There are times when you put a question to a winemaker and he puffs out his cheeks and rubs his chin and you know he’s thinking, ‘Journalists.’ When I ask Promontory’s David Cilli what exactly is meant by ‘interpretation of terroir’, he courteously describes the process of trying to get the wine to reflect the character of the land. But he gives the impression my question was like quizzing Monet on how he got his effects. If you don’t get it, you probably won’t. The character of Promontory, on the day I visit, is quite something. It’s early May and the rain, which has been falling steadily all night, has turned to a lashing downpour that has raindrops bouncing six inches off the windscreen. We’re in a jeep piloted by winegrowing director Cory Empting and since turning off the main road we’ve been climbing steadily through dripping stands of oak with pocket-handkerchief vineyards between them. ‘Shall we stay in the car?’ asks Empting. ‘If we could,’ Will Harlan suggests from the back seat. I’m here with Empting, Cilli and Harlan. Bill Harlan has appeared briefly but I don’t see him again until we sit down to taste. He formally handed over control of Harlan Estate, Promontory, Bond and The Mascot in 2021, appointing 37-year-old Will managing director. Cilli (44) arrived in 2012 and is in charge of vineyard and winemaking at Promontory. Promontory is an 840-acre fastness, a deep valley folded into the foothills of Mount Veeder, on the west side of the Napa Valley. From the highway, you think the looming ridge you’re looking at is the edge of Sonoma. But there’s another ridge beyond and between them this interesting domain. It’s remote, even by Napa standards (contrary to opinion, there are plenty of wild spaces in the county). The ultra-refined French Laundry is a couple of miles away but it might be in Wisconsin for all the relevance it has up here. Bill Harlan had come upon it hiking in the 1980s. ‘I used the Carmelite monastery [we’d passed it on the way up] as a base and just started climbing’. There were no vines but he was intrigued by its seclusion. It might be possible vineland for the Napa project he had in mind. In the end, Harlan Estate was founded less than a mile to the north but for 25 years Harlan kept the idea of that parcel tucked under his hat (he never mentioned it, Will says) before it came on the market in 2007 and he snapped it up. "Vineyards, some a mere half-acre, are etched into towering, wooded hillsides and drop down into cavernous combes dense with oak and fir" The owner – the Harlans don’t reveal who that is – had planted 80-odd acres of Cabernet Sauvignon. It was neglected, the vines overgrown. Trees had been felled and never collected. ‘It was a mess,’ Will says. ‘It looked like a logging operation.’ But it is magnificent. Vineyards, some a mere half-acre, are etched into towering, wooded hillsides and drop down into cavernous combes dense with oak and fir. The whole estate is thickly forested, the vines often shaded on three sides. An old drovers’ road, running through the woods, will suddenly open out on a wide vista of vineyard and scree. Everything is deeply, lushly green in the steadily falling spring rain. The geology of the land is unusual, in that it rests on two distinct fault lines and consists of all three soil types that are found in Napa: volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic. ‘You get all three in the same soil pit,’ Cilli notes. This, combined with the wild variation in aspect and the microclimate of the valley-within-a-valley, gives credence to Harlan’s claims that this part of Napa is like nowhere else in California. When the celebrated soil scientists Claude and Lydia Bourguignon came, they found the experience ‘novel’. Cilli said he fell in love with Promontory at first sight. It reminded him, in part, of his native Tuscany, but it was the wildness that captivated him, ‘I love that character that you can see in the wines.’ He said it was probably ‘the only project that could keep me in the valley.’ You get the impression none of them can quite believe their luck. ‘It somehow redefined what looks beautiful,’ Will says. It also redefined their ideas of winemaking. He goes on: ‘We were used to control. Harlan in the 1990s was obsessed with organisation and uniformity but Promontory was wild.’ The theme of wildness recurs. Harvest times are key to ‘find a way for it to come through,’ Will says. Empting: ‘Pick too late and you lose the ruggedness.’ Ageing, in the magnificent Howard Backen-designed chai, is all in Stockinger Austrian oak barrels ranging in size from 10,000 to 46,000 litres, for up to 36 months. ‘The fine-yet-tight tannins required longer barrel-ageing but [we] didn’t want the wine to be overpowered by new oak’. It’s a constant process of refinement and improvement – ‘we learn something new each season’. Empting: ‘It has blown every expectation out of the water. We were excited and we were scared. We didn’t know what this beast would be. Our learning curve has been very steep, it remains very steep. At least now we’re starting to get our arms around it but at the beginning, it was like: God, we cannot figure this thing out.” "I found in the 2016 a moment where the various elements come together: the savoury nose, the fine tannins, the weight without heaviness" You have to remember we’re talking about winemaking here, not Wittgenstein. But ‘interpretation of terroir’, if it’s to mean anything at all, should be taken seriously. I’ve seen vineland all over the world – rock-strewn fields in the Andean foothills, rainless Spanish deserts – but I’ve never seen anything like Promontory. Were I to be tasked with bottling the soul of that vineyard, I’d reach for metaphor as well. And so we come to the missing shade of blue. This is the concept propounded by the 18th-century philosopher David Hume, that an idea can be formulated without a previous sensory impression to give rise to it. He asked, Could a shade of blue missing from a spectrum be imagined by an observer? Harlan says (with a smile – he does have a degree in philosophy) that Promontory is the missing shade of red. ‘Until you’ve seen and experienced it, you don’t know that it’s missing. And so for us this was that final piece. The piece that wasn’t there that we had the opportunity to understand and try to translate into the wine.’ The next morning, in gorgeous May sunshine, we gather to taste. It’s almost the same group, though smaller, that did the mighty vertical of Harlan estate from magnum in 2020. Bill Harlan is there (he sweetly thanks the team for allowing him to taste, saying it’s the first full vertical of Promontory he’s ever done), Will, Empting, Cilli and the journalist Elaine Brown. We wonder, at the end, if there is thread that runs through the wines. In my notes the words ‘deceptively light’ recur, as do ‘structure’ and ‘stone’. Reaching for metaphor again, Will Harlan compares the structure of the 2016 to cathedral stone, which has ‘both weight and lightness. It’s intricately carved and light filters through the windows.’ I found in the 2016 a moment where the various elements come together: the savoury nose, the fine tannins, the weight without heaviness. Will Harlan calls this vintage an ‘inflection point’ and notes how the tannins are the ‘main differentiators’. Yes, agrees Cilli, ‘and because of the character of levity and lift, we have to be precise with the tannins.’ The younger vintages have an astonishing latent energy, tannins under tight rein, aromas bursting, the fruit compacted. Brown and I were struck not by the sophistication of these wines but by their honesty. Brown WhatsApped me later. ‘Promontory is the most transparent to place. The wines are impressively well crafted and elegant while still offering an almost wild or primal complex of flavours.’ "The wines are unmistakeably Californian but they are also unlike anything I’ve tasted in Napa" ‘How do we take wine from a wilderness and have sophistication?’ Will asked. It’s a great question – with their resources, the Harlans could do anything they liked with Promontory. After all, they have to make a wine that will please their audience. But this was so unexpected. The tasting revealed a keen focus on the land and the vintage. The difference between the years was often marked – the challenge of 2015 for example showed in the wine – yet we could see that common thread running through, even as the wines increased in elegance. And what of Will’s quest for the missing shade of red? The wines are unmistakeably Californian – that splendid 2017 could come from nowhere else – but they are also unlike anything I’ve tasted in Napa, which is quite a claim, in the world’s most cultivated wine region. Perhaps the last word should go to Bill Harlan, who started the whole thing. He speaks hardly at all during the tasting, his Old Testament face giving little away. At the end of the morning, he talks of his fascination with the ‘ongoing discovery’ of the project. The wines have character, layers and depth, he says, and – by way of praising their authenticity – he notes, ‘You never know what’s coming next.’

