Tuggy's wine week in Chelsea...

Usually things conspire to make me a day late on my Weekly E-Mail (Some inexplicably call it my Weekly Rant) but this week I have decided that I should be a day early. For those few who did get through last week’s offering they will have spotted that I am making an exhibit of myself, so to speak, at Masterpiece 2011 down where the Chelsea Flower Show usually blossoms. And that would simply be that. Except that in the last few days of setting-up I would have to urge you to come and look at this must see Exhibition. Okay so it doesn’t have too much to do with wine other than I have a stand there plus Ruinart Champagne plus Louis XIII Cognac but if you want the best window shopping you’ll find this summer in London – here it most certainly is. You can avoid the certain rain at Wimbledon, the punch-ups at Ascot and cruise in relative calm. Even if your Drachma or Lira or Escudos is feeling bruised you can always just window shop and I would reiterate that this is truly worth taking a few hours out of your day (or evening) to see.

The quality of goods here from paintings to ceramics to vintage cars to armoury to textiles to posters to sculpture to silver to jewellery (don’t tell the ladies) and boring brown furniture which is anything but is really impressive. The efforts that many dealers have gone to in putting on such a display is quite extraordinary with some indulging in marble floors; glass walls; and entire panelled rooms. Even a full-sized Spitfire sits just inside the entrance. So little to do with wine but I feel compelled to list the days and opening times (and we do have tickets at our Shop if you wish to swing by and collect) as whether you want to buy or just to gawp, you really should come and have a butcher’s…

“Masterpiece 2011” – The Royal Hospital, Chelsea

Wednesday 29^th June – PREVIEW DAY (Special tickets required) – 11.00 a.m. until 10.00 p.m.

Thursday 30^th June 11.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m.

Friday 1^st July - 11.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m.

Saturday 2^nd July - 11.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m.

Sunday 3^rd July - 11.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m.

Monday 4^th July - 11.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m.

Tuesday 5^th July - 11.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m.

A bottle of our R. & H. Lamotte Premier Cru Champagne for the best quote of the week – why you use Huntsworth…why you would recommend us etc…?

Don’t forget, Mark Haisma will be in the Shop on this coming Saturday so come and have a tinnie on him.

Wine, wine and more whine next week.

That’s all folks!

Chardonnay versus Sauvignon-Blanc (£13 to £ 13.50)

Albeit obvious but two textbook summer wines, one Chardonnay, t’other Sauvignon-Blanc.

Chablis can I feel sometimes be the dull cousin of Burgundy and even more so for Petit Chablis. However, William Fèvre has fashioned a beautifully direct and easy drinking example here that doesn’t leave that strong metallic grip around your tooth enamel! Separately, yesterday we both tried an ancient favourite, Isabel Estate from Marlborough in New Zealand. We are both agreed that this is a more substantial, more interesting, more fun example compared to the Dog Point Sauvignon which we have been stocking. That now will be delisted in favour of the Isabel.

Petit Chablis 2009 William Fèvre at £ 13.50 per Bottle

Isabel Estate Sauvignon-Blanc 2010 Marlborough, New Zealand at £ 13.00 per Bottle

Stock of both should be in tomorrow.

Thursday & Friday this week:

As for tomorrow, I am off to Lisbon for a couple of days but Henry Palmer will be holding the Fort so do drop by, if just to check he hasn’t sloped off to watch the Third Test!

He knows all my favourites (and unusually agrees with most of mine) so do have confidence in his recommendations.

Bordeaux 2010

Apologies to hark on about the 2010 Bordeaux En Primeur Campaign but it is pertinent to you if you buy any Grand Cru Classé wine. This will also affect the price you pay for current drinking vintages. While there is a certain logic that if you can ask (and get) 6 Million for your House instead of 5 Million you’d have to be pretty daft if your identical neighbours’ Houses are on the Market for 5 Million and they are struggling to sell at that price. Well, that is the Marker for the 2010 Vintage, the “neighbour” – the 2009 Vintage. Now for one of the greatest, most hyped and most in demand vintages, ever, we can still see the majority of Bordeaux Châteaux on the London Market at the same opening price, now twelve months on. So, if Giscours 2009 is still available at £ 385 why would you be tempted to pay in excess of £ 500 for the 2010? Most 2010’s are 10, 20, 30% more than their 2009’s. Now, if their 2010 was a noticeably better wine, fair enough, in my view however, very few actually are. Different style yes, better wine, only occasionally. So this is not merely a rant of one man’s opinion, the clear availability of those 2009’s at markedly lower prices is the smoking gun, is the proof. You are being asked more than you should.

