.

AlexR

I am currently working on a translation about these wines. Trivia: as of last year, the appellation changed names from Côtes de Ventoux to just plain Ventoux.* I think that was a smart move. Buzet did the same. With one or two exceptions (Côte Rôtie), the name "côtes" tends to imply less t...

AlexR

Hi Nic,

Good to see you're dinking well, and that a moderately-priced Bordeaux held its own in the company of more expensive wines.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Hi Ian, I've served 97 Poujeaux blind at 3 dinners with wine afficianados on three occasions. Each time, it completely floored the tasters used to to more presigious labels and politically correct vintages. It is, in effect, a hell of a good wine, and warms the cockles of my little old heart when a ...

AlexR

Michael,

This is either the largest or second largest estate in Saint-Emilion (the other biggie is Pavie).

I have found Fombrauge to be in a "modern" style, and a bit overblown, but I have never tried the vintage you drank.

Best regards,
Alex R.

AlexR

Ch. d'Arche in Sauternes is an altogether different estate.

Ch. d'Arche in Ludon-Médoc (the same town where La Lagune is located) is owned by the négociants Mähler-Besse.

Best regards,
Alex R.

AlexR

I have been shopping and cooking and preparing a picnic for 75 people tomorrow in honor of Independence Day.

Cold buffet washed down with Clairet de Bordeaux, petit château Bordeaux Supérieur and, don't sneer, Gallo Zinfandel.
Heavily exotic here...

Alex R.

AlexR

Jim,

People here have a lot of time for Lagrange these days, and I think it has become excellent value for money.

Because Lagrange is undervalued, and because the 2002 vintages is also undervalued, you've had a true wine lover's wine - as opposed to a label drinker's wine!

All the best,
Alec

AlexR

Hmmm.

I see you're looking after yourself.

I trust you slept soundly after dinner?

.

What in the world are you doing drinking 2003 vintage Ports?! They should be for your children!

))))))))))))))

Alex R.

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