And they’re off! The first wines of the campaign are now available to order online. Highlights include some superb Sauternes, notably the stellar Rieussec and Suduiraut, plus a pair of highly demanded Pomerols from J.P. Moueix, Hosanna and Fleur-Pétrus.

Before ordering we advise customers to read our vintage report, and be familiar with the timetable for Bordeaux 2007. All prices are for in-bond delivery and exclude duty, VAT and handling.

Château Beychevelle 2007 St-Julien, 4ème Cru Classé 12×75cl, £260.00

Château La Fleur Pétrus 2007 Pomerol 12×75cl, £570.00

Château Hosanna 2007 Pomerol 6×75cl, £325.00

Château Doisy-Verdrines 2007 Barsac, 2ème Cru Classé 12×75cl, £210.00

Château Doisy-Verdrines 2007 Barsac, 2ème Cru Classé 24×375ml half-bottles, £210.00

Château La Tour Blanche 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 12×75cl, £340.00

Château La Tour Blanche 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 24×375ml half-bottles, £340.00

Château Suduiraut 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 12×75cl, £445.00

Château Suduiraut 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 24×375ml half-bottles, £445.00

Château Rieussec 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 12×75cl, £500.00

Château Rieussec 2007 Sauternes, 1er Cru Classé 24×375ml half-bottles, £500.00

It’s a frequent frustration that some of our most interesting wines are the hardest to sell, simply because customers don’t instantly recognise them on the stack. For that reason I have instigated a new feature on the site in which we’ll feature interesting or new wines which might struggle to push up through all the well known names also featured on our site.

So, please visit the Something Different page and let me have your comments. This is an unashamedly personal selection, and not all the wines will appeal to everyone, but they do represent my tastes at the moment.

Incidentally, I drank the first of my 2004 CVNE Reserva Rioja at the weekend. I can wholeheartedly confirm that 2004 is a fantastic vintage in this region. The wine has more structure than in some years (compared with the 2002 I’ve also tried recently) and, although its fine to drink now, has many years of happy evolution ahead. If you like your Rioja soft and mellow I’d be heading for the cellar with any of our 2004s.

Our new summer price list launches today, for once with perfect timing as the sun shines across most of the country!

Highlights include 20% off any 2 bottles from Chile, Italy and Beaujolais, plus a big range of offers on summertime favourites such as rosé, the Loire, Australia and New Zealand.

We’re also launching our first ever Summer Fizz Festival, with at least a third off all Champagnes and sparkling wines. Highlights include 40% off the most famous names in Champagne, including Veuve Clicquot, Perrier-Jouët, Taittinger, Pol Roger, Bollinger and Dom Pérignon. The timing is perfect if you’re planning an event for the summer season or a wedding, but bear in mind that many of the offers are only available until 9 June.

The wait is over for Bordeaux’s proprietors as Robert Parker releases his assessment of the 2007 vintage. There are no real surprises, with Parker summing up the vintage as “an improved, modern-day version of 1997″ and echoing our own comments about the importance of terroir and investment in the vineyard:

There are certainly plenty of green, thin, herbal, herbaceous wines that lack mid-palates as well as fat, but the top terroirs, the finest addresses, and the most committed châteaux owners, by doing extensive work in the vineyard, and taking advantage of the Indian summer, have produced endearingly fruity, soft, silky-textured clarets that are filled with charm and purity. The top wines possess no vegetal aspects.

The comparison with 1997 is interesting, because this was famously a vintage which stimulated little interest en primeur, but when the wines hit the retail shelves (in our case, boxes) ended up being an extremely popular vintage due to its softness and approachability. Indeed, Parker notes that “most consumers will probably love the style of the vintage’s top wines because they are so flattering, seductive, and fruit-forward.”

At the same time as revealing his verdict on 2007, Parker has also released revised notes for the fabulous 2005 vintage - “the greatest vintage produced during my 30-year career”. They are apparently even better now they have been bottled than they were from cask - having been priveliged to taste the 2005s en primeur this is quite a claim.

If you’re waiting for 2005s purchased en primeur we’ll be contacting you in the next week or two to arrange delivery. If you missed out on 2005 here’s one final chance - we have a few left at opening prices including Lascombes which at £425 a case garners a massive 95 points!

A quick reminder that our Spring promotion ends on Monday, so there’s only a few days to take advantage of deals such as 20% off South Africa, 20% off southern France and 20% off Argentina. Getting ready for the summer promotion which kicks off on Tuesday has kept me busy, but I’ve been meaning to blog about my current favourite wine region Rioja and I’ll take the opportunity now whilst I can, because our 25% off Spain offer also ends on Monday!

