by Caspar Bowes

The tasting room at Château Barde Haut with St Emilion vineyards beyondFirst and foremost, I have to state that there are a great many worse places to find oneself on a wet Thursday morning than in the company of Denis Durantou tasting a line-up of his wines. But anyway, I am getting ahead of …

The tasting room at my first stop this morning: La Mission Haut BrionToday's diary didn't really work on paper so I decided to tweak it as per last year. My appointment at Chateau La  Mission Haut Brion was scheduled for 11am and it's always a long visit (of which more in a sec). Abiding by tha…

Display at Chateau du TertreThe weather's done a complete volte face today, deciding morning time is overcast time, threatening precipitation, then finally clearing into blue skies and bright sunshine.A busy day: lots to taste and a fair amount of travelling. I headed north to catch the Union des Gr…

Cos d'Estournel from the terrace outside the tasting room at LafiteFresh is not a word to describe the condition in which I find myself sitting here in my hotel room in downtown Bordeaux having just wrestled with Bordeaux rush hour traffic for the last two-and-a-half hours. Fresh is, however, an en…

Red wine being racked out of a vat. The red sludge left behind is the dead yeast cells.Nuits St Georges was my destination this morning. And to say I was excited about the visit would be an understatement. I'd never been to Domaine Gouges before and it's a long time since I last sampled any of their…