All posts filed under: Bordeaux

Mouton Rothschild 2017 Label released

Published by Juel

Chateau Mouton Rothschild Grape: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot Region: Bordeaux Year: 2017 Alcohol: 12.5% Price: Released £360 per bottle IB Retailer: Fine Wine Merchants (en primeur) Released today, the Château Mouton Rothschild 2017 label is by French artist, Annette Messager. Her artwork is entitled, “Hallelulah” – a reference to wine and milk in a biblical sense. Born in 1943, Messager is a feminist artist with images featuring poetry and dream-like symbolism. Her artwork and installations examine perceptions of women by individuals and by society at large. Looking back over the labels since 1945, each year they are a testament to the the artist’s vision. For women, 2017 must be remembered as the year of the #metoo hashtag after the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations exploded on social media. The Mouton Rothschild 2017 label by Annette Messager is a perfect reminder of this time; on top of that, the wine is a very good vintage for top Bordeaux châteaux. View previous posts on Mouton Rothschild labels

How does classic white Bordeaux fit with my not-so-classic life? A week in photos

Published by Juel

The case of Bordeaux blanc from the Bordeaux Council sat in the corner of my tiny London flat like an elaborate piece of 17th century furniture. The idea of drinking Bordeaux blanc everyday is very grand, but how does this classic style of wine fit in with my not-so-classic, real life? Instead of opening all the bottles at once, we opened up a bottle or two every night with dinner to see how it worked with food. Which it does. Spectacularly. But not with everything. Don’t believe the label if it ever says aperitif – you will be wasting half the experience. Most Bordeaux blanc is better with food. There are better aperitif wines out there but there are not as many complex food wines out there as Bordeaux blanc. I photographed my week of meals at home (and one special occasion meal on the weekend) pairing white Bordeaux with food. Here are the results. But first, some tips on buying white Bordeaux under £20.   What to look for in Bordeaux Blanc under £20 The last bottle of Bordeaux blanc I had was a bottle of 2011 Smith Haut-Lafitte – not an …

1975 vintage Bordeaux: Claret Guide, Decanter 1976

Published by Juel

If you are having a 40th birthday this year (& happy birthday, Angelina Jolie!), here is a vintage assessment of the 1975 Bordeaux vintage from Decanter in September 1976. Finally, it was a vintage to write home about: It is certainly cheering and reassuring for all who love Bordeaux to know that at long last there is a really good vintage safely in the cellars once more. At the same time this does not mean, unfortunately, that all Bordeaux’s problems have disappeared and indeed many of the economic problems seem to be as persistent and deep-seated as ever. This was a difficult economy for many industries including wine. The 1973 oil crisis could still be felt. Then there were a series of bad vintages in Bordeaux in the early 1970s and, without the technology we have today, there were consecutive years that could not be sold because they were simply undrinkable. The 1975 vintage was initially quite tannic but it has mellowed out over the past ten years, and the fruit has petered out in the lesser wines. Glad to see there was no hype …

How Bordeaux 2014 is like Kate Moss

Published by Juel

Despite owning the world’s media focus for over 20 years, how much did we really know about Kate Moss at the height of her fame? Yes, we saw photos of leaving parties in Primrose Hill, the hazy wedding photos and the terrible boyfriends. But unlike other celebrities, she never talked about her personal life even when her image was everywhere. No interviews, no salacious tell-alls after the scandals, and only until very recently, no celebrity television shows. All we had was her turning away from us in the Rimmel TV ad with a four-word parting shot in her Croydon accent, “Get the London Look!” In the last couple of years, Kate Moss has lifted the “Kate Moss media embargo” on herself. And it’s…. (and I’m talking as a big fan over the years) it’s just not the same. No more guessing – we now know what she thinks or doesn’t think. That’s not what we want from our supermodels! We want the old cool Kate even if that is an impossible expectation for any human being to live up to for so many years. …

Chinese Year of the Mouton

Published by Juel

What lies in store for Mouton Rothschild in the Chinese Year of the Ram? With the recent record-breaking ex-cellar auction in Hong Kong, it certainly has been an auspicious start. Let’s looks at the steady rise in price of the 2000 Mouton Rothschild vintage for clues.  During Chinese New Year in Hong Kong, the menu is not just about the food. Each food also symbolises good luck. Favourites include sticky rice cake, which sounds phonetically similar to “higher year”, or raising oneself higher, and dried oysters – or haoshi – sounds similar to the term, “good business”. This year, the good fortune extended to the recent Sotheby’s auction of Mouton Rothschild cellar in Hong Kong, to coincide with the new year celebrations of the Year of the Ram, where it doubled its pre-sale estimate to fetch HK$32 million (£2.7 million). Just a few years ago, it was Lafite Rothschild that turned heads to Asia. But the price of Lafite has fallen dramatically. It is more than two years since Lafite Rothschild has been on an upward trajectory. Where every other …

