Welcome to the Bauduc blog.
My name is Gavin Quinney and, along with my wife Angela, I run a 75 acre vineyard near Bordeaux, making upmarket house wines for leading British chefs Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein. Most of our wine is sold direct to private customers at home in the UK – clicking here or the big red blob marked Château Bauduc, at the top of any page, will take you to our website. Delivery takes just a few days, as we keep plenty of stock in our Surrey warehouse.
We live at Bauduc (pronounced ‘Bo-dook’ or ‘Beau-dook’, as in Gay Duke) with our three girls – Georgie, aged 17, Sophie, 14 and Amelia, 11 and 8 year-old son Tom. We also have a charming 4-bedroomed farmhouse, with a lovely garden and private pool, which we let out to friends and visitors – more on the main site here.
With another hat on, I write the Bordeaux ‘en primeur’ report for Harpers Wine & Spirit magazine, having been the Bordeaux critic for ‘Wine & Spirit’ since the 2005 vintage, before the title merged with the trade mag called Harpers. I also write the occasional blog post for Liv-ex, the leading fine wine exchange. I’ve been tasting all the top wines of Bordeaux En Primeur for over ten years, and following these up in bottle.
Wine has always been my passion big thing but not my profession. I left a great job running the UK sales force of a fast-growing computer business and bought this petit château in 1999 after cashing in my share options. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine a less tax efficient way of investing one’s ill-gotten gains, and buying a vineyard – then replanting half of it – is not a good way to make money.
Why Château Bauduc? I actually came to taste the wines, and had a strange feeling when I drove up the drive. When the owner said that he was selling not just the wine but the whole shooting match, I got a bit carried away. The next day I called Angela and asked her to hold on that offer for the house in Putney. How would she like to live on a vineyard in France, I ventured. “Great,” I said, after a vaguely positive reply.
“I’ve just bought a chateau.”