This afternoon has seen us pay our first visit to the Graves, to taste the wines of Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion. These wines were unsurprisingly good, with La Mission the most obviously and immediately pleasurable but with Haut-Brion offering a very serious wine with enormous, long term, potential. Interestingly, the second wine of Haut-Brion is [...]
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Day 1 so far
Monday 31 March 2008 – 14:07
We’ve arrived safely in Bordeaux for the annual En Primeur tastings and hit the ground running with a morning sweep from a number of the Medoc’s top properties. We’ll make a more detailed report at the end of the day, but some pleasant surprises so far have included Clerc-Milon, Mouton, and Cos D’Estournel. Whilst it [...]
Fun with Google Earth
Sunday 30 March 2008 – 7:00
We’ve put together a Google Earth file with the locations of Bordeaux’s leading properties (plus some of our favourite smaller châteaux), so you can get a bird’s eye view of this fascinating region. If you’ve got Google Earth installed on your computer, just download the KML file and enjoy. If you don’t have Google Earth [...]
Hidden Gems
Wednesday 26 March 2008 – 21:31
It seems a little strange to follow Richard’s post on the extraordinary world of Bordeaux wines and their associated pomp and ceremony with a thought on slightly more ‘everyday’ wines, but I guess that, eventually, will be my point. The great thing about taking care (and seeking good advice) when buying wine is that you can [...]
Bordeaux 2007 is coming…
Wednesday 26 March 2008 – 16:33
It’s that time of year again. Next week, thousands of wine trade types from across the world will descend on Bordeaux for a week-long, stamina-testing series of tastings of the new vintage. As ever, Majestic (yours truly included) will be there, and we’ll report back via this very blog in as much detail as our [...]
The public mood?
Monday 17 March 2008 – 15:38
Since the budget sales have soared, and it’s clear that our competitors are experiencing a similar uplift too. While the increase in duty is significant, and will have a very real effect on wine prices, the size of the uplift has taken us by surprise. Is this a sign that the consumer doesn’t like a wagging [...]
Sky-diving and cycling fund-raising
Friday 14 March 2008 – 15:02
Every year at Majestic our staff choose a charity which we support with all our fund raising activities. Last year we raised over £60,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and obviously each year we hope to beat the previous year. This year our staff have chosen to support the Alzheimer’s Society, and Owen Wynne-Jones, manager [...]
Budget day
Wednesday 12 March 2008 – 8:41
The big news this week will obviously be the amount of extra duty Alistair Darling dares to put on wine. Over the last few years the Chancellor has largely chosen to leave spirits and sparkling wines alone, but has consistently loaded the duty onto still wine. This year however we are expecting a hike on everything as [...]
Interesting conversation
Tuesday 4 March 2008 – 16:47
An article by Victoria Moore in last Saturday’s Guardian newspaper has sparked an interesting conversation on Tom Cannavan’s popular Wine Pages forum surrounding returns of faulty bottles, particularly in the fine wine sector. It centres on whether we, as a retailer, should be held responsible for faulty bottles of fine wine, bought and then stored [...]
New Zealand: The Big Questions
Monday 3 March 2008 – 9:29
There’s no doubt that one of the wine success stories of the 2000s (I hate the connotations connected with ‘noughties’) has been the explosion of New Zealand wines, most notably Sauvignon Blanc. When I first started at Majestic in Summer 2002, I recall my WSET Advanced Certificate book informing us eager new recruits that despite [...]
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