Bordeaux to Maroc

Published by Juel

There was a lot of talk about Bordeaux before I left for holidays… Is en primeur 2013 on or not? On that hanging question, I left it all behind at Stanstead Airport for a week of mint tea and tagines in Marrakech. Of course, “getting away from it all” is not that simple. If only you could leave work behind sometimes, but when you work in the wine industry it seems to follow you around like your hand or foot. You try to get away but end up in some sort of Interzone only for it to arrive on the scene again like some Burroughs bug. Even in Marrakech, Bordeaux seemed to follow. It started with the Domaine de Sahari at the beautiful restaurant run by women called Al Fassia in the new town. We had to try the Cinsault (under the menu as a Vin Gris) and the red – a Carignan blend. Mysteriously, on the label it mentioned a “Bordeaux enologist” had some part to play in it. Later I found  it was owned …

At Chateau Palmer #bdx12

Published by Juel

This is what Bordeaux En Primeur week is like: it seems quite leisurely as we talk but it is really a quick yearly catch up on what has been happening since last time we met. This year CEO Thomas Duroux  stole us away from tasting Chateau Palmer to show us the new cellars. It is very interesting to hear how the yields must come down for organic viticulture, especially in Bordeaux – it is more humid down here than in Burgundy and needs constant labour-intensive (read: expensive) vigilance to keep away the mildew and pests so to keep the quality high. From original post for 2012 Bordeaux En Primeur week on Bibendum Times.

A letter to a friend #bdx12

Published by Juel

… The first couple of days had some bettter wines than expected but nothing that rolled out the red carpet in the mind. You know, when the stars come out and the flash bulbs starting flashing. Everything afterwards different, a blur. It does happen. In some vintages. This is the problem when I go back over my notes – sometimes the best wines have none at all. Maybe they have a scribble or some trailing lines or absent-minded stars. The rest of the time it is too easy to get stuck on quibbling about something above average but nothing exciting. And maybe that is what Bordeaux is all about. Something easy to drink after ruling the world (at these prices). Not too much, not too sensuous. These are wines for Judges. And just as you would imagine – there are also some with aromas of extreme decadence. Striking, but not at this moment. You asked me once, if you only had one wine what would you drink? For me, from Bordeaux, it would be Chateau …

Pomerol by Neal Martin

Published by Juel

On Monday night I saw Kraftwerk’s Computerworld show at the Tate Modern. Standing on the sloping cold concrete floor of the Turbine Hall with 3D glasses watching 20 minute songs of minimalist German electronica, what can I say? It was brilliant. Radioactivity, Pocket Calculator, Robots, Autobahn… fun, fun, fun. But what surprised me is how many times I laughed. Not only when recognising the song but also to the dead-pan humour

Luxury and humour: Mouton Rothschild 2010 label by Jeff Koons

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Luxury and humour are not easy bedfellows. Where luxury takes itself very seriously and conforms to rules, humour gets the uncontrollable giggles. If humour happens in luxury then it is not often intentional, which is why I found the latest Mouton-Rothschild 2010 label breathtaking – a first growth with a sense of humour. Jeff Koons work comments on commercial culture we live in by blowing it up out of proportion to see it out of context.  The huge Puppy (1992) made out of flowers; Balloon Dog (1994-2000), extra-sized, twisted balloon art made in silver silver stainless steel; or, the self-portraits of him and his then wife Cicciolina like a pornographic Botticelli in Made in Heaven (1989 -1990, & nsfw). One of his early series was called, “Luxury and Degradation” (1986) based on spirits such as Jim Beam and Hennessey “The Civilised Way to Lay Down the Law”. I have seen the Puppy a few times around the world and loved how it endeared the very young and very old. The label has an absent-minded graffiti over the classical repose. It is an interesting …

