Page 2 - Bordeaux

Ranked Number 4 on Wine Spectator's Top 10 List of 2022, Château Talbot landed its well-deserved recognition.  It comes as a no surprise for Bordeaux connoisseurs and collectors.

The 2019 harvest was Jean-Michel Laporte’s second vintage as general manager of Château Talbot. One of the primary changes he has made in the vineyard is removing leaves earlier than before (mid-June instead of July), allowing more maturity and aeration, which protects the grape bunches from disease. Vinification adjustments include more pump-overs at the very beginning and fewer at the end, as well as earlier extraction, which he feels avoids dryness and astringency. Lastly, he increased the proportion of new oak slightly, from 50 percent to 60 percent, giving the wine a richer, more sumptuous feel without an overly oaky flavor.

"Well-built and rather refined for the vintage, with a deep well of red and black currant paste and plum reduction flavors supported by

What is the best wine for pairing with food served at Thanksgiving dinner?  Every year, we get asked this question.  Our go-to wine selection is always pinot noir, preferably one from Burgundy.  As wine professionals and enthusiasist know, pinot noir is a food-friendly wine that often shows classic fall flavors: cranberry, red apple skin, dried leaves, and allspice.  Our favoriate pinor noir from Burgundy is Chambolle-Musigny, a tiny village sandwiched between Echezeaux/Vougeot and Morey-Saint-Denis.  Here is a detailed map of the small area called Chambolle-Musigny.  The wine we present in this month's selection comes from Les Groseilles, a lieu-dit bearing its own name.  Once named, lieu-dit usually refers to the characteristics of the plot of land, a step deeper into the concept of terroir.

Mazzei Concerto di Fonterutoli is one of the most influential Italian wines that shaped the Super Tuscan movement and created a global phenomenon in the 1980s.

It's about time that you think of the best wines as liquid yet hard assets.  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary insights.  2022 has been a tough year for investors.  Bonds and stocks have sold off in tandem.  Real estate is also starting to wobble.  Have you got wine in your portfolio?

Last weekend (August 6 & 7), the Financial Times published an article on the front page highlighting that fine wine is passing the test as hedge against inflation.  If you wonder how fine wine has performed over the past 20 years, here’s a chart by Liv-ex showing two indices: one is a basket of the top 100 wines, the other is a basket of the top 1000 wines.  Both have performed positively.

A separate study of an index of fine wine over the last 30 years has shown that wine has delivered a 10% compounded annual return.  For comparison, here’s a chart showing how the purchasing power of US dollar has held up since 2000, according data from BLS and St. Louis Fed.

What is the rising price

Winemakers, by default, are in love with their land, and, by extension, everything that grows on it.  We mean everything, even weeds, which is a byproduct and feature of the soil the biodynamic farming movement has come to embrace.  But we can think of only one winemaker who loves his trees so much that he names every wine he makes after trees.  Yes, we are talking about Jacques Thienpont, the legendary winemaker of Le Pin (“Pine”), L’If (“Yew”), and L’Hêtre (“Beech”).

You may have heard of Le Pin, one of the most coveted (ahem, expensive) wines from Bordeaux, and any wine-producing region in the world, for that matter.  Le Pin is proof that sometimes the most unassuming properties have an unbelievable amount of untapped potential (for a producer in a similar setup today, check out Le Pin's neighbor, Château La Violette).  Who could have possibly imagined that a little known Pomerol estate with a dilapidated farmhouse, a tiny plot of vines among which a single pine tree grew

Heat wave seems to be everywhere, the dog days of summer are upon us.  There is always a good glass of wine to help you get through the season.  Our first choice is Henri de Villamont's Auxey-Duresses La Canée 2015 - a crisp, un-oaky chardonnay from Côte de Beaune, Burgundy.

We also present Château La Lagune 2017, a softer and more expressive wine from Haut-Médoc, produced by the talented winemaker Caroline Frey, whose family also owns the legendary Jaboulet wines in the Rhône Valley.  Its soft and feminine profile can sometimes lead consumers to mistaken La Lagune for wines from Margaux, not Haut Médoc – some even consider them “Burgundian.”