I had optimistically hoped to buy some 60-65 properties but I am currently looking at a much shorter list of just 15 Châteaux. A sad state of affairs. We have the beautiful 1996 Domaine de Chevalier on our shelf at 5% less than the 2010 release price. How can I hand-on-heart recommend you buy many of these? I can’t. But I can and still do recommend a dozen or so properties, don’t just write off this Vintage altogether but please do ask me before you jump! I don’t want yet another customer to come in and say “oh I bought Giscours & Lagrange & Talbot etc…”!!!

Weekly Indulgence:

Well, somewhat fed up with the Nouveau Riche side of Bordeaux (little complaint on the older stock) I am going to recommend this weekly indulgence of a Rhône Syrah. Not however French but across the border in Switzerland. This is unusual yet classic but fundamentally a really good wine.

Histoire D’Enfer Syrah 2008 Valais, Switzerland at £ 33.00 per Bottle

Deeply coloured but not aggressively so or over extracted.

Textbook Syrah characteristics on the nose with abundant pepper (black and white) and elegant Provence herbs and spices and lavender, truly giving a fair nod to a Côte-Rôtie.

One anticipates a weight and Rhône like heat from the fruit but that simply doesn’t materialize.

 The acidity is quite exceptional and there is a real thread of freshness right through the finish with the still rich but elegant, flavoursome but delicate, black and red fruits and demonstrating real purity.

Of course £ 33.00 is the starting price of a decent Côte-Rôtie or Hermitage but this is Swiss; it is a little different; it is rare size wise; and fundamentally it is that good.

Pleasant from opening but after 20 minutes and more one really began to see that this is not merely a novelty but a fabulous wine to boot.

“Silly Season”

Will Murray Mint go one better than Tim Henman? I have a long standing bet with JXB not. Happy to be proved wrong however.

Normally Formula 1 is, how does one say, a tad formulaic. However Monaco was entertaining and Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix really was one of the best I can remember. Sterling stuff from Messrs Button and Schumacher. Lewis, calm down dear, calm down. Why does Eddie Jordan always have to dress as if he is just going Nightclubbing?

I watched the Finals of “Britain’s Got (not much) Talent”. Okay, so two boys could sing and sing quite brilliantly but in amongst that some of the acts wouldn’t have raised a shilling down your local Pub. The dotty old bat in a skirt the size of a tent with a manky old poodle that could take two steps back and that was it. Truly embarrassing to put this on the World stage. The American version is so different. But we can at least boast a far better, amusing, engaging and dare I say talented panel of judges. I have to be careful here as Piers is a good friend of one of my regulars but really Piers Morgan has no aptitude or talent for judging, in public at least. He may be right more than Mrs Black Sabbath and some guy who looks like a Hairdresser but no spark, no wit, no grace, just no ability. Cringe.

You have to love “The Apprentice” because they are all truly ghastly. After “You’re fired!” I think the most common phrase, hopefully not catchphrase will surely be “that’s what I’m talking about”. Well, if you could communicate in English you wouldn’t be misunderstood in the first place. Why are we still teaching our children to talk like damn bureaucrats in this abysmal Civil Service speak? It is utter nonsense. We have some of the greatest writers in History but seem intent on creating a new bland and mind numbing language. Sir, Lord, his North London-ness whatever puffed up poncification he feels he needs, cannot really wish to give £ 250,000 to one of these Muppets. Give them a proper wake-up call and fire them all en masse.

“We’re all endowed with God-given talents. Mine happens to be hitting people in the head.” - Sugar Ray Leonard

“Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.” – Aldous Huxley

“It is characteristic of committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member’s recollection differs violently from every other member’s recollection.”

– Yes Prime Minister 1987.

Important update and an apology per pro the Bordelaise!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My usual pattern is to contact you concerning En Primeur three times only: my overall and initial view; followed by my individual Châteaux tasting notes of my preferred Châteaux; and then a couple of months on just to mop up with a confirmation of what either you or I think is worth buying. It has worked pretty well thus far. I am loathed to indulge the daily routine and ritual that most Merchants stick to by

e-mailing you with each and every Petits Châteaux. Apologies about this unscheduled addition but I do feel I ought to update you midstream.

Robert Parker had advised that the Bordelaise should exercise caution; the precise and concise Andrew Jefford did too; and yesterday another questioning article in the Daily Telegraph. (Link below if you wish to read on.) Now some will say this is just my opinion that many 2010’s are being pitched too high to start with. I will counter and say that I can offer, as much as one can do, “proof” that I am right! Where does one start? Well, just yesterday the 3^rd Growth Margaux, Château Giscours, popped its head over the parapet giving a U.K. release price of circa £ 525.00 a case. A healthy Parker score, is that so bad? Well given that the (in my view equally good) 2009 Giscours can still be bought in London from £ 385.00 and upwards why on earth should or would a private punter buy Giscours 2010 the wrong side of £ 500.00? I strenuously think you shouldn’t. That to me is what I call pretty concrete proof.

