Our final day of tastings has seen us take a closer look at the Graves, Sauternes, and the wines of Haut-Médoc, Moulis and Listrac. The quality of the wines has remained pretty high. There are hopefully going to be some good value cru bourgeois wines to be had from the 2008 vintage, and several Pessac-Léognan [...]
Tag Archives: Bordeaux 2008
Bordeaux 2008: day three
Wednesday 1 April 2009 – 17:27
Today was our sweep of the right bank, and we’ve continued to be impressed by the quality of the wines. In St-Emilion, the large Union des Grands Crus tasting was a typically mixed bag, but in general we were pleased. As with the left bank the day before, there was a generally good purity of [...]
Bordeaux 2008: day two
Tuesday 31 March 2009 – 17:28
Apologies for the lack of a lunchtime blog post; today has been our busiest day of tasting of the trip. And it’s been a very interesting day. We’ve tasted most of the Médoc now, and have a far clearer sense of the vintage than this time yesterday. The wines of the northern Médoc have a [...]
Bordeaux 2008: day one, afternoon
Monday 30 March 2009 – 17:37
This afternoon’s tastings took us to La Mission Haut Brion, Cheval Blanc, Ausone and Canon-la-Gaffelière – quite a few miles but I can hardly describe it as a chore. From this first day’s tastings it’s difficult to generalise too much because we really have cherry-picked from the very top echelons of Bordeaux. Cheval Blanc is [...]
Bordeaux 2008: day one, morning
Monday 30 March 2009 – 12:21
The morning of day one has seen us visit three first growths and two second growths – not a bad way to begin assessing the 2008 vintage. First stop of the morning was Margaux. As ever this wine impressed with a subtlety and elegance all its own. Paul Pontallier introduced the wines to us, describing [...]
Twittering from Bordeaux
Saturday 28 March 2009 – 11:40
I’ll be reporting back on this blog from Bordeaux as often as our schedule allows next week. Exactly how frequently depends on my ability to get the French 3G dongle I have ready and raring to go working; this is no foregone conclusion but I’m optimistic! Obviously one way to keep up to date is [...]
Bordeaux from space
Saturday 28 March 2009 – 10:31
I’m sorry to re-hash something from a year ago but I still think our Google Earth file of leading Bordeaux châteaux is great fun (not to mention a good navigation aid for the directionally challenged Majestic tasting team). Unfortunately, Google’s controversial Street View service hasn’t been extended to Bordeaux yet. Surely people would rather experience [...]
Back to Bordeaux
Saturday 28 March 2009 – 9:46
Tomorrow myself and three colleagues will be heading to Bordeaux for the annual en primeur tastings. This will be the fifth year I’ve enjoyed (and blogged) about this experience. In the Anglo-Bordeaux trade that makes me a mere whipper-snapper, but I like to think I’m starting to get the hang of it now. Looking back [...]