2004 was a fantastic vintage in Rioja - it’s official. The consejo regulador, the regulatory council responsible for the denominacion, provides official ratings for Rioja vintages and 2004 rates as ‘excellent’, alongside famous vintages such as 2001, 1995 and 1994. (Admittedly, the lowest rating on the scale is ‘average’ - it seems there’s no such thing as a bad vintage in Rioja, much like fast food restaurants don’t have small sizes, only medium.)

The first of the 2004 Reservas are just coming on stream, and we have a couple of absolute stunners, from CVNE and Muga. These two well regarded bodegas make an interesting comparison - CVNE’s modern, gravity fed winery contrasts nicely with the very traditional Muga, although slightly perversely I find the classically elegant CVNE a bit more of a ‘traditional’ style of wine (light and fresh with elegant strawberry fruit), with the Muga just a little richer, with darker, chocolatey fruit.

What’s amazing about these wines is that they deliver such amazing complexity, depth and ageworthiness for the money: £7.99 for the CVNE, £9.99 the Muga. Like most Rioja, the extended barrel maturation and bottle ageing before release means that these wines are already approachable, but Rioja never ceases to amaze in it’s ability to age, so I expect these to continue to improve for years to come. If you are looking for a wine to cellar for a few years that doesn’t cost the earth I can’t think of anything that comes close - and I’ve put my money where my mouth is, squirrelling a case of each away in my Vinotheque account.

As if these early 2004s weren’t enough, we’re still enjoing some of the later arriving 2001s, making the Rioja range a real treasure trove. If you’ll hurry your local store may have some Marques de Caceres Reserva 2001 for £10.49, and if not the recently arrived Gran Reserva is a steal at £12.74. CVNE’s very elegant Viña Real Reserva 2001 (£10.49) is delicious, but for me the real superstar is their slightly more forceful and deep Imperial Reserva 2001 - at £11.99, this is a proper fine wine a crazy price (and another wine destined for the Weaver cellar).

If you’re not sure just how serious Rioja can be, our Fine Wine Centre currently has a few cases of the stunning 2001 Contino Reserva for £25. This beautiful winery, set on a very picturesque bend in the river Ebro, is a single estate property managed as a separate operation by CVNE. It produces relatively small volumes of stunning Riojas, and is a particular champion of the the local Graciano grape variety.

Very quickly (it’s nearly the weekend after all), I’ve just posted our Bordeaux 2007 “wish list”. Basically, its the list of wines we liked the most from our tastings, and our en primeur offer will be drawn from this list.

I draw your attention to the important caveat that we will only actually buy those wines where we consider the price to be right. We’re confident the wines on the list will offer great pleasure for Bordeaux drinkers, with the added advantage that they’ll need considerably less time in the cellar than the more structured ’05s and ’06s, but being realistic it’s almost certainly a much longer list than we will eventually offer.

Note also, there’s some dry whites on the list! The wines are fantastic (Jancis Robinson has rave reviews, although you’ll need a subscription), but it’s something of a departure for us, so your feedback on likely demand here would be gratefully received. Comment here or email enprimeur@majestic.co.uk.

We’ll be posting a detailed vintage report on Monday, so watch this space!

This post comes direct from the heart of London’s theatreland, where today we’ve been holding our Summer Press Tasting. It’s a great opportunity for us to select the best of our new arrivals, new vintages and old favourites and put them to the test with a number of the UK’s top wine writers and journalists.

It also requires the Majestic team to taste their way through all 130 or so wines prior to the first guest’s arrival at 9am, which is pretty challenging in itself - although it has to be said the palate feels remarkably fresh at the start of the day, even if the head doesn’t afterwards.

There are a number of notable stand-outs in the tasting, particularly the range of Bordeaux wines for the Summer, including a couple of exceptional ’second-label’ wines from Chateau Siaurac (Plaisir de Siaurac 2006) and Chateau Belgrave (Diane de Belgrave 2005). Also tasting very good were some new arrivals into our Chilean range, with the Matetic EQ wines continuing to impress and the new Errazuriz ‘Le Cumbre’ Shiraz tasting not unlike the top-end Penfolds wines of South Australia at around half the price. Obviously with so many wines on show it’s impossible to name-check everything, but it’s worth knowing that our Italian, Southern French and New Zealand whites were also tasting particularly good.

I suppose the important thing is that we really do like to put these wines under the microscope, unveiling them to some of the most discerning and influential palates in the UK trade. It’s reassuring for our customers to know that we take care, and pride, in our range and we welcome all thoughts and comments, positive or otherwise.

