En Primeur Insights: The Château MD
August 22nd 2011, by Gavin
I recently interviewed a fellow ‘Brit in Bordeaux’ for the subscriber section of JancisRobinson.com. There’s a great deal of free content on the site but for any wine enthusiast, the ‘Purple Pages’ are well worth £69 a year. Jancis has kindly allowed me to publish the article here:
This is the second in a series of articles looking back at the 2010 Bordeaux En Primeur campaign.
Christian Seely
Englishman Christian Seely is the managing director of the AXA Millésimes group of estates, based at Château Pichon-Longueville in Pauillac. Besides this ‘Super Second’, Seely looks after Châteaux Pibran, also in Pauillac, Petit Village in Pomerol and Suduiraut in Sauternes, as well as estates in the Languedoc, Burgundy, Portugal and Hungary. He is also president of the Compagnie Médocaine, AXA’s Bordeaux négociant business.
Gavin Quinney, the owner of Château Bauduc (a recent Wine of the week), interviewed his compatriot about the 2010 campaign. Here is the transcript.
GQ: Why does the campaign have to take so-ooh long?
CS: Everybody agrees it should be quicker and start sooner – it is very annoying for customers. But each campaign has its own rhythm, and each property is waiting for the right moment. It shouldn’t be like that, of course. The timing though is key and it’s an incredibly important decision. There is an unofficial order, or hierarchy, and each property has their own idea of where they’re situated in that order. It’s their decision – and there are hundreds of individual decisions.
Test Your Knowledge of French Wine Regions
July 28th 2011, by Gavin
Wine Quiz
A warning: this brilliant online quiz can be quite addictive, more so if you’re into the geography of French wine regions. It’s in French but the language isn’t a barrier as you simply have to pin the tail on the donkey, as it were.
The trick, other than having an encyclopedic knowledge of French wine, is to be lightening fast to gain extra points. If you get hooked, the upside is that you’ll probably learn about the location of previously unheard-of (and some might say pointless) appellations. Added to which, you’ll see in the menu – top left – that there are questions on French cheeses, towns and rivers: a whole summer’s worth of trivia.
As is often the case, I found the link through Twitter via wine writer @jamiegoode although it seems (according to @hamishwm in his Bella Wines blog) that Jamie Hutchinson got there first on the forum on Tom Cannavan’s wine-pages.com. Whatever, my thanks to these guys for getting me hooked. Let me know how you get on.
Bauduc Rosé Cocktail – Refreshed & Updated
July 24th 2011, by Gavin
Many old friends will be familiar with this Bauduc summer cocktail but you can add another optional ingredient: cranberry juice. This is a great drink that you can prepare in advance of a small party. Without any vodka, it’s pretty low in alcohol too.
Bauduc Rose Cocktail
For 25 long drinks, pre-mix in a very large jug:
2 bottles of Château Bauduc Rosé 2010
50cl Cranberry juice
Lime cordial
A squeeze of fresh lime juice
Slug of vodka (optional)
Keep the mix cold and slice up 3 limes into wedges. When guests arrive, put ice into some tall tumblers and half-fill with the Rosé mixture. Then fill each glass completely with Canada Dry (you’ll need about 2 litres in all). Garnish with fresh mint leaves if possible, and squeeze a small lime wedge over each glass and drop it in.
July Newsletter
July 23rd 2011, by Gavin
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