By Charles Lea on 30/04/2013
'Sleeper of the Vintage' A long-term customer asked me today about what he called 'Captain Bob's jargon'. 'Please tell me what 'a major sleeper of the vintage' means! When I first saw this term, often used by Robert Parker, I thought it meant the wine needed many years cellaring.
By Charles Lea on 30/04/2013
The realisation that tomorrow is a holiday in France seems to have prompted a raft of releases this morning. Lafon Rochet (£245) offers value and consistently good tasting notes from the major critics. It is down around 12% on the 2011 price, but Lafon Rochet has never been about silly pricing so this represents solid value and comes recommended.
By Charles Lea on 29/04/2013
With Robert Parker's scores out, and in particular his headline 'Train Wreck Coming?' one might have hoped for a bit of realism, but instead we got three wines today trying to capitalise on pretty good notes. Parker warns: 'Bordeaux is at a crossroads.
By Charles Lea on 26/04/2013
2012 Bordeaux - Robert Parker pronounces Robert Parker has released his Wine Advocate scores scores for the 2012 vintage, and here are those for wines released so far and available in our offer, with price in £ per case in bond. The full list can as usual be found on the Wine Advocate website https://www.
By Charles Lea on 26/04/2013
2012 Bordeaux - Château Talbot and Connétable Talbot All has now gone a bit quiet as Bordeaux prepares for one of those funny weeks in May when there are so many holidays that it is tempting for them to 'faire le pont' at both ends of the week and not actually turn up at all.
By Ed H-B on 25/04/2013
Whilst in Bordeaux, during primeur week, there was a bit of a buzz of excitement with some of the wines from Margaux – and amongst these Palmer was widely touted as one of the brighter stars in the vintage.
By Charles Lea on 25/04/2013
Another large number of releases this morning, some sensible and some.
By Charles Lea on 24/04/2013
2012 Bordeaux primeurs - recent releases Yesterday and today saw more mostly quite low-key offering being made - some are lower than current vintages, but really not sufficiently big brands or low prices to fire this lacklustre market.
By Charles Lea on 22/04/2013
Rather too many wines at once today - the Lafite stable, which of course includes the top Pomerol l'Évangile topping off a little rush of releases. A shame because there are some stories here - Jean-Luc Thunevin's Valandraud (£895) has been elevated to 1er Grand Cru Classé status from this year, and is a fab wine if you are into this sort of modern style - it is done with real panache.
By Charles Lea on 18/04/2013
The Bordeaux 2012 campaign, which has been criticised in recent vintages for its boringly slow progress, has had the sense to start briskly this year - slightly too briskly for me as I had to get to Vinitaly as well this year and the notes are far from complete.