Puneet’s En Primeur Bordeaux Tour - Day 1

Every year, thousands from around the world descend upon Bordeaux for what the locals call “Crazy Week” where the wine industry’s finest come to visit the famous Chateaus of the region and sample hundreds of the latest vintages. In the first of a series, Puneet recounts his experience visiting the region and just what to look out for from 2022.

A beautiful morning. I wake up in Hotel Normandie – right in the centre of Town. In the breakfast room, quiet, just one or two others, I’m sure industry people. The buffet has the most delicious mini sausages and amazingly golden scrambled eggs – I pair this with some fresh hams and crusty bread. I will need to eat well – over the next four days. For I (together with a couple of thousand of the most influential industry types globally) will be visiting dozens of the most famous Chateaux and tasting hundreds of wines, all barrel samples of the 2022 vintage. In Bordeaux the Locals call this ‘The Crazy week’. The continued global fame, allure and almighty wealth of this region rests on the consensus of the cognoscenti during this week – The Bordelaise pull out all the stops, the red carpet is laid out in style, the magnificent Chateau are all puffed up, exquisite gardens manicured and barrel halls and wine cellars are polished to space station cleanliness. This is a global PR exercise that has been conducted in this manner for centuries and is now finely tuned for maximum seduction. On the way out of the breakfast room, I grab a choc au pain. I meet my negociant contact outside the hotel – Adrien. He wears a very cool orange neck scarf. We jump into a cool Mercedes van – very ‘A Team’ and then pick up the various cohorts of our eclectic tasting group. Tom from the UK, Madame Honda from Tokyou and Dimitri and Svetlana from Moscow. And so we drive into Bordeaux wine country with today’s schedule very much a ‘Right bank’ day for our group.

A gentle mist has rolled over St Emilion and now the Easter sun is already taking hold at 9:30am. We enter the gravel courtyard of Beau-sejour Becot. A winding iron staircase around the brick tower brings us into the beautiful tasting room. We meet with Julien Becot (partner of owner Juliette Becot)and Jean de Cournaud, technical director. The estate under in its current family has now been owned for 3 generations, but like many many Chateaux in the region – the wines have been planted for over a thousand years.In recent years, the vines have been planted from an East west orientation to a North South Orientation. Julien explains how in the vineyard the team are becoming more data aware. They analyse the vineyard point to point in clusters of 30 vines at 3 times per year and add these results (soil type, moisture and so forth to a computer generated soil health map. This helps them to determine specific management techniques for ultra small parcels within the vineyard

We drive Into the car park, I start to learn that as the Chateau is higher up the hierarchy, so with it comes more security. Various gendarme types meet us at the car park and again at the Chateau gates. Adrien our negoce works his charm and connections and we breeze on through. We meet with owner Blandine de Manoncourt. I find it incredible that we taste just one solitary wine and yet the entire waelath of this estate is built on this one product. It goes to show that you do not need a plethora of wines and wine styles to grow and carve out a significant market niche. Blandine is very happy, not only with the wine but that the Estate has been reclassified into the top elite status of Saint Émilion Classe A this year. We begin to hear what becomes a familiar story for the whole vintage. 3 serious weather events in the year. Spring frosts, followed by hail, followed by record high temperatures mid growing season. The worry was for an over ripe over extracted vintage – but by some growing miracle the vines at harvest displayed incredible freshness, power and tension and this comes through in the wines. After the tasting – our tasting group is starting to relax and bond – we make some poses at one of the coolest windows overlooking a vineyard in Bordeaux.

We walk down the pristine paths of Cheval blanc to the winery – the mid morning freshness remains with us. The day really is very pleasant. We bump into General Manager (and resident genius) Pierre Lurton also walking in, opting for the double breasted jacket over the polar neck and worn leather satchel – he looks every inch the part. We taste in a corner of the winery and Pierre gives us an impromptu 5 minute Masterclass. As I write these notes now having finished the week, and I reflect on the vintage – then Cheval blanc is easily the superstar of the vintage – It will be exceptional from the day it is released and for many many decades.The Saint Emiilio blue clay over limestone bedrock soils allowed water to retain in the heat of the year and to provide a remarkable ripeness and freshness..

Canon feels quaintly french. You feel that every lunch time the local boulangerie sends baguettes to the workers. It has an elegant charm, a simplicity that speaks to sophistication. Its GM Nicolas Audebert gave us one of the most succinct and knowledgeable appraisals of the vintage of anyone over the week, and he also rang the Canon bell for us!.Essentially many variables were at work to what appeared on the surface to be a ‘dog of a vintage’,to actually turn out to be one of the great vintages with exceptional balance in ripeness, freshness, power and flavour profiles. In some ways the vines adapted themselves to the difficult climatic conditions, their roots went deeper as temperatures soared, possibly as a memory from recent hotter years. The clay soils retained enough water to provide energy for the vines in the hottest months. The vignerons worked carefully with leaf management trying to find the right balance between managing photosynthesis and keeping the berries shaded.

