Puneet’s En Primeur Bordeaux Tour - Day 2

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.

An iconic site in the Medoc owned by Brono Borie. They have a lovely dog on site and Brino’s mother known as Madame Beaucaillou is now 97 years old and still busys herself around the Estate. An eclectic Chateau full of vitality and life, with a brimful of overt aristocracy. I mean all the Chateaux belong to the aristocracy, but here you can feel the old money in the skin of the people and the walls of the building. Yet I’d take these people over Elon Musk any day.

A very enjoyable stroll around Château Beychevelle tasting Saint Julien and Listrac Medoc wines. Saint Julien had a good showing the freshness, balance, perhaps the alcohols were a bit higher than yesterday’s right bank wines but all in all a good show. Talbot has always been a favourite of mine, but honestly so many good wines. I also had a look at the wines of Listrac Medoc, just North of Margaux on the west coast. These wines will be good value in 2022 such as Clarke, Fourcas Hosten and Fonreaud.

Pichon Lalande and Pichon Baron sit practically across the road from each other in Pauillac and they are the classic fairy tale castles. These would have been the Castles that Rapunzel was trapped in with it soaring minarets at each corner. The great thing about Pichon Lalande is that you are practically sitting on along one edge of Latour and get a great view of the Latour tower. Chateaux dont get any bigger or grander really.

Wow – Lynch Bage’s new winery must be the most advanced I have ever seen and must be the most advanced in the World. A gleaming glass and steel post modern cube on 4 or 5 levels with every widget and widget that you might ever need to make perfect wine….good thing their grapes are pretty good! And then lunch in their barrel hall… I hear the school teacher shout…Wilkins! Actually I don’t but the lunch was very reminiscent of an english school hall canteen except we were drinking exceptionally aged Bordeaux with beautiful food.

I have been drinking and selling Cos d’Estournel for many years, but this was my first visit to the Chateau and in all this time someone had forgotten to send me the memo. The place is a shrine to Indian architecture. I walk past 9 Hedges each shaped as an elephant. The exterior follows Mughal lines of architecture, geometric fountains, intricate minarets, internally the place is plush and exotic. I discover that the original owner in search for investment to keep the Chateau afloat had travelled to India in the early 1800’s (in the knowledge that thirty Brits would be there) and uncovered a whole market by himself. Unconventionally he set up his own bottling plant at the Chateau, and produced, bottled and dispatched the wines to India himself. I wasn’t until 1924 that any other Chateau followed suit and Mouton began bottling themselves. Until then Cos was an outlier in every sense. The owner was nicknamed the ‘Maharaja of Saint Estephe’ an honorific I now have my eye upon! The Chateau labels 2022 as an emotional vintage but as we know now – the results are exceptional.

Their is a lot of cool things about Calon Segur. Firstly is is a Clos 9walled) vineyard one of only a handful in Bordeaux. The label expresses this Clos as a heart which is very cool. Also the Chateau loves the colours of the brightest lipstick gloss red – its sexy and dangerous and chic. And the wines are good! The Chateau claims that ‘The 2022 vintage is characterised by very small berries combining a great richness in tannins and anthocyanins and a great freshness, preserved by the clay of ou terroir’

A quite remarkable Chateau, the place has a ranch feel, indeed being biodynamic they do have many horses, but it is more than that. The place is large, sprawling and steeped in history, it feels oh so Pauillac. Justine Ts=esseron conducts our tasting. More and more we realise the Bordelaise are not completely sure of how they have achieved such a remarkable result in their wine given the frosts, hail and extreme heat weathered by them.

Charlotte Bouygues and Pierre Graffeuille had invited me to an evening at their Chateau – Montrose toi celebrate The 2022 En primeur vintage. Charlotte Bouygues is daughter of Martin Bouygues who himself is son of Francis Bouygues. In the early twentieth Century Francis setup Bouygues International, now one of France’s biggest industrial firms. To put it in perspective these are the kind of guys who have their own exclusive club within the Billionaire’s club. These are also the kind of people who own the big Chateau these days. They are intelligent, sophisticated people and most importantly they know how to retain wealth within a close circle of wealth holders – usually the family. But anyway here I was invited to their party. I had a good group of cohorts in my party group, an Australian somm, some wine merchants from Estonia and a couple of my Negociant team.

In a tight turnaround we finished out Tuesday avo tastings, and headed straight to the party. A splendid entrance, into the magnificent winery foyer, and we are greeted in a Royal line up by the entire Bouygues family. The matriarch is Melissa Bouygues, she cuts an impressive figure and is undoubtedly ‘The Queen’ – Magnificent blond hear, in a satin green ball gown and a pearl necklace and earring set which would test the neck muscles of ‘The Rock’ himself. I greet the Matriarch and we settle on a brief conversation about New Zealand and the fine things in life. I move into the room and pick up a cheeky 2019 Montrose. ‘Slurp’ Oh yes its good.

It seems a big theme for the night is going to be ‘Light’. Some dude has a cool light box. My gang lines up for a lovely black and white contrast photo. “Come back later in the night” he grins…”after a few more wines” We tour round the Chateau, Plenty is going on. I waltz into the barrel room and pick up a 2010 Montrose…wow we’re moving on up a level now, secondary characters, power, fruit and supple tannins…wow. The room is busy, some winery hands are racking a barrel ‘old school’ style, tipping the barrel with a long pulley lever and pouring the barrel wine into a wine glass which is checked by candlelight for lees and sediment and then poured into a new barrel. Another worker solemnly concentrates as he top syphons some aged Montrose from a Methuselah into separate decanters. A 30 metre long garden is set up where everything in the garden is completely edible. I wonder how ‘shroomy’ the mushrooms will be and gulp down a few, seems to put me in a good vibe anyway.

We are ushered into the Montrose barrel room, possibly one of the most impressive of such structures in Bordeaux (and there are a few). Romanesque arches around a large square auditorium both long, wide and high, You could easily fit a couple of large aeroplanes in here. We wait expectantly and are rewarded. I personally have not spent too much time at the ballet, but a duet is performed in and amongst a golden light show at one end of the barrel room. The theme remains ‘From roots to light’ – It lasts 7 or 8 minutes and moves me and my cohorts to tears. My buddies from Estonia tell me how Talin in Estonia is known for its incredible World class ballet, I book a date with them.

We roll out of the barrel room and I am lucky enough to stumble into a Jeroboam upon which a special label is being created that night with a certain amount of guest signatures on the bottle – I sign up. Late that night the bottle is rolled out avec label to much fanfare. And then the launch of Montrose’s first ever white wine. After so much red this is an absolute joy. As a kiwi I am always blown away by white Bordeaux – it has such a large amount of Sauvignon blanc, but the silkiness and texture obtained overlaying the minerality and acidity is something that we do not achieve/seek in our wines. I wonder if Hawkes Bay and Waiheke may be missing a trick here.

The night wears on, the band comes out to play, The Bouygues’ show us that they can dance with the common people. I am whisked into a van and return to Bordeaux centre ville, quite satisfied.