Written for Club Oenologique, contributor Adam Lechmere visits California to trace the evolution of Promontory, one of Napa’s most magnificent sites, with a vertical tasting of 14 vintages revealing the wild beauty, elegance and remarkable evolution of its wines.

Written for Club Oenologique, contributor Adam Lechmere visits California to trace the evolution of Promontory, one of Napa’s most magnificent sites.

Wildness captured: tasting 14 vintages of Promontory

The Thienponts reign over Bordeaux’s Right Bank. At Vieux Château Certan, Alexandre Thienpont – almost always dressed in his Barbour – rules, producing Pomerol of immaculate pedigree, as his family has for over a century now. Nearby, cousin Jacques Thienpont holds court at Le Pin, Pomerol’s original cult address. Nicolas Thienpont is another cousin whose domain stretches out from Saint-Emilion – from Pavie Macquin and Larcis Ducasse across to several estates in the Côte des Francs. And the dynasty continues to grow, as each thread of this complex family finds a new corner of the region to master.  The Flemish family has a long history in the world of wine, having traded French wine (especially Bordeaux) since 1842. Georges Thienpont – grandfather of Jacques, Alexandre and Nicolas) was the first to move into production, buying Ch. Troplong Mondot in 1921, then Vieux Château Certan in 1924. It wasn’t long before the Great Depression hit, however, and Georges Thienpont was forced to sell Troplong Mondot in 1934. Reportedly the only reason he kept Vieux Château Certan was that no one wanted to buy it – with vines holding little allure at the time. It was the château itself at Troplong Mondot, positioned at the highest point in the region and with a view across the village of Saint-Emilion, that allowed him to sell the Saint-Emilion estate. Georges continued to make wine through the Second World War and the devastating frost of 1956. Despite a challenging start, “VCC” (as it is affectionately known by wine-lovers) has become one of Bordeaux’s leading names.  It was Jacques Thienpont, however, who thrust the family firmly into the limelight. It was in 1979 that Jacques, then still a Belgian wine merchant, purchased a 1.6-hectare vineyard in Pomerol. The site had produced generic Pomerol, but Jacques started making tiny volumes of opulently styled wine, naming it after the lone pine tree (“le pin”) that stood on the property. The 1982 vintage was pivotal, receiving significant critical acclaim – especially from Robert Parker – and soon Le Pin became one of the world’s most desirable wines.  Just over 30 years after that first vineyard purchase, it seemed like fate when Jacques went to see a plot of land in Saint-Emilion right next to Troplong Mondot. Previously known as Ch. Haut-Plantey, the potential of the site was clear to Jacques and the symmetry of the Thienponts returning to where their family’s winemaking legacy began seemed fitting. He bought the property in 2010 and put Cyrille Thienpont (his cousin once removed) in charge of its daily running. In keeping with the arboreal theme, he named the Saint-Emilion venture L’If (the yew tree).  The first project the team undertook was a detailed soil map to get to grips with the site. The winery is in Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, just to the east of Troplong Mondot, with five hectares of vineyard around it and another two hectares of west-facing vines next to Saint-Hippolyte. The lower parcels are more eroded and sandier, but much of the vineyard sits on pure limestone and clay. They set about restructuring the vineyard – getting rid of the 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and increasing the portion of Cabernet Franc, with around 25% across the property today (any new plantings were with a massal selection from Pavie Macquin).  In 2013, Jacques bought another hectare or so of vines in Saint-Etienne-de-Lisse, right next to Ch. Puy-Blanquet. Despite the quality of the soils, Jacques was hesitant about buying such a “distant” plot, a whopping three kilometres as the crow flies – or a circa 10-minute drive. They pulled the vines out and replanted this additional parcel, harvesting its first fruit in 2018. Despite its youth, the fruit from the plot has made it into the final blend for every vintage of L’If since 2020 (“Worth the trip,” jokes Cyrille). Even with the significant replanting and this new plot, the average age of vines across the estate is around 40 – with the oldest over 60 years in age.  