The bells of Chateau Angelus are iconic, I was told they would not ring for me, but there they were ringin’ aplenty as we entered the Estate. The other things I learnt is 1) the people at Angelus love Chandeliers starting from their grand hallway entrance 2) The Chateau owners clearly have a thing about absolutely massive high ceiling barrel halls, the barrel hall at Angelus is splendid and yes several Chandeliers for our gratification 3) The good people of Angelus had decided to label the vintage as ‘Majestic saying ‘The vintage isn’t just unprecedented, it is extraordinary’ 4) They have the most beautiful framed photos of their gnarly old vines at various stages of harvest along their incredible winery hall.5) and finally their wines weren’t too shabby

After an incredible morning in Saint Émilion, where it is dawning how well the right bank has performed in the 2022 vintage, we make our way for a lovely pitstop on the outskirts of Saint Emilion, an AOC called Puisseguin-Saint-Émilion, at the Country home and Chateau of Alain Moses, Chairman and founder of Twins negociants. The garden path to the front of the house is so wonderful, country plants, herbs and flowers line the path, bees busy doing their thing, a stillness of air, we are all very ‘present’ here. La Vasiniere is Alain’s country project and his second home. I comment on how I love the sculptures around the house, created in jet black stone. He comment’s “Really – They are my wife’s – she is a designer from Milan – Everything must be Black or white” It seemed to me he would not be too averse to some alternate colours in his house from time to time. I supped the 2019 vintage – very nice. The food was jumping off the barbeque, as we learnt more about the TWINS story. Alain set up the business in the 1990’s with his twin sons Antony and Sebastien, and in the late 2000’s handed over the reins entirely to his children. The negociant has an excellent reputation with all the Chateaux in Bordeaux, and also Alain loves Patisserie, in fact who doesn’t love Patisserie – If a French person was a food item they would most certainly be some form of Patisserie. After a lovely lunch we head out to the Chateaux of Pomerol… onwards.

And here we are, the iconic Pomerol. The appellation is so small you can see almost every corner. I really like the label of Evangile, sharp post modern lines although the label is many many decades old, depicting its iconic red winery. Pomerol really is magic. The perfect match of clay, blue clay, limestone and even sand making up its soils. The wines at Evangile are a good start.

Fondly known as VCC to its followers. This Pomerol giant is always a sensory and cerebral Masterclass much in the fashion of its owner Alexandre Thienpont. You feel this as soon as you enter the Estate. Beautiful old Wisteria lines the building. The place has a calmness to it, a sense of ‘perfect fit’ between the winery and its surroundings – I always feel this in the greatest wineries. I love listening to Alexandre, a soft voice and much knowledge about his terroir – he illuminates me that young Cabernet from his sites can fall between aromas of Wisteria and Chamomile

Every Grand Vin in Pomerol is exceptional, and in a vintage like 22 – they are just shining. They say for 2022 ‘Ou of extreme conditions came balance’. Again we receive another Masterclass from Bertrand Nicolas 5th generation at Conseillante, Owner and GM. He notes that Conseillante is on a Plateau. To the North is Petrus with its 100% blue clay soil and therefore 100% Merlot wines. To the South is Cheval Blanc which has more gravel than clay and edges uo further with its Cabernet varieties. To the West is VCC which is mainly gravel and similarly has larger proportions of Cabernet Franc, and to the East Evangile with larger clay proposents and Merlot proportions. For Conseillante they are almost the combined profile of all these terroir with 60% clay and 40% clay/gravel. As we know now, May 2022 was the warmest month ever on record or the region, however by a miracle of nature they had perfect flowering on 18th May.

Ronan Laborde has been running the estate since 2004, his family have owned Clinet since 1999. He wants to keep the Esate modern, fresh, connected to the consumer, producing Grand vins and great value also. He is famous in the region as The Marathon Man’ often seen running around Bordeaux practising for his Marathons. I love this place.

We finish the day at Chateau Nenin, a petit (by relative standards) and exquisite Chateau with lovely mini maze hedges. We enter into the house and are ushered into a beautiful dining roon, with white as its predominant theme and bronzes and artefacts peppering the room as the other feature. A lovely tasting from parent owner Domain Delon and a nice entry into Left bank with Saint Julien

By now our tasting group are a well gelled team. Madame Honda enjoy 12 Latour from Jeroboam and continue in this vain with gems from Jero such as 09 Troplong Mondot 06 L’Evangile and many others – the party was off to a swing – The TWINS team were a joy to get to know, met a fellow Kiwi working at Jeroboams in London, in fact it has been great to reconnect with a lot of the UK fine wine crowd on this trip, before the night can cross the midnight threshold, I am ushered into a taxi and ferried home – this is is only day 1 and we have 3 more days to go!