Whilst most are taking the proverbial I am glad to say that there are two camps that aren’t. Those to be applauded like Château Sociando-Mallet who have reduced their opening price since last year by 15-20%. We not only bought Sociando-Mallet (because we really liked it) but are today trying to top-up further on stock given the greed that has unfolded in the last 24 hours. Secondly there are still plenty of decent, though not stellar, properties that have been and still are offering their wines at very fair and sensible prices. Many of these circa £ 200 a case are unquestionably worth buying (Bellegrave from Pomerol; Chasse-Spleen; Clos René; La Louvière; Les Ormes de Pez; Poujeaux to name the most obvious to start).

            A different example – Château Pontet-Canet. The 2009 opened at circa £ 875.00 and on the back of both Parker’s whopping 97-100 points and the fact that 90% of the U.K. Trade really rated and backed this wine. In a matter of days this wine rocketed to a Second Tranche price of £ 1,100.00 to £ 1,200.00. The heat, the rise, the profit happened brutally quickly but now the dust has settled and with one of the most sought-after Estates from 2009, this wine can still, easily, be bought in London at the same £ 1,100.00 to £ 1,200.00 range. So this week, by Pontet-Canet lamping-up their opening price by 39% that ensuing heat, rise, profit has simply evapourated by being added before the starting line. That kind of takes the whole raison d’être of buying En Primeur and certainly the logic of buying Pontet-Canet 2010. Financially I do not see the point. Their was briefly fat to be gleaned from the 2009 but at this release price the fat has already been extracted from the 2010. This is one of the few wines selling fast right now but I cannot envisage this going to bona fide drinkers but to besuited traders treating this as a commodity only and one that they will likely never see, never touch, never taste. Congratulations Monsieur Tesseron. Furthermore, fabulous though this wine is, it is a vast 120 Hectare Estate and he makes virtually no second wine. Lamping up the price to this degree I simply do not agree with. Château Léoville-Poyferré was a short head behind Pontet-Canet in my view last year and with a  similar near optimum Parker score soared to the same price level at circa £ 1,200.00. The 2010, also just released today, initially appears to be more sensible than Pontet-Canet at circa

£ 990.00 but the (unavoidably influential) Parker score is not in the same top echelon as last year but one notch below. So should the price be. Estates are marking their wines up because of Parker scores, in doing so, they should keep in check or reduce when the opposite happens. This combination again makes me feel this is not the must buy that I thought it clearly was in 2009.

            There are a handful of Estates that have risen sharply in the last 2-3 vintages but I think they have either been historically underpriced for the quality produced (Gruaud-Larose; Lafon-Rochet etc) or are simply making better or far better wines than they used to (Gazin; St-Pierre from St-Julien etc). These I take out of the equation and am happy to duly adjust and say, much more expensive but overall a fair price, so no disaster in buying.

            Then there is always the game of comparing better values between Estates. One of my long-term favourites is St-Estèphe’s Château Phélan-Ségur. Having sold a big swathe of their land of to neighbouring Château Montrose I feel the quality this year unfortunately dipped. First time in donkey’s years they have priced themselves above the flamboyant Château Haut-Marbuzet as they added a whopping 20% over their 2009. Though Parker gives them similar scores I definitely prefer the Haut-Marbuzet and it is now cheaper. The far more substantial and complex Château Lafon-Rochet is less than 10% more so, sadly, Phélan-Ségur really is a miss this year. At the top end many people are comparing things as good or great value against Lafite-Rothschild. That is a nonsense, everything is so don’t even begin.

            Then the question marks. The best wines historically come from Pauillac so the lower priced 5^th Growths are usually worth gunning for. The solid (but not inspired) Château Haut-Batailley is normally a fair target. At £ 320.00 for the 2010 there is obvious temptation there but yet again the, perhaps even better, 2009 can be bought for circa £ 270.00. That means 13-17% up (different Négoçiant pricings) so not a mistake but not a must-buy either. And Château Talbot up by 10%; and Château De Fieuzal up by 11-12% up, it goes on…

