“Lynch-Bages has been one of the most popular and successful wines to emerge from Bordeaux.” – Robert Parker Château Lynch-Bages is one of the largest and best properties in Pauillac, in the Médoc. While officially classified as a Fifth Growth estate, it regularly competes with the First and Second Growths when it comes to quality…
The 2022 vintage broke records in France for its hot, dry conditions – but the wines it produced are far from solar. Fresh from a week spent digging into the vintage with producers and tasting the wines, Sophie Thorpe reports on the remarkable year and the wines it produced There’s been a lot of hype…
Primeurs is the most anticipated week of the year for the fine wine industry. Bordeaux’s top châteaux open their doors, inviting trade and critics to taste the previous year’s vintage from barrel. Our Senior Buyer Rachael Ryan reports on her first experience of the region, the week and 2022 – a year that shows remarkable…
After weeks and months of tasting, the world’s leading wine critics are announcing their verdict on the latest Bordeaux vintage. Here you’ll find a round-up of what they’re all saying, with a summary of each report and the wines they rated most highly, updated and added as they’re released James Suckling James Suckling was the…
Le Pin doesn’t really do events. I guess it doesn’t need to. This tiny 2.7-hectare property produces on average 600 cases each year and the wines are instantly snapped up on release by collectors lucky enough to be privy to the merchants’ miniscule supply. But the team at Vinfolio’s sister company FINE+RARE, after much searching, collated…
“It quickly became the poster child and catalyst for the qualitative revolution in St Emilion and since 1988 there has not been a hiccup”. – Robert Parker Château Angélus is one of Saint-Emilion’s finest properties. Angélus is one of the few Saint-Emilion properties today that has remained under family ownership since its inception over 237…
“This estate has produced only exceptional wines over the last three decades.” -Robert Parker Château Margaux is one of Bordeaux’s most historic and famous estates. The only classified First Growth in Margaux, it epitomizes the appellation’s elegance, while producing wines with fantastic aging potential. Margaux’s roots date back eight centuries. The Margaux site was originally…
Second wines are no longer à la mode. In Bordeaux, these junior siblings – traditionally made with declassified fruit from the Grand Vin – are being rebranded as alternate expressions of a château. While this has fast become a familiar trope among the region’s master marketeers (who wants to suggest that anything is lesser?), for…
When the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce ranked Bordeaux’s leading estates by price for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, I doubt they anticipated we’d still be using it over 150 years later. Napoleon III had asked the team to put together an exhibition for the world fair, and the Chamber of Commerce neatly passed…
While Bordeaux’s Left Bank was classified in 1855, the Right Bank didn’t establish an equivalent ranking until the 1950s. There are classifications for the Graves, Sauternes and Barsac, as well as the Médoc across the Gironde, but it is only Saint-Emilion that has been classified on the Right. How does Saint-Emilion’s classification work? The classification…
Our team at FINE+RARE in London recently hosted an event with Château Ausone at Hotel Café Royal, tasting nine vintages of the wine, as well as a flight from the Vauthier family’s other estates. It was a rare opportunity for the team, the guests and Edouard Vauthier himself to taste so many vintages of this…
Sauternes might be the most distinctive wine on the planet. Its combination of power, unctuosity and aromatic complexity is unparalleled. These extraordinary wines consistently compete with the finest wines made anywhere in the world. But unlike most wines of the world, Sauternes’s journey from vine to bottle is a tumultuous affair. Typically, over half the…