Work on a new winery finished just in time for the 2023 harvest, allowing greater precision and flexibility – with more space to work (and 16 concrete tanks for their eight hectares of vines). You might expect a flashy building, perhaps designed by a famous architect – but that’s not the Thienpont way. Understatement is everything for this family – and the winery is an almost exact replica of what stood there before, simply with more space inside, designed for simple functionality. In one corner stands an otherwise anonymous stainless-steel tank – the first one that Jacques bought for Le Pin back in 1979.  It was perhaps inevitable that L’If would sit in Le Pin’s shadow. But now, 15 years after Jacques Thienpont bought the estate, with a new winery and the significant work in the vineyards completed, L’If is building its own reputation.  Although the same team is largely involved in both estates, L’If is a totally different site and wine. The cool soils have better water-holding capacity, and budburst is around 10 days later than at Le Pin with its warm free-draining gravels – a gap that often widens as the growing season progresses, meaning harvest is significantly later here. Diana Berrouet Garcia – who acts as Managing Director for Domaines Jacques Thienpont, including both Le Pin and L’If – notes how at L’If the terroir seems to speak louder than the vintage and can better adapt to more challenging conditions, while the vines can struggle – especially in hot, dry years – at Le Pin. Where Le Pin is round, supple and exotic, L’If is linear, taut and mineral; one sensual and spherical, the other just on the right side of severe, with a crystalline quality. Even in the last few years, it’s amazing how the wine is evolving – nipping at Le Pin’s toes in terms of quality. Re-tasting the 2019, it’s amazingly approachable with a perfumed nose and juicy, pure fruit that complements the wine’s natural tension.   It's still comparatively early days for L’If –  and the team has invested significantly, focusing on shaping the vineyard and ensuring they have the tools in the winery to translate the work in the vines. For now, over half the vineyard is being used for the second wine, Les Collines d’If – something that will change in time, as they continue to replant parcels. As it happens, yews grow incredibly slowly – but are also some of the longest-living trees (Perthshire in Scotland is home to the Fortingall yew, thought to be 2,000-3,000 years old and one of the oldest trees in Europe). The Theinpont family is just settling in at L’If, but as they lay down roots, the potential is clear.   The Thienpont family: who does what?  Jacques Thienpont: Owns Le Pin, L’If and L’Hêtre (the latter with his sister Anne de Raeymaeker), but is also a co-owner of Vieux Château Certan. He oversees the family’s original Belgian wine merchant business, the Belgian Royal Warrant-holding Thienpont Wine, which is managed by his wife and award-winning wine writer Fiona Morrison MW.  Alexandre Thienpont: Co-owns and manages Vieux Château Certan with his son, Guillaume, as well as co-owning Le Pin with Jacques. Alexandre and Guillaume also farm the vines at Le Pin, L’If and L’Hêtre, as well as Vieux Château Certan.  Guillaume Thienpont: Manages Vieux Château Certan with his father, Alexandre, as well as making L’Etoile and Les Fillottes with his second cousin, François Thienpont. He also now manages Ch. Guillot-Clauzel, which is not owned by the family.  François Thienpont: Manages the family’s négociant business, Wings, as well as making L’Etoile and Les Fillottes with Guillaume Thienpont and is a co-owner of both Vieux Château Certan and Ch. Puygueraud.  Nicolas Thienpont: Owns and/or manages a group of estates with his son Cyrille: Pavie Macquin, Larcis Ducasse, La Prade, Laclaverie, Charmes Godard and Puygueraud.  Cyrille Thienpont: Owns and manages the Nicolas Thienpont group of properties with his father, as well as managing and making the wine at L’If.  There are many more members of the Thienpont family involved in wine, but these are the most prominent at the time of writing.   Explore all current listings of L’If or read more about Bordeaux 

Le Pin is one of the world’s most famous wines – but it’s just one of the Thienpont family projects. We dissect the dynasty and explore the evolution of L’If, the Saint-Emilion estate that is emerging as one of the region’s most exciting names

Jacques Thienpont created cult Pomerol wine estate Le Pin in 1979, but now he’s got a new project in Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux: L’If 

