Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

AlexR

Bordeaux is big, with a huge number of vineyard estates. Just released by the Fédération des Grands Vins de Bordeaux, there are officially 8,849 châteaux. This is nevertheless down from 12,653 in 2006, when there was a crackdown on the arguably fraudulent use of more than one name by a number of est...

AlexR

Marketing blurb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjuSI6JuEyw

Alex R.

AlexR

Hi, It's true that there are different styles of Saint-Emilion, the same as in other regions. Let's not overlook terroir in all this. The soil in the Graves de Saint-Emilion, the limestone plateau, the Côtes, and the Pied de Côtes is all markedly different. I only mention this because the wines' pro...

AlexR

Hasve answered in a private e-mail.

Alex R.

AlexR

Wow!

Nic, tell us omore!!!

It is so great to be able to get together with friends again, isn't it?

I'm most interested to hear about where the 05 HB and the 96 DB were on their ageing curve.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

I bought several bottles at a local wine shop not long ago and the owner was kind enough to add a free 50 cl. bottle of Sauternes (pictured) for me to try. Seeing as it’s melon season here, and that melon, Parma ham, and Sauternes is a marriage made in heaven, I opened the bottle yesterday at lunch....

AlexR

A very short note here. After a corked bottle of 2005 Poujeaux (Arghhhh), I opened and decanted a 2005 Marquis d’Alesme Becker. While not as catastrophic as the Poujeaux, this was pretty much of a letdown. The color showed more bricking than I expected and, while the nose was “sweet” and definitely ...

AlexR

Quite something if you would place a Champagne in front of a 2000 Ducru.

I agree that Champagne can be fantastic, and in reports on meals such as this can often unjustly take a back seat because served at the beginning of the meal.

Alex R.

AlexR

I ask you, what could be more Canadian than moose flank steak???? We had a Côte Rôtie on Sunday too, a 2009 Bracoud. This was served blind to an enologist friend who said in about 30 seconds "Syrah? Côte Rôtie?". My CR was a bit musky and funky, with trademark white pepper notes. I'm glad ...

AlexR

Hi, Had this yesterday with grilled rib of beef. Man, was I ever disappointed. Disappointed in light of the vintage reputation, the Moueix reputation… and the price tag. For a start, the wine looked older than its years. The nose was certainly pleasant, but fireworks it wasn’t. The wine started off ...

AlexR

That was one of the subjects under discussion last night with my neighbors, whom I had invited over for dinner. I served a wine from Ludon, where they have family ties: 1990 Château La Lagune. This looked far younger than its years and had a delightfully evanescent nose of ripe Cabernet, humus, and ...

AlexR

Hi, I don't know if the dates on top of posts are accurate. If they are, the last time I wrote up 2000 Lannessan was ten years ago (which doesn't seem right to me). Anyway, we had a bottle of this wine at lunch and it showed better. Certainly it was a little thin, and the aftertaste lacked power, bu...

AlexR

Arv, Time wil tell. Even according to the best possible scenario it will take years to establish the reputation for the new appellation (i.e. new for reds). By the way, for the French-challenged among you, that above label has an ingenious slogan "Between two oysters, Entre-Deux-Mers". The...

AlexR

The Entre-Deux-Mers is, of course, not between two seas, but rather two rivers, the Garonne and the Dordogne. This is the heartland of Bordeaux, rarely visited by tourists, but of considerable historic interest and home to many “nuts and bolts” wines, some of which represent tremendous value for mon...

AlexR

Antoine, For a benchmark birthday or wedding anniversary. I would never sell any of my wine. Of course, I understand people who do but, as for myself, almost every bottle has a story connected with it. Also, to enjoy diversity, I rarely purchase full cases. It would be a nightmare to liquidate my co...

AlexR

Mark,

OMG, 1989 Lafite. How was it?

The most expensive bottle of wine in my cellar is 2002 Chambertin from Armand Rousseau.
Costs in excess of 2,000 euros today.
I bought it for a tenth of that!

I'd be fascinated to hear where it's at

.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

Hi Mark, Yes, I think our positions are so far apart that a prolonged disagreement in writing is probably not going to go much of anywhere. We were due to meet in person last year, but then Covid ruined the best laid plans of mice and men with regard to the BWE trip to Bordeaux. Perhaps you'll all m...

AlexR

Mark, I don’t think I misquoted you, but if I did, my apologies. You mention Aborigines in Australia. Do you think they are happy with the white people who took over their continent? François Mitterrand mentioned this when the Australians started giving France grief about the nuclear testing in Muru...

AlexR

Mark, I assure you that I have little in common with the red guards under Mao!  I think most of us are professional guys, mostly comfortably well off (as for myself, in a very middle class kind of way). I read an article about the actual trial (perhaps Jim How could weigh in here?) since my last e-...

AlexR

Mark, No one doubts the accuracy of yours stats. When I quoted the famous saying (attributed to various people) “Lies, damned lies… and statistics”, I was referring to the fact that numbers on their own can seriously misrepresent reality. You say that “systematic racism” was never on trial in the Ch...

