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Check this page regularly for news, reviews, releases and general musings on the 2007 campaign. I'll update it as often as I can. For bespoke advice on the 2007 vintage, call our team of friendly and knowledgable wine advisors on 01275 812230 or email finewine@averys.com. Cheers Dan
| Blog Index | | 28th March - A note before the off | | 29th March - Arriving in Bordeaux | 30th March - A big day in the Medoc; Cos, Calon Segur, Montrose, Mouton, Lafite, Latour, Lynch Bages, Pichon Lalande, Grand Puy Lacoste, Rauzan Segla, Ormes de Pez (phew!) | 1st April - Leoville, Ducru, others from Pauillac, St Estephe, St Julien, Sauternes, Palmer, Talbot and Ch Margaux | | 2nd April - The Right Bank; Moueix, Cheval, Pavie Macquin, VCC, Figeac and others | 3rd April - The Pope and Royalty; Graves, Haut Brion, Pape Clement et al | | 4th April - Reflections on the trip and the vintage | | 21st April - if the price is right... | | 12th May - Prices trickling through- my recommedations | | 19th May - Some notable wines at decent prices | | Bordeaux 2007 in the press |
Some of the more famous names have now appeared on the market, and news from Bordeaux is that the big brands are selling quite well, mainly into the Far East and also into the French supermarkets. You will now find our offers live on the internet for such luminaries as Beychevelle, Talbot, Gruaud Larose and Lagrange. These wines are invariably close to the top of the Bordeaux tree in terms of quality and reputation, year in and year out, and it still makes sense to purchase them en primeur. They are selling through well and are still within the realms of affordability for aficionados of fine claret. I would encourage customers interested in these properties to look seriously at these wines. Other wines that are usually of notable value are now also available - Chasse Spleen, Gloria and Batailley. These are still coming in at decent prices (Chasse Spleen is the equivalent of £16.99 landed which is the price of an average quality bottle in a restaurant) and so I think there are very good reasons to tuck a case or two of these away now – as a matter of fact I enjoyed a bottle of 2003 Chasse Spleen at Lords on Friday and it was delicious – and was cheaper than buying a bottle of average quality wine in one of the restaurants there! So all in all, I think there are some good arguments for claret drinkers to tuck a few cases of the 2007 into their portfolio. A swelteringly warm weekend an England although not much of the heat has translated through to the Bordeaux 2007 campaign. Wines are coming out very slowly and those that have made a foray into the market have not substantially dropped on last year, so effectively we are looking at very similar pricing to 2006 even though the vintage is more supple and for shorter term drinking. Many Sauternes have been released and they are a mixed bag. Rieussec is almost £100 a case more expensive than 2005 which is hard to fathom – the wine is very good but I am not sure it justifies a 30% price increase…Doisy Vedrines looks to be excellent value however at just £210 a case and Bastor Lamontagne remains good value at £150. In terms of reds, there are some good buys that I would point you towards. Les Hauts Conseillants from Lalande de Pomerol is a lovely wine and at just £85 a case it is a steal. Clos du Clocher’s pricing has been consistent over the past 6 or 7 vintages and at £190 a case for very good Pomerol, looks to be well priced. Puy Blanquet, a reliable St Emilion Grand Cru, at £84 also looks to be a good bet – this will equate to around £10 a bottle once duty and Vat have been paid, which is an attractive price for an attractive wine. The Medoc has seen less activity with Cantemerle at £155 the cheapest of classed growths, coming in at about £17 a bottle after duty and vat which strikes me as exceptionally good value considering the rest of the market, and Beaumont as ever is reliable and very affordable at £70 a case. Beychevelle at £276 strikes me as expensive, but the chateau has a following and it is becoming more popular worldwide. Du Tertre at £186 is at least still under the £200 mark and will be around £20 a bottle once duty and vat are paid, which again strikes me as reasonable given classed growth prices in general – the chateau has invested heavily in quality and £20 seems fair to me. And so we wait…I fear that the majority of the well known names will not drop prices sufficiently to be of interest. The 2005 vintage seems to have been a watershed for many properties who now consider that their wines have a higher value in the market place, almost disregarding the quality of the vintage. To be fair they have invested heavily in quality, even since 2000 vintage, but it remains to be seen whether customers are prepared to pay these high prices to obtain the chateaux they want to drink, irrespective of the intrinsic quality of the vintage.