Exploring L’If: Le Pin’s Saint-Emilion sibling 

If you ever catch the train into Saint-Emilion, you’ll notice that it runs through the heart of the region’s vines. Just behind the station, on the outskirts of the village, lies Ch. Haut-Simard – an unassuming property that just happens to be owned by the Vauthiers – the same family that is behind Ch. Ausone, one of the region’s most famous estates. Over 15 years after the Vauthier family took over the estate, it’s emerging from the shadows – proving just how good a site it is.  Ch. Simard and Haut-Simard – both owned by the Vauthier family today – were once part of the same property, which dates back to the 16th century, named by the Simard family in 1865. When the railway line between Libourne and Bergerac was built in 1870, it ran straight through the vineyards and divided the estate in two. The railway slices across the foot of the slopes of Saint-Emilion, neatly dividing two different terroirs. North of the railway line lies Haut-Simard with more clay and limestone, while the larger Simard lies to the south on sandier soils.   In 1917, the four hectares of the original Haut-Simard were purchased by Leonard and Charlotte Gratadoux. They built a new house and cellar in 1929 – which is still in use today. Claude “Coco” Mazière – Edouard Vauthier’s great-uncle – bought the winery and 10 hectares of vineyard in 1954, the original Haut-Simard and a slice of Simard. Gradually he acquired the rest of the Simard estate and expanded Haut-Simard, with the two estates growing to 50 hectares in total – and, although the two wines were long made separately, from the 1990s Mazière put all the fruit into Ch. Simard.  Great-uncle Coco managed the estates through to his death in 2008. “He passed away almost in his office,” Edouard tells me – emphasising how Mazière worked almost obsessively to the end of his days. When he died, Alain Vauthier – Edouard’s father, who was already responsible for Ch. Ausone, Ch. Moulin Saint-Georges and Ch. de Fonbel – inherited the Simard estate.  “Look at the maps of the soil and look at where Ch. Haut-Simard is, it’s sand, a little bit of clay and a little bit of limestone – it’s a terroir totally suitable for Cabernet Franc,” Edouard explains. “When you dig a little bit, you realise the water table is 10-15 metres below. It’s very deep and very good soil that can produce a great wine.” Indeed, look at the property’s neighbours and you’ll find some illustrious names: Canon-la-Gaffelière, La Gaffelière, Pavie and Larcis-Ducasse are all a stone’s throw away. Haut-Simard may be a mere seven or eight metres above sea-level, but it’s enough to separate it from the flood plain where much of Simard sits.  Realising the potential, Alain decided to separate Simard and Haut-Simard once more (re-introduced from the 2008 vintage) and set about an extensive replanting program for the 10 hectares of Haut-Simard, putting in swathes of high-density (12,600 vines per hectare) Cabernet Franc in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Where the Haut-Simard vines once had around 80-85% Merlot, now 70% of the vineyard is dedicated to Cabernet Franc – focusing on quality rather than quantity.  Little has changed in the winery since it was built in 1929, and the team still uses the original concrete tanks. The fruit is all picked by hand, with density sorting now routinely used, spending around 20 days on skins, with délestage (rack and return) favoured over punch-downs/pump-overs to allow for gentle extraction. Once pressed off, the wine spends around 14 months maturing in around 20-30% one-year-old barrels and the rest in concrete.  As so much of the vineyard was ripped out, volumes were tiny in the Vauthiers’ first few vintages. Fruit from the young vines started being introduced from 2014 and the blend has continued to shift, with the 2022 the first to contain 70% Cabernet Franc. “It changed totally the game,” Edouard says – explaining how they’re finally seeing the fruits of their labours. Even now, only 2,500 cases are produced each year.  For Edouard, the Merlot on sandier parcels brings notes of strawberry, while on limestone it adds liquorice, complementing the Cabernet Franc’s dark fruit and green bell pepper. That dark fruit has built with each vintage as the new plantings come into the blend and vines mature, lending additional texture and structure. The average age in the vineyard is just 15-16 years now, only set to offer more as it matures. This might be a modest wine, but it’s one that has more than enough capacity to age. “I’m sure it will last 15 years with no problem,” says Edouard.   Tasting through a handful of vintages, it’s amazing to see the evolution of the Haut-Simard style -from the more solid 2016 through to the linear, bright, elegant 2022. It’s a wine that has impressed us en primeur for the last couple of years too – punching far above its weight.   Tasting Ch. Haut-Simard  2016 Ch. Haut-Simard: Plummy, sweet and round, this is full-bodied and concentrated, with real density to the fruit on the palate. It’s fresh, with a saline finish, yet there’s a solidity to this, not having the precision, brightness and aromatics of more recent vintages. Blend: 65% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc  2018 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose of the 2018 Haut-Simard is instantly more expressive than the 2016 – combining red fruit and an herbaceous note with a toasty sweetness. It’s more linear on the palate. The intense core of fruit is rich and tightly packed, framed by grainy tannins at this relatively youthful stage. The finish is long and savoury, with a hint of blackcurrant leaf. Blend: 70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc  2019 Ch. Haut-Simard: Floral, lifted and aromatic – the 2019 Haut-Simard is a world away from the previous vintage. Dainty berry fruit – blackcurrants and redcurrants – lead to an elegant, fine-boned palate. It’s precise and juicy, lithe and balanced with fine, chalky tannins. Blend: 60% Cabernet Franc, 40% Merlot  2022 Ch. Haut-Simard: The 2022 is the unashamed star of our mini-vertical of Haut-Simard, and the vintage Edouard Vauthier points to as a fulcrum point for the estate. The nose is sweet and bright, packed with seamless red berry fruit, along with hints of florals and pencil shavings. It is the palate that is so striking, however, driven and long, linear with graphite-etched tannins and mouthwatering acidity. Vibrant, pinpoint and very, very good – especially for the price. Blend: 70% Cabernet Franc, 30% Merlot  2024 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose is perfumed, with intense cherries and lifted florals. There’s a lush intensity to the palate, with a mineral line that sup ports the fruit and complements the bright acidity. There’s lovely concentration here with fine tannins that provide a fine-boned framework. 12.7% and 3.74pH. Blend: 80% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot [tasted en primeur, May 2025]   Explore all current listings of Ch. Haut-Simard or read more about Bordeaux   