Another small detail is that these 10-20% price increases are really underplayed. Given that the Sterling – Euro rate-of-exchange is almost 5% worse off than this time last year this also goes against the bottom-line equation. Then the Chinese question. Yes they are going relatively mad for a select few names like Lafite-Rothschild and Carruades and only yesterday I had a Hong Konger in who confirmed that he had been served red Bordeaux with ice but no Estate will be honest enough to say how much, what percentage they are actually selling to the Orient. Is it like the Champenoise pre the Millenium hyping the Market? I have no doubt that China is a serious factor but just doubt that it is quite as big as any Château owner has intimated to me. I think one of the misconceptions that the Bordelaise work with is that everything in a Vintage like 2009 is sold and often sold-out within days or hours even. That is because the Négoçiants take their allocation and then the Merchants in turn take their allocation. Job done! Not exactly. If a London Merchants buys 500 cases of Château X and only sells half of them, and the remaining half are still being listed by them a year’s hence at the same price (in real terms a few percent decline) then this is an artificial picture. The Bordelaise are busy patting themselves on the back but if the Trade end up carrying and even subsidizing large stocks, it is not all as it seems. The Bordelaise see 2009 as a terrific success and raise their 2010’s by 10%, 20%... I can only say thank you to Sociando-Mallet (and a few others) for being pragmatic and considered. This is a very delicate eco-system but alas all too many are looking in one direction only and as Oscar Wilde once said, “we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars”.

To conclude, should you buy Bordeaux 2010?-  Unequivocally, yes!

Should you buy in the same manner as you did in 2005 and 2009? - Unequivocally no!

I will release next month a list of Châteaux that I am fully confident that the price is a fair representation to their given quality but just advise that

this list will be significantly shorter than my recommendations in 2005 & 2009. Sad but that is the way much of Bordeaux is headed.

http://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/527275/jefford-on-monday-bordeaux-2010-the-titanic-campaign

Of the Estates thus far released, we still believe in:

Beaumont

Picque-Caillou

Angludet

Bellegrave

Clos René

La Louvière

Haut-Marbuzet

Lafon-Rochet

Les Ormes de Pez

Chasse-Spleen

Poujeaux

La Croix St Georges

La Confession

Sociando-Mallet (seeking more)

Gazin

Gruaud-Larose (sold-out for now)

What we add from here onwards, remains to be seen!

Finally - affordable Bubbles!

With HMR&C continuing to pillage from wine drinkers, a decent Champagne can perhaps absorb the whopping £ 33.37 of Import Duty per case but this same amount applies to all the also rans with bubbles – Cava; Franciacorta; Lambrusco; & Prosecco etc. Apart from a half-decent Prosecco we have tended to dive straight in at Champagne and leave the hangover inducing Cava’s that rarely cost more than a Euro to the lesser Supermarkets though with taxes etc end up not far short of a tenner. Spend a smidgen more and you can get something not fractionally better but many times better. This Crémant de Bourgogne is a really good foil as a budget Fizz and I picked this up as one of three selections at the London International Wine fair last month.

Crémant de Bourgogne “Blanc de Noirs” at £ 12.50 per Bottle

With ever continuing concerns over higher alcohol wines (many recent Bordeaux 2010’s circa 15%abv!) this is quite refreshing and modest in comparison at bang on 12% abv.

Here is a full-bodied, flavoursome but classically dry alternative to Champagne. If you can survive without Champagne then this is a cracking and sensibly priced alternative.

Most non Champagnes I find can have a curious after taste to them but no such criticism here.

A few cases in stock and more to follow.

Temporary Insanity – Bordeaux 2010

Fortunately there are unequivocally some 2010 Bordeaux, mostly around the circa £ 200 a case range, that are definitely worth buying but the doors of the asylum have really now been open in Bordeaux. Château-Pontet-Canet has increased their opening price by almost 39%! The raison d’être of buying En Primeur is slowly being eroded. Château Giscours has increased their price by 20% today. This is just pure greed, utter stupidity in my view. The Giscours 2010 should be on the U.K. Market today at circa £ 500 to 525 a case. Given that you can still buy the Giscours 2009 (in my view, a better wine) for £ 385 you’d have to be daft to buy the 2010. I cannot see a single good reason to buy Giscours 2010. Until some of the biggest names in the Wine Trade publically reject (and humiliate) those offending Châteaux we are destined to be offered overpriced examples for many years. Thankfully some Châteaux are still playing fair and pricing as I see it, correctly. For most of us as wine loving buyers I simply recommend going retro or reducing the net and honouring those that aren’t taking the proverbial Mick. Selectively, even 2005 & 2009 are worth topping up on. So, don’t dismiss 2010 altogether but I’m afraid do dismiss most of it. That is my job discern and whittle down appropriately and I will ruthlessly and fully opinionated as ever, tell you which I think you should simply (sadly) no longer bother with. But also advise those still worth gunning for.

Silly-season:

I am so incensed with Bordeaux’s greed today that I am taking time-out from my usual weekly rants. I need to go off and watch my son play Cricket, have a good lunch somewhere and re-align!

Local Councils; Britain Has Got (not much) Talent; The Apprentice etc will all have to wait ‘til next week.