AlexR

Well, Chauvin found guilty on all counts. There is a sigh of relief viewed from abroad as well. An antidote to the Trump years. Lies, damned lies... and statistics. It is against the law to put people into racial slots in France. How can they do this in America? Take former president Obama. What rac...

AlexR

Hi Izak, I see the advantages and disadvantages. Even though I'm not young, I have tried to evolve with technology. For instance, I actually prefer to read books on my Kindle. But to me wine is about interaction, and Zoom just doesn't make it. As as second best, it'll do in a pinch, but as someone w...

AlexR

Izak, Sorry, I just can’t abide by the thought of hundreds of little bottles willy-nilly to appraise a vintage, much less zoom tastings – a bit like having sex with someone over the net… To me, the whole point of the en primeur tastings is meeting the people who own the estate and/or make the wines,...

AlexR

The current state of affairs here is: “non-essential” shops are closed, we are not allowed to go more than 10 km form our house and, unless we have a good reason stated in writing, we must be in our house by 7 pm. There is talk of opening outdoor terraces for drinks and meals in mid-May. That’s stil...

AlexR

Joel,

All of these wines were tasted at a friend's house.

He had decanted the reds, but I don't know how long beforehand.
I'd imagine about 2-3 hours.

Alex

AlexR

Frost hit the Bordeaux vineyards earlier this month at a crucial time, as it did vineyards throughout France. This map shows the areas hardest hit. It will, of course, be revised later in the year. Bud break had already started and, as you can see, losses were catastrophic in certain appellations. E...

AlexR

Yesterday I had a wonderful extended lunch with friends in the wine trade. All wines were served blind. We started off a 2015 Rose Rock Chardonnay from Douhin Oregon. This was fairly acidic and of no great interest. The label says it comes from the Eola Amity Hills, and apparently this is second lab...

AlexR

Bordeaux almost inevitably involves a blend of grape varieties, one of the factors that accounts for its wonderful complexity. Of course, wines made from a single variety do exist, but they are very much in the minority. As in other regions around the world, Bordeaux is worried about the effects of ...

AlexR

Thanks for posting. This is a very rare wine indeed. I've had a wine "only for the personnel" from Yquem (in fact, shared a bottle with Ian Amstad), but have not even heard of the one for Pétrus. There are very few hits on Google for this wine, which is very intriguing. Yes, indeed, this r...

AlexR

It is a pity that most restaurants in many countries charge large, if not outrageous mark-ups for wine. Their reasoning is that it makes up for the poor margins on the food. I don't buy that reasoning, and I do not think that the cost of storing and serving wine justifies multiplying the price by th...

AlexR

here are no fewer than 10 third growths in Margaux, and a couple of them are, let’s face it, pretty lacklustre. I have had Cantenac-Brown on any number of occasions and have tended to slot it into the “foursquare” category, i.e. reliable, and unquestionably a worthy reprentative of its appellation a...

AlexR

Arv, Always a pleasure to read your notes on wines that are so often unavailable and/or largely ignored. I've never had Lafleur Gazin, a Moueix wine (not owned, but sold by them). That is unusual in that, at 8.5 hectares, the estate is on the large side for Pomerol. You make me want to buy a bottle ...

AlexR

Vaccine: I was amazed. I called my GP up on Thursday morning and got an appointment for a shot on Tuesday afternoon. As things now stand, one third of the French population is under lockdown for a month, but fortunately not in this part of the country. My wife, Christine, has lost both her parents i...

AlexR

Hi Jim, Tha week starting on Monday, May 16th 2022 looks good to me. Two public holidays, the 1st (French Labor Day) and the 8th (VE Day) fall on a Sunday, which leaves the week clear. The week starting on Monday the 23rd is the worst because Thursday is a holiday (Ascencion Day), and a large percen...

AlexR

Bordeaux is in a bad way. Oh, I’m not referring to the famous châteaux coveted by wine lovers around the world. I’m talking about the 55% of total production sold under the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur appellations. This ad in the local Sud-Ouest newspaper on March 10th by the German supermarket ...

AlexR

Sorry, +6 hours here. I'll be snoozing.

Alex R.

AlexR

May is usually a terrible time because of all the public holiday. *However* both the 1st of May 2022 (French Labor Day) and the 8th of May 2022 (VE Day), fall on a Sunday, which is great. The 26th of May 2022 (Ascencion Day), however, falls on a Thursday, and may people will make a 4-day weekend of ...

AlexR

You can’t knock a product publicly without good reason. That, in substance, is what a court in Libourne decided yesterday when it fined an association called Alerte aux Toxiques 125,000 euros and ordered them to take down a report that Bordeaux wines contained a host of toxic residues. Here’s the ar...

AlexR

Bingo! Thanks for the tip.

As for our divergent experiences, that can depend on so many things...

Also, I have little frame of reference.

Perhaps the same wines from another cellar, or tasted earlier on would have been very different.

Who knows?

Alex R.

AlexR

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