The Vauthier family may be most famous for Ch. Ausone, but they own several estates on the Right Bank. Over the last 15 years, Ch. Haut-Simard has seen particular investment. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the property’s transformation – one that you can now taste in the glass 

Over the last 15 years, the Vauthier family has invested significantly in Haut-Simard. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the evolution underway 

Change at Ch. Haut-Simard – the Vauthier family estate 

Shifting gears at Ch. Haut-Simard   

It has been an exceptional few weeks for FINE+RARE events. From Hong Kong to London, Milan to the Scottish Highlands, this run of extraordinary occasions – each distinct in character – has been united by the thread that runs through everything we do: bringing people closer to the world's most exceptional wines and spirits in settings that do them justice. Tiberio Dinner Table by Sandy Keung, Hong Kong — Wednesday 21 May The run began with one of the most eye-opening evenings of recent weeks, centred on the wines of Tiberio, the Abruzzo estate whose commitment to a no-oak philosophy — for both fermentation and ageing, with the sole exception of Archivio — continues to challenge assumptions about what Italian wine can achieve without the influence of wood. The evening opened with three vintages of Fonte Canale: 2016, 2018 and 2023. The 2023 drew immediate attention — many guests found it hard to believe that a wine of such depth and power had not seen any oak influence whatsoever. Vibrant acidity and a clear capacity for long-term ageing were immediately apparent. The 2016, with more time in bottle, had moved into more evolved territory, displaying nutty and dried fruit notes while retaining impressive freshness. The 2018 proved a wonderful companion to the mixed clam dish, its texture and salinity enhancing the natural sweetness of the seafood. Among the whites, the standout for many was the Quarmari 2023 — exceptionally aromatic, revealing layers of beeswax, jasmine, caramel, lemon cream, basil and sweet spice. It was universally appreciated around the table, with some guests going so far as to compare its quality and presence to Corton-Charlemagne. The reds were equally compelling. Four vintages of Colle Vota — 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2021 — demonstrated remarkable depth and character across the board. Full-bodied and structured, with pronounced notes of dark fruits, liquorice, cedar, cinnamon and spice, the 2018 and 2021 in particular showed great power and concentration, their style subtly reminiscent, for some guests, of Château de Tours from Rayas. Paired with the lamb neck course, these wines were in their element. What surprised many most was that, despite their weight and complexity, not one had been aged in oak — a testament to the intrinsic power and expression of old vines. The inaugural 2014 vintage of Colle Vota was a particularly memorable moment. Despite showing early tertiary notes, it retained excellent fruit, freshness and structure, offering a compelling demonstration of the outstanding ageing potential these old-vine wines possess. It was an evening that left a very strong impression on everyone present, and a powerful reminder that great winemaking is, above all, about the vine and the land. Update by Jonathan Leung, Sales Manager, Hong Kong Castello di Ama — Vigneto Bellavista Vertical Dinner The River Café, London — Thursday 18 June One of the most memorable evenings of the year so far took place at The River Café, where proprietor Lorenza Sebasti guided a remarkable retrospective of Castello di Ama's Bellavista — the estate's defining wine, drawn from one of the highest and most historic sites in Gaiole in Chianti. Presented across nine vintages spanning more than three decades, from 1990 through to the newly released 2022, the dinner offered a rare opportunity to explore both the evolution and the extraordinary consistency of one of Tuscany's great wines. The oldest vintages were deeply impressive. The 1990, 1995, 2004 and 2006 demonstrated that great Chianti Classico belongs among the world's most ageworthy wines, maintaining freshness, detail and vivacity decades after harvest. For many around the table, however, the greatest surprise came from the 2011 — universally praised and the favourite of numerous guests — which has now entered an ideal drinking window, combining maturity, complexity and harmony in a way that rewards the patience Bellavista has always asked of its admirers. Among the younger vintages, the 2018 impressed for its purity and transparency, while the 2021 and 2022 elevated the conversation further. Both displayed remarkable polish, power and refinement alongside the freshness that has become an increasingly important hallmark of the site. It was the 2022 Bellavista that generated the greatest excitement. Awarded a perfect 100-point score by Antonio Galloni, the wine was the subject of considerable discussion throughout the evening, though the consensus was clear: the score tells only a small part of the story. What made the 2022 so fascinating was what it represents — a convergence of decades of technical progress, viticultural understanding and winemaking refinement in a single wine. It possessed concentration and potency, but delivered these with remarkable elegance, precision and energy. More than any previous vintage tasted, it felt like a blueprint for the future of the estate. Throughout the evening, Lorenza and Arturo offered invaluable personal reflections on the evolution of Castello di Ama, transforming the dinner from a vertical tasting into a living history of one of Italy's great estates. The River Café, with its understated elegance and deep connection to Italian cuisine, proved the perfect setting. The main takeaway was a