A trip to Bordeaux

Off to Bordeaux tomorrow. Quite how I’ve managed to masquerade as a wine writer for this long without actually setting foot in the place is a mystery. Because, whichever way you cut it, Bordeaux is “HQ” and right now Claret Central is swarmed with buyers sizing up the prospects for the 2008 vintage. (It looks “mixed” but, as I write, Château Latour have just announced that the “en primeur” price for their wine – one of the first to be released - will be almost 45% down on 2007. I suspect, though, that this tells us more about this year’s economic climate than the effects of the weather in the vineyards last summer.)

Bordeaux was in the hands of the British for three centuries until 1453 and my guide book tells me with a straight face that it was the popularity of the region’s wines in Blighty that got it all going. The Bordelais might say that it's taken this long to clear up the mess. I don’t know about the mediaeval product but my experience of the region’s wines today is that quality has never been higher (although random claret-buying – especially under a tenner – should still be classed as a dangerous sport in my book).

I’m sticking my neck out to say that the same caveat doesn’t apply to Bordeaux’s over-looked dry whites but the improvement in standards in Graves, Pessac-Leognan and even Entre-Deux-Mers has been extraordinary.

I’ve always been a confirmed Francophile wine-wise, mainly because there’s virtually no style of wine you can’t find there. The fact that France is so “provincial” – in the most positive way that I can spin the term – means that the same microcosmic benefit is often to be had within individual appellations. So don’t miss out on the sweet glories of Sauternes and Barsac and relax with some of the most characterful rosés to be had anywhere while you work out how to pay for the Latour.