Our feature selection for the month of August 2022 is Château Siran 2018 - The Wine Enthusiast's #1 pick of its "Best Wine of 2021", as announced in November, 2021. Without a doubt, Château Siran is in a class of its own.

To top it off, our special selection for August is Siepi Toscana 2019 from Castello di Fonterutoli.  It is a storied estate

- 2021 La Conseillante

As one of the best Pomerol wines sought after by collectors, La Conseillante is a consistent top performer throughout the ebbs and flows of Bordeaux.  In a great year, it is superb.  In an average year, its consistency is stunning: dense, succulent, and seductive.

2021 presented challenges the team at La Conseillante was well-prepared for.  After all, this vintage marked the 150th anniversary of the ownership under the Nicolas family.  Throughout the year, the team worked consistently in the vineyard and the cellars, making decisions to craft a wine that demonstrated their deep roots and attachment to their terroir.  Through severe selection that led to a 20% decrease in the volume produced, the winemaker delivered another remarkable result in what was an uneven year.

To commemorate the vintage, each bottle is engraved with the markings of "150e Anniversaire".

"Flavoursome, sculpted, successful, this is rippling with

What makes a perfect wine?

To a large extent, it is up to the climate.  2022 was a hot and dry year in Bordeaux.  Old hands compare it to 2003 as 2003 is remembered as the first vintage with such climate conditions.  Like so much else, these two years were not identical, but they rhymed.

Hot and dry conditions favor wine estates with clay soil, as they can produce wines with a heavy portion of Merlot that thrives on clay.  Gravelly soil, on which Cabernet Sauvignon usually thrives, tends to fare less well in hot and dry conditions.  The vines don't get enough hydration as the soil stays dry during the growing season, and drains water quickly even when occasional precipitation comes, which was rare in 2022 anyway.  As a result, vines in 2022 didn't grow as much as they normally would, yielding berries that are smaller.

Cheval Blanc, the Right Bank heavyweight, has a naturally endowed heavy portion of clay in its soil.  Still, watching the grape grow in the hot and dry conditions

This morning, we woke up to the jaw-dropping news that Château Angélus just announced it had withdrawn from the Saint-Emilion classification, to save itself from the unjust legal attacks for over a decade.

The legal case culminated in a recent court ruling against the former head of Angélus, Hubert de Bôuard.  He was found guilty of "undue influence" while serving on the government appointed body which set the rules on promoting Saint-Emilion producers to various ranks.  Under these rules, Château Angélus was promoted into the top rank - Premier Grand Cru Classé A of Saint-Emilion.

Until Château Angélus and Château Pavie were promoted in 2012, only Château Ausone and Château Cheval Blanc were recognized as Premier Grand Cru Classé A of Saint-Emilion.  Unlike the Left Bank that has stuck with the original 1855 Classification of Médoc, the Right Bank Saint-Emilion appellation operates under the rule of "every 10 year a revision of rankings".  2022 is the next

We have carried Château Siran year after year, believing our customers will be won over once they taste this unpretentious but well-made wine.  It took a #1 ranking by a popular magazine to convince the buyers we haven't served before to clean out our cellar.  By popular demand, we have restocked this wine in Bordeaux and will be shipping it into the states next spring.  Pre-order yours now if you are curious what kind of top-ranked Bordeaux $45 can buy.

To the insiders, Château Siran has been a hidden gem for quite some time.  As Bloomberg wine columnist Erin McCoy and Decanter Magazine previously reported, the 1955 vintage of Château Siran was used by convicted wine counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan as a primary ingredient in the blend to fake old vintages of Château Lafite and Château Margaux.  Even some of the auction house critics were fooled.  Is that reason enough to cellar some Siran 2018 to taste it again in 10, 20, or 30 years?

"Medium to deep garnet-purple