simple truth: Bellavista is one of Italy's great wines, and only growing in stature and completeness. Across more than thirty years, through changing vintages and shifting climates, it has maintained a consistency of purpose and identity that very few wines anywhere in the world can match. Update by Dara de Lacy, Senior Sales Manager, UK EAWCO Rarities Selection — Bowmore & Springbank Masterclass FINE+RARE HQ, London A masterclass that set the bar high from the very first pour. We were delighted to welcome Christian Leusder, founder and owner of East Asia Whisky Company, to FINE+RARE headquarters for an evening dedicated to some of the rarest independent bottlings in existence. East Asia Whisky Company has been a longstanding and deeply valued partner of FINE+RARE. An exclusive independent bottler built on principles of understatement, exclusivity and meticulous attention to detail, EAWCO's portfolio spans blue-chip distilleries including Macallan, Bowmore, Springbank, Chichibu and Caroni. They remain the only independent bottler to have released multiple successful Mizunara cask bottlings from these houses — releases that have, remarkably, achieved higher prices than the original distillery bottlings of the same vintages. Christian guided guests through the history of the company before leading a tutored exploration of five extraordinarily rare expressions from Bowmore and Springbank: Bowmore PX Mizunara, 31 Year Old Bowmore Japan Edition, 30 Year Old Springbank Lumen Refill Sherry, 30 Year Old Springbank Yokai Series Asanoha Dragon, 24 Year Old Springbank Yokai Series Yurei (Ghost) Cat, 25 Year Old With a few surprises woven in along the way, the evening was a genuine privilege — one of those rare tastings where every bottle opened carries real weight and significance. For those who were unable to attend, a small number of these bottlings remain available, though given how few exist, they are being offered very selectively. All come very highly recommended. Update by Morgan Richards, Senior Account Manager An Extraordinary Journey Through Bordeaux's Greatest Estates Trattoria de La Trebia, Milan — Tuesday 23 June In Milan, an evening of extraordinary ambition brought together a side-by-side exploration of the 2012 and 2014 vintages through Bordeaux's most celebrated First Growth estates and the legendary Petrus. Far more than a tasting, this was a rare opportunity for guests to compare the expression of each château across two very different vintages — discovering how terroir, philosophy and vintage character shape wines that stand among the finest ever produced. The lineup was nothing short of remarkable. Across both vintages, guests tasted Château Margaux, Château Cheval Blanc, Château Haut-Brion, Petrus, Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Mouton Rothschild and Château La Mission Haut-Brion — fourteen wines in all, representing the very pinnacle of Bordeaux winemaking. The tasting was complemented by an exclusive five-course menu designed by the culinary team at Trattoria de La Trebia, crafted to enhance and showcase each wine served throughout the evening. If one wine captured the room above all others, it was the Château Haut-Brion 2012. Explosive from the first moment, with blackcurrant, smoke and herbs, it simply grew in the glass — every passing minute revealing more power, richness and intensity. Full-bodied, multi-layered and framed by wonderfully chewy tannins, this is a wine of real charm: approachable now yet built to last another twenty years with ease. A blend of 65.5% Merlot, 32.5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc, it offers extraordinary quality for its level — the kind of Haut-Brion that gives joy from the very first sip. Not to be missed. The Château Margaux 2012 also showed beautifully, drawing considerable admiration from guests throughout the evening. Designed for collectors, enthusiasts and connoisseurs alike, the dinner brought together extraordinary wines, great conversation and a shared passion for excellence — everything a FINE+RARE evening in Italy should be. Update by Jonathan Bruni, Sales Director, Continental Europe Visit to Hazelwood House Speyside, Scotland — Thursday 25 to Friday 26 June The series closed with something truly special: a private, two-day visit to Hazelwood House, the Gordon family home in the Scottish Highlands and the inspiration behind the House of Hazelwood collection — one of the world's greatest inventories of aged and rare Scotch whisky. Over two days, a small group of guests were given rare access to a world that very few ever see: private tours of the Balvenie and Glenfiddich distilleries, a whisky tasting drawn from House of Hazelwood's private reserves, a Gordon family archive session led by archivist Andy Fairgrieve, and an evening of wine, whisky and storytelling over a four-course dinner at the house itself — each course paired with exceptional wines from FINE+RARE alongside whiskies of extraordinary age and provenance. It was the kind of experience that simply cannot be replicated — not just rare access, but a genuine connection to the family, the place and the history from which these remarkable whiskies come. These past few weeks have captured everything we love about what we do at FINE+RARE – connecting people with the world's most remarkable wines and spirits, in the most exceptional settings, surrounded by the stories and the people that bring them to life.  We look forward to sharing what lies ahead for the rest of the year. Interested in joining us at future events? We are pleased to announce that it is now possible to browse, book and purchase event tickets directly through our website, with all tickets viewable in your portfolio. Get in touch with your account manager or visit frw.co.uk/events to see what's coming up — we'd love to see you at the next one.