Bordeaux En Primeurs 2010

Published by Juel

Reflections on 2011 Wine Trends, continued. The story of 2010 Bordeaux is Chateau Batailley.  Yet, as the Wine Doctor says, there is something of the “blustery tweed jacket” about Batailley. During the Georgian period, tax was determined by the number of windows in a building and many were, and still are, bricked up (incidentally, this is where the term “daylight robbery” comes from). I thought about these windows a lot when I worked in Belgravia (Central London) when I delivered Bordeaux and Champagne on a trolley around Eaton Square. We had a customer, a mad 79-year-old customer from Mayfair, who liked to drink Batailley from a fine white china tea cup at his parties. Batailley was a practical claret, nothing too serious. I have always found it always a bit solid and predictable, a bit four-square (only if not served in a tea cup, then it was fun), and a bit old-school retro. This is why the rate of sales in the UK in 2010 is so interesting.

Back to the Future: Comparing 1967 En Primeur to now

Published by Juel

If you want peace from the crazy highs of the Bordeaux campaign, then there is nothing that gives more solace than German Riesling. Here is a wine once sold as hotly as Bordeaux but now quietly sits on the books while the wine trade put it on their staff account for their own pleasure. Tasting three exceptional German Riesling last week, I wondered: what if Bordeaux went the way of German Riesling in the next 20 years? Before Robert Parker’s declaration of the 1982 vintage, Bordeaux was just another wine to stock the cellar.

Why Carruades de Lafite is an important indicator for 2010 Bordeaux En Primeur

Published by Juel

The ultimate wine brand in in the world is not Lafite. It is Lafite’s second wine: Carruades de Lafite. Once the Bordeaux circus returns, the points are published and the prices are drip-fed out to the buyers by the Chateaux, keep an eye on the prices of Carruades de Lafite. If the “Carruades trend” continues, this could signal the end of the critic-led Bordeaux price. More than any other wine, quality is irrelevant to its price: over the years, Carraudes de Lafite has

Librarians love 01 Les Pagodes de Cos

Published by Juel

The 01 Pagodes de Cos, the second wine of Cos d’Estournel, is reckless, obstinate and from all accounts of previous vintages, annoying. The initial brett farmyard characters will either delight or disgust you depending on whether worn leather smells like the promise of sitting in a new car or crusty old boots. But to me, it’s not that simple. I started tasting this wine and for a full half-hour still no fruit but only a durm und strang chord of leather and farmyard (the Cos style). Was it corked? I left it, but then got caught up in a party of bubbles at work for a couple of hours; I came home, and found another party in the kitchen drinking Caprihinas. Dang and argh, said the grumpy worker in me, I just want some peace to understand this wine! Pagodes longed for a library and a cigar and a serious conversation. So did I. It asked for the luxury of quiet that is so hard to find in London. So did I. Thankfully while I …

From wine to widget (or, my Bordeaux sulk in Rome)

Published by Juel

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust “What I don’t understand,” said my Roman friend as we walked through the ruins of the ancient city of Rome, “is how these high prices of Bordeaux wine (En Primeur) can be in the public good?” Yesterday I was on holiday in Italy. Frankly, I needed a holiday. After waiting weeks for the big names of Bordeaux to release their wines, and just a torturous drip drip drip, I was officially in a Bordeaux sulk. Then, whilst away, Leoville Poyferre, a Chateau I call “good value drinking claret”, released their wines at +172% on 2008 and +50% on the already highly-priced 2005. Some wines from 2009 vintage are very good this year, but does this justify the substantially higher price? Feeling rather like an ancient philosopher walking amongst the ruins, however, I felt I should argue the opposite point of view…. The SPQR written everywhere in marble (or, Senatus Populusque Romanus “The Senate and the Roman …

En Primeur – five questions to ask before you buy

Published by Juel

What is En Primeur? En Primeur is the art of buying wine when it is still in cask before it is bottled. There is usually a two year wait before it is finally delivered, which happens shortly after the wine is bottled and shipped. After vintage, wine merchants and writers visit the Estates, Domaines or Chateaux to assess the quality for their customers. This is when the campaign begins. In the United States, buying wine En Primeur is known as Wine Futures, which is slightly more demystifying; it clearly links the buying of unbottled wine in cask to the concept of buying futures on the stockmarket. It’s the same level of reward. And risk. For those who don’t know much about Bordeaux, En Primeur can be on the trickier end of wine buying. For those who do, it can be a way to buy wine at a relatively low price which returns decades of enjoyment. However, unlike other forms of investment, it’s a speculation you can eventually enjoy drinking. And if you do it right, …