Wine Trips Archive

Bordeaux 2010 En Primeur Tastings – Day 1

Having arrived in Bordeaux on Sunday evening and had a quick dinner at Le Noailles, Alison (Buchanan), Paul (Marus) and myself set off early for Latour. The day was one of Châteaux visits as the big Union des Grands Crus (UGC) tasting did not start until the Tuesday. Wherever possible,...
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Wine Trip to Bordeaux: where to eat…

A beautiful city and a food & wine paradise, Bordeaux has plenty of good restaurants to choose from. Here are the places our team visited in April 2011. View C&B Wine Trips: where to eat in Bordeaux in a larger map Le Noailles 12 Allée de Tourny, 33300 Bordeaux Tel: +33 5 56 81...
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Benjamin Romeo – Rioja with a difference

The English voice of our sat-nav sounded very out of place as we wound our way through the steep, narrow streets of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, the tiny hilltop village which Benjamin Romeo - trailblazing Riojan winemaker - calls home. We were racing against the setting early spring sun, so...
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Château Phélan-Ségur Vertical Tasting

The C&B tour bus pulled into Château Phélan-Ségur’s gravelled courtyard with a cloudless blue spring sky as a backdrop. Phélan-Ségur was our first stop of the day, so we were on time for once and had a few moments to take in the rows of vines stretching away from the...
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A Medieval Tasting at Château de Lamarque

With the inspirational philosophies of François Mitjavile ingrained in our thoughts, we headed to our next appointment. Château de Lamarque, a gem of a property in Haut-Médoc with whom we have enjoyed a long and strong vinous relationship. The drive from Saint-Emilion would take a while but as a South...
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“We are forbidden to create” François Mitjavile – Tertre Roteboeuf & Roc de Cambes

The C & B pilgrimage from Domaine de l’Aurage to Tertre Roteboeuf, (owned by his father, François Mitjavile) just down the road in Saint-Emilion took no time at all. We were warmly greeted by François, escorted to the back gardens of the house and perched carefully on a wall with a dangerously...
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C&B Trip to Louis Mitjavile’s Domaine de l’Aurage

From immaculate topiary and raked gravel to a vineyard governed by passion alone. The contrast between the Ch. Hosanna and Domaine de l’Aurage is extreme, yet the journey is only 10 minutes by bus, and the owners are the best of friends. We were here to visit Louis Mitjavile (pictured above),...
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Octavian’s Corsham Cellars – Discovering why this is known as the UK’s best storage facility…

A windy and grey day in February could not have been a more perfect time for a Corney & Barrow trip underground. Myself and a few curious colleagues were on the mid-morning Bristol express with an afternoon ahead at Octavian’s storage facility in Corsham, Wiltshire. Our car pulled up at a...
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Romanée-Saint-Vivant 1999-2009

What difference a couple of weeks can make. Two weeks previously I had been in Burgundy to collect samples for our Burgundy ’09 tasting. The vineyards were thick with frost and difficult to discern through freezing fog. As Adam Brett-Smith and I arrived later on in the month, the fog had...
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Golden Barrels – Gascony’s Liquid Gold

  In July this year we took a group of customers down to Gascony to visit one of our producers by the name of Plaimont (you may have already seen my colleague James version of events, in his blog post Plaimont and all that Jazz...) Among their wines that we represent, one of...
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