Image credit: closcantenac.com
Day One – Sausages and Sauternes on Saturday
We arrived in Bordeaux just 10 mins behind schedule which was a bonus as we left Luton 25 minutes late.
Our first stop was to book in at our Cabin at Bordeaux Lac and join Bill Blatch for Sausages and Sauternes which included 25 bottles of 2015 Sauternes as well as a selection of previous vintages generously donated by some of the Sauternes properties. My favourites were Climens and de Fargues 2009, however the most interesting was a bottle of 76 Rayne Vigneau. A real eye opener for Louis who didn't realise that you can match Sauternes with so many different food…….and was braver than me having Oysters and Octopus!
Day Two – Sunday Start Line
Sunday morning started with a quick breakfast with Bill and Chris Kissack (The Wine Doctor) before we headed over to St Emilion for tasting at Clos Cantenac with Martin Krajewski, his Petit and Clos Cantenac which were excellent. Probably the best vintage he has made in the 10 years he has owned the Chateau.
The we headed back to Bordeaux Lac for the Vintex Negociant tasting and then on to Ballande et Meneret Tasting in their enormous purpose built warehouse in the Medoc where we estimate there was about 400 wines in total. Here we were keen to try and get an initial understanding of the vintage.
From the Medoc we headed down for an Evening tasting at Chateau Guiraud in Sauternes where we tasted the wines from Xavier Planty and Robert Peugeot (Guiraud), Stephan von Neipperg (Canon La Gaffelier and La Mondotte) and Olivier Bernard (Domaine Chevalier).
Our first impression of Bordeaux 2015 is that one should not generalise, however St Emilion, Pomerol, Pessac and Margaux seemed to be the most consistent communes , whilst Pauillac, St Julien and St Estephe although tasting some superb wines are a less consistent; which makes our job even more important.
My star wine of yesterday was La Mondotte from Stephen Von Neipperg stable and Louis' was the Malescot St Expery from Margaux.
An early night was on the cards and we headed to get some shut eye just before 11am in anticipation of a big day tomorrow, starting with UGC wines Margaux and St Julien. We are also heading for a private tasting with Edouard Moueix, who works with his father Christian at Libourne based negociants JP Moueix.