Well, the opinions of major critics and journalists around the world have been gathered, and the information available to customers these days is exhaustive. Jancis Robinson has written in depth on the vintage, as has Decanter magazine and Robert Parker. Most are consistent with their assessment that it is not a great vintage and that stylistically it is soft, fruity and will be approachable young. In short, not a vintage for speculators, and if priced correctly it will have its place in Bordeaux drinkers cellars whilst we wait for 2004, 2005 and 2006. Not many wines have yet been released onto the market, and we wait to see whether the chateaux owners recognise both the economic world situation and the collectability of the vintage and therefore significantly lower prices. Our message remains the same – if the prices come down, and we can therefore afford to drink these wines are around £20 a bottle, they will be worth owning. We will have another opportunity to try many of the wines this coming Thursday evening in Bristol. We have 120 customers attending our private tasting of Bordeaux 07 cask samples and it will be intriguing to see how the wines have changed and evolved in the last month. We have such names as Angelus, Leoville Barton, Smith Haut Lafitte, Batailley and Clerc Milon available to taste, as well as welcoming 11 proprietors from Bordeaux so it should be a good evening. 4th April 2008 Reflections
Back from Bordeaux, tired but happy and upbeat. Our assessment following four days of tasting, spitting and assessing is that 2007at classed growth level is a vintage endowed with much charm and pleasurable drinking in the medium term. In the main the successful wines are extremely fruity, aromatic, soft and gentle, and will be absolutely delicious to drink whilst waiting for the 2005’s and 2006’s to mature. The team, and the chat in Bordeaux, feel that the wines are generous and that 2007 is a good vintage. There is for once no hype or over-inflating the vintage coming from Bordeaux– just an honest acknowledgement of a good and attractive year. What is clear however is that it is not an investor’s vintage, one on which prices and portfolios will rise. The chateaux owners know this, and we hope will therefore price it accordingly. (John thinks this is the “James Bond” vintage- 007! More the suave and seductive style than brawn and muscles, however!) If we were to make any allusion to previous years, it would be to the 1999’s but with more charm, or maybe to the 2002 but with more overt fruitines. Winemakers have been careful with their vinifications, endeavouring to harness the lovely soft fruit flavours so in evidence. Not a great year, but a good year, and one that will be lovely to drink quite early. I for one will be buying some to tuck into whilst waiting for 05’s and 06’s to soften. The Pope and Royalty Our final day concentrated on the Graves region and commenced at a very formal, sit down tasting at la Mission Haut Brion presided over by the Prince of Luxembourg and his winemaker Jean-Philippe Delmas. The news this year is that the second wine of Haut Brion, formerly known as Bahans, will now be called Le Clarence after Clarence Dillon, and will be bottled in the instantly recognisable Haut Brion bottle. I really loved Haut Brion, although it too was showing in the more supply yet fruity and forward style of the vintage. Pape Clement was a former residence of the Pope Clement V. Today under the ownership of Bernard Magrez it is making some of the most modern wines in Bordeaux, alongside stable mates such as La Tour Carnet and Fombrauge. We were very impressed by Pape Clement itself and really enjoyed the Grands Chenes Medoc made by the same team. The day finished with the Union des Grands Crus tasting at Larrivet Haut Brion, where reds and whites were shown. Some 2007 dry whites are very successful (Domaine de Chevalier, Malartic La Graviere) whereas some others we found too acidic. Amongst the reds Chevalier also shone, along with Haut Bailly, Malartic and Smith Haut Lafitte. A cup of tea on the quay in Bordeaux gave the team and myself the opportunity to review our impressions of the vintage as a whole. -I am very positive about the quality of the best wines – they will give a lot of drinking pleasure and are very aromatic and attractive. -They just lack the depth of the great vintages but will be extremely delicious. -We believe that prices need to come down closer to 2004 levels for this vintage to be of interest as this is undoubtedly a year for the Bordeaux drinker, not the investor. -It will also be best to stick to recognised top properties who had the financial means to undertake the extremely arduous vineyard work and selection necessary to make the best wines in 2007. The Right Bank The Moueix tasting at 09.00 meant a shift from left to right banks. Decanter Man of the Year Christian and his son Edouard welcomed us and explained that they had picked relatively early in order to harvest their Merlots in optimum conditions. As usual, the opposite of many in the area who waited to harvest late, but as ever the Moueix wines were a success. We particularly liked Hosannah, and a very good Certan de May. Just up the quay of the Dordogne we