Oeno-File, the Wine & Gastronomy Column

by Frank Ward

Posts Tagged ‘Bordeaux’

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Four Quartets : Four Vintages of Four Top Clarets

Posted by Frank Ward on May 27, 2016

AvatarMay 2016. A grouping of leading Bordeaux châteaux got together in London recently, each showing four recent vintages – 2012, ’13, ’14, and ’15 – of their grand vin. A most illuminating exercise: every sample showed how each of the châteaux responded to the complex, and unique, set of problems and opportunities presented by each vintage. Here are my impressions from four of the properties […].

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A Look at some 2013 Clarets, white Graves & Sauternes

Posted by Frank Ward on October 31, 2015

AvatarOctober 2015. Everybody knows that the 2013 vintage in Bordeaux was an extremely difficult one. Nonetheless, some of the greatest estates managed to fashion creditable wines, wines which would, in some cases, give more pleasure over the next few years than many much greater wines from greater vintages, that are completely closed up now and require decades of further storage. That being said, some 2013s at the top end will live for 20-30 years. Cool rainy years impose serious limitations on most properties.[….]

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Château Margaux and the City of Bordeaux

Posted by Frank Ward on August 30, 2015

AvatarAugust 2015. On my way to attend a banquet at Château Margaux, given “in honour of the international press”, I got to thinking about how to make the very best of the trip down to Bordeaux, over and above the pleasure afforded by the convivial gathering that awaited me – and several hundred others – at that renowned First Growth. After all, international travel is time-consuming, even if inside Europe, so you should extract as much as you can from each and every single trip. Every hour of our short life is precious; and every hour of boredom erodes the quality of that life. [….]

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Calon Ségur Tasting & Visit to Manoir des Quat’Saisons

Posted by Frank Ward on July 14, 2015

AvatarJuly 2015. I’ve twice been to Lutyens restaurant on Fleet Street in the last year, in both instances for a dinner combined with a vertical tasting of wines from Bordeaux estates. On this second occasion the Château in question was Calon Ségur – a property I’ve always respected, and even had a kind of nostalgia for, since drinking a quite wonderful 1947 with the late owner, Philippe Gasqueton, at his dinner table at the Château many years ago. Lutyens is a restaurant I might never have visited had I not chosen to attend those two dinners. [….]

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A Fresh Look at Some Top Bordeaux Estates III – Pontet Canet and Pichon Baron

Posted by Frank Ward on January 26, 2015

AvatarJanuary 2015. I first visited Château Pontet Canet, the Pauillac Fifth Growth, in the early 1980s (for more details, see below). It was then undergoing yet another of the many upheavals it had been through since it was first “pieced together” (in David Peppercorn’s words) by Jean-Francois Pontet in the second quarter of the 18th century. He was eventually succeeded by Pierre-Bernard de Pontet, under whose stewardship the Château’s reputation grew markedly. After his death in 1836 it dipped again, which is the reason why, less than two decades later, this fine estate was accorded only Fifth Growth status in the 1855 classification. [….]

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A Fresh Look at Some Top Bordeaux Estates Part II : The Médoc

Posted by Frank Ward on November 11, 2014

AvatarOctober 2014. We’re up early the next morning to cover the not inconsiderable distance from Pomerol, land of the Merlot and Cabernet-Franc, to Pauillac, in the Médoc, principal home of the Cabernet-Sauvignon. In between: the vast spread of Bordeaux – the most beautiful city of France, according to Stendhal – that needed to be circumnavigated. Though this was a bit of a chore, the crossing of the soaring Pont d’Aquitaine always gives rise to certain exhilaration. I never tire, either, of reading the names of the various wine communes as one progresses northwards though the Médoc: Macau, Margaux, Moulis, Listrac, Saint Julien, Pauillac. [….]

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A Fresh Look at Some Top Bordeaux Estates – Part I : POMEROL

Posted by Frank Ward on September 28, 2014

AvatarSeptember 2014. In April of this year thousands of wine writers and members of the wine trade flocked to Bordeaux to taste the 2013s – a vintage they already suspected was “disastrous”, or simply downright bad. I was not among them. At that stage the only ’13 claret I‘d tried was the Mouton Rothschild 2013, sampled at a vertical tasting in London in February. I found it very good, within the context of the vintage. I travelled to Bordeaux three months later, in late May, not specifically to look at 2013s but to visit a few great estates that had always been among my favourites. While happy to sample any 2013s that came my way while there, my main purpose was just to see [….]

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Counting Moutons

Posted by Frank Ward on April 5, 2014

AvatarApril 2014. Trinity House, overlooking the Tower of London, was the recent venue for a tasting of every vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild from 2011 to 2003, together with a mock-up of the infant 2013. Philippe Dhalluin, the man in charge at this renowned First Growth, was there to talk about the wines. In a daring – and unconventional – move, a sample was offered of Mouton’s grand vin from the 2013 vintage, a year that’s largely been written off by trade and collectors alike [….]

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Tasting le Pin for Two Pins!

Posted by Frank Ward on March 5, 2014

AvatarMarch 2014. Together with Andrew Jefford, well-known wine writer, I am poised to taste two vintages of Château Le Pin, a Pomerol that, since its creation in the early 1980s, has achieved what’s called cult status. Collectors have shown themselves willing to pay several thousand pounds for a single bottle, especially for the 1982. The 1982 was, in fact, the very first vintage of this rare wine, made from a plot measuring a mere one-third of a hectare. The most amazing of all, the vines – mostly Merlot – in that first vintage were only four years old [….]

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Two Great Writers Comment on Wine

Posted by Frank Ward on November 24, 2012

The phylloxera epidemic was raging in all of the wine regions of France in the late 19th century, threatening their very existence. We read a lot about its devastating effect on viticulture and on wines, but precious little is written about the effects the wine-louse exerted on the lives of ordinary people in that era. In his fascinating book “Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes” (1879), Robert Louis Stevenson throws some light on this subject. 

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