Likewise, we welcome your comments on any wines you’ve bought from us, or elsewhere, that you considered to be particularly good (or bad!) value. Like most of you, we love reading about wine, talking about wine, and drinking wine - so feel free to share your opinions with us. 

We’ve just updated the website with a fantastic new promotion on Spanish wine, with 25% off when you buy any 2 bottles or more. This deal covers all our Spanish wines (including Cava and Sherry) priced from £3 to £20 a bottle, and is based on our pre-Budget pricing, so this is a genuine steal for Spanish wine lovers that is not to be missed!

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that our Spring price list runs out today. We’ve prepared a downloadable list as a PDF, which includes the Spanish offer, to cover the period until 5 May, so if you prefer to shop with a paper list you can download it here.

It’s always interesting when we get back from the Bordeaux trip to have a look around and see how other people have reviewed the vintage. The appraisal seems pretty consistent this year - great for whites and Sauternes, less so for reds although some soft, appealing wines have been made.

Some interesting links if you’d like more coverage:

• Decanter.com (the website of Decanter magazine) has excellent coverage from Steven Spurrier, James Lawther MW, Beverley Blanning MW, David Peppercorn MW and Stephen Brook. For a very good summary, see this news article.
• James Suckling of The Wine Spectator is always the first major journalist with scores for the vintage. You’ll need a subscription to read his review of the vintage.
• You’ll also need a subscription to read all of the news on the JancisRobinson.com, but you should be able to read about the real story of the week as Jancis and Robert Parker let bygones be bygones…
• You’ll find Parker’s take and a few other views on his forum.

So what’s next for Bordeaux 2007? Well, we’ve had a busy old time since we got back from France with a major new promotion launching on majestic.co.uk in just an hour or so (sneaky hint: Spanish wine fans are going to be very happy), so haven’t had much time to debrief. However, we aim to have published a full Vintage Report and wish list along with our own scores by the end of this week, so stay tuned.

One final point which I meant to mention last week (it must have slipped my mind, which is the problem with blogging just as dinner is served!) is that the few properties where we were able to taste the 2007 alongside the 2006 highlighted that at current rates of exchange our remaining 2006 wines are beginning to look seriously good value. A few highlights:

• Château Plince - a lesser-known property run by J.P. Moueix of Pétrus fame; Pomerol was the vintage’s best appellation and £150 for a case of this looks like a genuine bargain.
• Ditto Certan-de-May - £260 and 91-94 Parker Points…
• Château Haut-Batailley is the sister estate of Grand-Puy-Lacoste and the 2006 was a delicate, classic Pauillac that features on the 2006 purchase list of several Majestic folk.
• Langoa-Barton tasted superb alongside the 2007, and was nearly of the stellar standard of the 2005. Your for just £300 in-bond.
• I’m frankly astonished that we have any of the lovely 2006 Léoville-Poyferré and the high-scoring Pontet-Canet left.
• Nothing we tasted this year matches up to last year’s stunning wine of the vintage, La Mission Haut-Brion.

It’s a hard life - today we began the day with an appointment at Château Latour. Latour have done a good job of managing the vintage conditions (as you’d expect) and made a soft and stylish Latour. The wine has been beefed up with around 15% press wine to give it tannic structure and backbone, which shows both how light the vintage is but also how well managed the tannins were in the free run juice. It’s not a classic in the manner of 2005, but is good for the vintage - the château compared it to 1999 and 2004, not a bad benchmark for the Médoc overall.

Forts de Latour contains most of the property’s Merlot, and so is unusual - more like a Margaux in style, very open and silky. Actually, in a difficult vintage in the southern Médoc it’s probably a better bet for fans of Margaux than most of that commune’s wines.

Finally we headed off to taste the much-hyped Sauternes. I really like the Sauternes tasting each year, coming as a welcome change from the massed ranks of red wines, but this year it was particularly enjoyable. Château d’Yquem claim to have made their best wine since 1937, which is saying something given their astonishing 100+ Parker point effort in 2001.

Just below this stellar level we tasted a lot of wines, and the standard was universally high. There was an interesting array of styles, from exceptionally pure, intense wines with real finesse to complex, spicy wines taking on plenty of new oak. Regular favourites Rieussec and Suduiraut stood out, but there were some smaller properties that also excelled and we hope to offer a good range en primeur.

That’s it; we’ve finished and I’m sitting in Bordeaux airport waiting to fly home. It’s back to the office tomorrow to prepare for the sales campaign, but there is a lot more to blog about once we’ve collected our thoughts in the next week or two.