popped into Audy, owners of Clos du Clocher, an Averys favourite showing very well. The big surprise of the day was at Cheval Blanc. Having been underwhelmed in the past couple of years, the 2007 here is a candidate for wine of the vintage. Improved selection and attention to detail in the winemaking have made this one of the best Chevals we can recall tasting en primeur. Vieux Chateau Certan, almost next door, was very pretty, and included a lot of Cabernet Franc in the blend. Other successes in Pomerol were a surprisingly good La Pointe, an impressive Conseillante and an absolutely terrific Evangile. Finally the sun came out and we enjoyed the St Emilion tasting whose highlights included Figeac (this zone around Figeac, Cheval Blanc, Evangile seems to have been very successful this year), Larcis Ducasse and Pavie Macquin. Quite a hefty day’s tasting and really instructive to have tasted the right bank – one can't really say that 2007 is a right or left bank vintage – it is more a case of selecting property by property and judging each chateau on its individual merits. The Union Des Grands Crus Tastings Tuesday, grey and overcast. First stop Leoville Las Cases bright and early, with Lascases itself epitomising the character of the vintage – a wine usually burly and impenetrable at this stage was showing openly and full, with plenty of soft fruit flavours. Onto Ducru and their funky, avant garde tasting room bedecked with original and modern artwork – not to everyone’s taste, although the wine itself is a success with a lovely velvety, exotic texture. Then Barton, with a burly Leoville more typical of the firm, structured style expected of this chateau. The rest of the day was taken up with the large organised tastings, so useful in assessing quality across a commune. A busy Pontet Canet hosted the wines of Pauillac, St Julien and St Estephe, and we were particularly pleased with Ormes de Pez, Gruaud Larose, Armailhac and a very attractive Talbot. Margaux at Lascombes revealed some very attractive, pretty wines which will give much early drinking pleasure – Durfort Vivens, du Tertre and Prieure Lichine stood out, with an impressively built Rauzan Segla also pleasing. And a word on Sauternes, the tasting sensibly held in Margaux so that we didn’t have to travel too far to taste these wines. Years ending in 7 prove successful for sweet wines (1967, 1997) and indeed 2007 is no exception. The late Indian summer benefited those properties who waited and picked in several stages, and there are many lovely, rich wines with excellent acidity here. The usual suspects such as Suduiraut, Rieussec and Guiraud made lovely wines but our hot tip is Clos Haut Peyraguey, a small and relatively little known classed growth that really shone. The day finished with tastings at Palmer and Margaux, with Paul Pontallier accompanied by a BBC crew making an hour long documentary on the property. A lovely Pavillon Blanc (touching 15% alcohol but with such freshness that you don’t notice it) and a charming Margaux. Paul states that the 2007 has as much tannin as the legendary 1982 but the wine is built in a far more forward, seductive style. John and I had the pleasure of attending the Academie dinner in Bordeaux that evening, celebrating its 60th birthday. We were treated to wines in large formats from 1998 (delicious Trotanoy and La Grave a Pomerol), 1988 (lovely Latour, very good Brane Cantenac), 1978, 1968 (a poor year but Haut Brion is probably the best wine we could have tried!), a wonderful 1958 Figeac and an interesting Montrose 1948.
A Wet and Rainy Monday in the Medoc “Monday Monday” (So Good to Me) And what a Monday it was – Cos, Calon Segur, Montrose, Mouton, Lafite, Latour, Lynch Bages, Pichon Lalande, Grand Puy Lacoste, and a brush with the legendary Philippine de Rothschild. Not to mention the 1990, 1959 and 1949 Batailley… Firstly a word about the weather. We learnt that 2007 was a year of 13 moons, did you know that? It would seem almost obligatory to experience strange meteorological conditions in such a year, and 2007 didn’t disappoint. An April like no other, almost like summer, with early bud break. However the flowering in May was long and uneven due to cool and wet weather. This is bad news because it means that bunches develop at different rates, and the ripening process is uneven. Then Wet Wet Wet – June twice as rainy as in 05 and 06. July cold and damp (just 3 days over 30 degrees versus 20 in 2006) August again cool and damp. Much work was needed in the vineyard. Hallelujah for September – lovely weather, warm and with a drying east wind. This saved the harvest but the decision when to pick this year was major as ripening still proceeded slowly. It was by no means easy to gauge the right moment. Hence some under-ripe tasting wines, hence some overripe ones, selection for the final blend has been severe. Wet and rainy in the Medoc, run into the former Margaux man now making Calon Segur, a pretty, fruity, supple and soft wine that will be lovely young – the tone of the vintage being set early. Then onto Montrose and a civilised, seated tasting overseen by consultant and former Haut Brion winemaker M Delmas, then a quick spin to Cos which was very impressive I thought (the wine, not the building site where a spanking new cellar will be ready for the 2008 harvest). The welcome at Lafite was like the wine, restrained yet very well mannered. And then an interesting tasting at Batailley of the Borie Manoux wines followed by an excellent lunch to which I’m afraid we could hardly do justice with an afternoon of tasting ahead – 1996 Lynch Moussas, 1990, 1959 and 1949 Batailley, John very touched by the 1949 as it was the year of his first visit to Bordeaux. The Mouton tasting was a joy and a lovely warm reception awaited us – golf carts to take us up to the Chateau, and the gracious and charming welcome of Philippe Dhalluin and Herve Berland. Lo and behold, the whirlwind that is the Baronne struck and enchanted everyone in the room, berating in a good humoured way the staff for not providing a seated tasting, not providing coffee, and generally causing good-natured chaos! The wines were some of the best of the week, with an excellent Armailhac, a candidate for best first growth with Mouton and a very good Petit Mouton. Then straight to Latour, the Zebra in the tasting room, the urinal spittoon and apart from the solid 2007’s a tasting from under the counter of the very good 2006, much better now than a year ago. A long old day Monday, but still to go were Pichon Lalande, Lynch Bages (with a dapper Jean Charles Cazes and a very good Ormes de Pez), Grand Puy Lacoste (very good again this year) and then evening at Rauzan Segla. Phew. A pretty good overview after all from the Medoc that reinforced our impression of a vintage in the generously fruity and aromatic mould rather than big and tannic. A long day, in bed at midnight, teeth not as badly stained as in some years (a simple but effective way of measuring the extraction level of the vintage!) The 4.30am start on Sunday was indeed a rude one but it meant that we were in St Emilion for lunch, a hearty magret de canard and a bottle of Chateau Cantenac 2001 – for those of you who follow this lovely little St Emilion from us, it was in cracking form. Following a quick siesta, we had a lovely dinner with Christophe and his wife Marie at Chateau Gigault. As well as the fragrant and juicy 2007 Cuvee Viva, we also checked out the excellent 2006 and the solid and chunky 2005. As well as being the owner of this excellent property, he is also one of Bordeaux’s leading negociants and therefore expertly placed to give us a view on the market. Exchange rates are evidently a worry, with the pound weaker by 15% against the euro and the dollar in even worse shape. The scene was set for the week with a lovely Beausejour Duffau Lagarosse 1995 from magnum (all elegance and grace), a maturing Haut Brion 1986 and a robust and still delicious Pichon Lalande 1975.28th March 2008 A note before the off 5 of us are setting off to Bordeaux on Sunday (08.30 from Exeter so what with the clocks going forward, it is going to be a very early start!) for the annual en primeur round of tastings. John and I were in Bordeaux in October and certainly the top châteaux seem to have made good wines through severe selection and a glorious run of unbroken weather from September compensating for the pretty dull and wet summer. We’ll keep you up to date with our views on the vintage, the wines and the prices on this blog as the campaign unfurls, and by all means get in touch with us if you have any questions that we can help with. You can call our team of knowledgable wine advisors on 01275 812230 or email finewine@averys.com for advice on the 2007 vintage. The fine wine market is still buoyant, and as the 2005’s hit our shores around about now we will see prices for that vintage rising. However circumstances this year are very different economically than 12 months ago. The strength of the euro against the pound and the dollar is a concern, the credit crunch is having an effect globally, and fine claret has become very expensive in the last two vintages.Let’s taste the wines first next week to assess quality, and then we have to sit tight to see what the proprietors make of the market and therefore at what price they will release their wines. There is no doubt that the usual favourites such as Lynch Bages and Leoville Barton will still be in demand, I suspect that for many other wines demand will be a function of price.
I’m looking forward to our dinner with Christophe Reboul Salze at Château Gigault on Sunday night – it is always a jolly affair in his kitchen, surrounded by some lovely bottles. Some of the team have also been generously invited to Château du Tertre one evening, and we will be lunching with our old friends at Batailley on Monday. In between we will be tasting all the major wines in situ and at the organised UGC tastings. I'll keep you updated as often as I can, so check this page regularly over the coming weeks. Bordeaux 2007 in the press "En primeur 2007 What the trade says " Decanter April 08
"Bordeaux 2007: Exchange rate worries for en primeur" Jane Anson, Decanter 20/03/2008
"Bordeaux 2007 'attractive' merchants say" Stuart Peskett, Decanter 20/03/2008 "Blatch on 2007" Bill Blatch 28/01/2008 "Bordeaux 2007 vintage looking up" Jancis Robinson 14/09/2007
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