Tiberio in Hong Kong, Castello di Ama and rare whiskies in London, First Growth Bordeaux in Milan and a private Scottish estate — a glimpse of our events programme week to week. Plus, you can now purchase event tickets directly through our website.

From a Tiberio dinner in Hong Kong to rare whiskies in Scotland, a look back at recent FINE+RARE tastings, dinners and experiences.

Looking back at our recent events

What springs to mind when you think of Bordeaux? Probably châteaux the size of medieval palaces, formal dinners, and rows and rows of pristine vines, neatly manicured rose bushes the only other signs of plant life. What you’re unlikely to be imagining are cow horns stuffed with manure buried in the ground, or horse-drawn ploughs churning through earthworm-rich soil. ‘In the past, in Bordeaux, you were scared to say you were growing biodynamically,’ says Corinne Comme, who manages 10ha of biodynamic vines at Château du Champ des Treilles in Entre-Deux-Mers with her husband Jean-Michel. ‘Now it’s trendy.’ An engineer and geologist, Jean-Michel Comme was behind the first transition of a grand cru classé estate on Bordeaux’s Left Bank to biodynamics. Although he and Corinne first came across the concept in the mid-1990s, he didn’t begin to advocate for the approach at Château Pontet-Canet in Pauillac until the early 2000s. ‘Corinne was scared,’ he recalls. ‘She thought they would fire me.’ "Behind the more esoteric elements is a series of principles that have been shown to improve soil health and vine strength" Originally laid out in a series of lectures by Austrian philosopher, scientist and social reformer Rudolf Steiner in 1924, biodynamic farming emerged as a holistic approach to agriculture before quickly evolving into formal certification movements. At its core, biodynamic farming centres on soil health and biodiversity; most distinctively, it operates according to the lunar calendar, with practitioners timing agricultural activities around specific ‘fruit days’, ‘root days’, ‘leaf days’ and ‘flower days’ to align with cosmic rhythms believed to influence plant growth and agricultural processes. For many in Bordeaux – Jean-Michel Comme included – this all sounded a bit wacky. ‘I was young, full of expectations about chemistry; the way biodynamics was presented was so remote that I felt it was crazy,’ Comme says. ‘But with experience, we did change our minds.’ Why? Because behind the more esoteric elements is a series of principles that have been shown to improve soil health and vine strength. In vineyards, biodynamic farming means specific practices such as hand-harvesting, using natural composts made with specific herbal and mineral preparations, avoiding chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and treating the entire vineyard as a self-sustaining ecosystem. In the cellar, there’s an emphasis on minimal intervention, using native yeasts, avoiding commercial additives, keeping sulphur use to under 70ppm, and employing gentle pressing and ageing techniques that respect the wine’s natural development. While biodynamics took root in regions like the Loire and Burgundy in the 1990s, biodynamic winemaking in Bordeaux largely began in the new millennium, with just two early St-Emilion exceptions: Château Meylet, which has been practising it since 1987, and Château Fonroque, experimenting since 1995 with direction from Loire legend Nicolas Joly. This delay largely stemmed from two factors. First, Bordeaux’s humid maritime climate means that vines are especially vulnerable to both downy and powdery mildew, making the avoidance of synthetic fungicides a risky business. Second, large châteaux with multimillioneuro operations were reluctant to abandon the technological viticulture and winemaking that had built their global reputations in the first place. Comme, however, was convinced of the virtues of biodynamics. He began by seeking the assistance of François Bouchet. The Loire Valley winemaker was one of the first in France to pioneer biodynamics, also consulting for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Domaine Leroy and Domaine Leflaive in Burgundy. Bouchet guided the transition to biodynamics at Comme’s Château du Champ des Treilles; then, he persuaded Château Pontet-Canet owner Alfred Tesseron of its merits. In 2004, it was trialled on 15ha (about 20% of the estate’s total growing area) of the fifth growth at which Comme was also technical director. A severe mildew outbreak in 2007 led to the use of pesticides, undoing three years of progress, but it then became a crucial lesson that strengthened their long-term commitment to biodynamics. ‘They believed the fruit had more expression, more brightness,’ says the current technical director at Pontet-Canet, Mathieu Bessonnet, who reveals that they converted the whole of the growing area soon after. ‘It’s obviously much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive, so it was very risky,’ he adds. Since then, biodynamic farming has become a significant and growing practice across different classed growths in the region, with some of the most prestigious estates – such as Château Latour and Château Palmer – adopting biodynamic methods (the latter certified). ‘The link between the wines and the place where the fruit came from had become less and less obvious,’ says Château Palmer’s technical director Thomas Duroux, commenting on the region’s turn to the trend. He notes that, since the noughties, many have adopted organic practices in a bid to reverse this perceived drop in terroir definition. ‘Biodynamics is, in a way, the same story as organic farming, but with a larger vision,’ he adds. This shared perspective has led to more cooperation between practitioners. Every spring, the Médoc branch of the Biodynamic Agriculture Movement gathers at Château Ferrière. After unearthing a thousand manure-filled cow horns and replacing them with silica-filled ones (a process reversed in autumn to produce preparations 500 and 501, required for Demeter certification), participants share wines and gardengrown salads. The humus removed from the cow horns is stored in a cold, damp facility and made available to members. ‘We do that for free,’ says Claire Lurton, owner of Château Ferrière. ‘It’s a community.’ Though ‘community’ might be too strong a word for some, these gatherings symbolise a deepening professional exchange that has emerged among estates of all sizes through the practice of biodynamic winemaking. In fact, the shift among the classed growths has happened at the same time as these practices have been adopted by smaller growers arriving in the region. Christophe Landry of Château des Graviers, for example, returned to Arsac in the 1990s and began practising biodynamics around the same time as Comme at Pontet-Canet. He’s consulted for the Lurton estates and other properties. Originally from Minervois in Languedoc, Michel Théron established Clos du Jaugueyron nearby and has been certified biodynamic since 2008, while Laurence Alias and Pascale Choime – who are both from southwest France – established Closerie des Moussis, a patchwork of sites across 2ha, including a 170-year-old pre-phylloxera plot leased from Théron. On the Right Bank, other producers began switching lanes even earlier. Le Puy, owned by the Amoreau family, began practising in 1998, with certification since 2013, and Château Gombaude-Guillot in Pomerol has been certified biodynamic since 2006. While larger estates like Latour and Palmer collaborate on issues like mildew, smaller producers tend to engage more with one another. Shared biodynamic practices, however, are definitely helping to break down barriers. For example, Château Haut-Bages Libéral maintains regular communication with its neighbours at Château Latour, and the son of Théron at Clos du Jaugueyron interned at Château Palmer for two months. Can we speak of a unity of praxis? Not exactly. There is considerable variation in which aspects of biodynamics winemakers emphasise, regardless of estate size. The primary aim across the board is achieving living soil with rich biodiversity to promote deep-rooted vines. In pursuit of this, some winemakers emphasise tree growing or cover cropping (like Haut-Bages Libéral, which also recently planted a variety of local and fruit trees). Others, such as Le Puy, let nature take its course, allowing a diverse array of plants and flowers to sprout from the earth. Whether certified or not, biodynamic practitioners throughout Bordeaux use homeopathic treatments like nettle teas for the vines – they are believed to stimulate soil health, enhance plant immunity and improve nutrient uptake. More important than any of this, however, is the concept of energy. How can the energy of the plant be retained as its raw material transforms into wine? Every winemaker I visited was at least intrigued by the concept – and most were captivated. After a few days in the sometimes eerily flat Médoc, I drive through the verdant hills of St-Emilion to Le Puy, arriving with a raised spirit. Standing before a 5,000-year-old Celtic cromlech, Harold Langlais, the estate’s director, tells me, ‘Le Puy is a place of energy and life,’ pointing to its deep history as an intersection of water springs. At modern-day Le Puy, this philosophy extends from the vines to the cellar. Indeed, many others I speak to express that, since adopting biodynamics, the most striking change in their wines has been an increase in ‘energy’. It’s a term without a precise definition, but according to Château Palmer’s makers, something shifted with the 2015 vintage, the second year after full conversion. ‘You cannot measure it,’ Thomas Duroux says. ‘You can just feel it.’ At Château Durfort-Vivens, where the vineyard was operating under biodynamic principles by 2013 (with full conversion by 2016), owner Gonzague Lurton recalls the 2014 vintage as ‘the first where you really feel the energy of biodynamics’. It’s tactile and warming, with a sophisticated grip and charm. ‘It’s what I love – the linearity of tannins, never weak from start to finish. With many of the estates I visited, their wines showed an immediate appeal, vibrant even in their youth. Is energy just another way of describing freshness? Laurence Alias at Closerie des Moussis trained as an agricultural engineer; for her, energy and vitality are tied to the physical properties of grapes grown biodynamically. ‘We have more acidity, that’s an analytic fact,’ she tells me, standing in front of a newly acquired plot of vines bordered by forest. It might be romantic to think of energy as something ineffable, but it’s also rooted in what remains within the grapes. ‘Our idea of energy is based more on Einstein than Steiner,’ Langlais later qualifies. ‘Energy is matter.’ Biodynamic winemaking in Bordeaux: five to follow Château Pontet-Canet At the 55ha Pontet-Canet estate in Pauillac, an immensely smooth operation is palpable. Winemakers here have spent almost two decades honing their biodynamic craft, continually moving towards a goal of self-sufficiency for the estate. Sturdy Comtois horses, introduced in 2008, now work half the vineyard, preventing soil compaction. Vineyards are sprayed over a single day using compost and herbal teas produced from plants grown in and around the property and processed in the state-of-the-art infusion room. Biodiversity-boosting fruit trees and hedges have been planted. The estate even employs a carpenter who repurposes wood from vats used on the property. Ageing involves custom-made wooden eggs and qvevri-style amphorae, with no fining and minimal filtration. The result? A Pauillac with untypical levels of energy and minerality, and a plush, velvety texture. But it’s more than that – according to Bessonnet, thanks to a low-intervention approach across the board, ‘you can really feel the soil.’ Château Palmer Thomas Duroux’s conviction in biodynamics is based in what he calls a ‘holistic vision’. ‘We started to see the entire place as a living organism,’ he says of Château Palmer, one of the most storied and historically significant third-growth estates in Bordeaux. When converting (a process that started in 2009), the Margaux estate was initially guided by François Bouchet’s son Matthieu, but now it follows its own evolving philosophy, integrating cover crops, animals for fertilisation and estate-grown vegetables and meat. ‘It’s just going back to agricultural common sense,’ Duroux says. ‘That was the way to grow anything before World War II.’ This respect for nature results in wines that are deeply tied to their terroir. ‘If I had to describe the wines how they are today, compared to how they were before, I’ll just say that it’s not a revolution, but we have the feeling that the wines have a better identity,’ says Duroux. He likens biodynamics to restoring an old painting: ‘Suddenly, you see small details that you were not able to see because of the dust.’ The estate uses stainless-steel vats for fermentation and temperature-controlled rooms for barrel-ageing, combined with nativeyeast and low-sulphur winemaking, to produce its esteemed Alter Ego and Château Palmer cuvées; both have been increasingly celebrated among critics and drinkers since the turn to biodynamics. ‘We just think it does help to go a little bit further in the interpretation of the place,’ says Duroux. Château Durfort-Vivens Standing over a rustic sorting table explaining how it used to work, Gonzague Lurton is visibly passionate about the savoir-faire of the past. This sensibility is reflected in the current winemaking practices, too, and in the second-growth Margaux estate’s reputation (and critics’ scores) increasing year on year. The thing to emphasise is that what began with a biodynamic approach in the vineyards led to a series of domino effects that changed the character of the wines. In search of what Lurton calls greater ‘singularity’, the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon had already risen to over 90% by 2014 (from around 75%); and with the use of indigenous yeasts during fermentation and the reduction of sulphur levels over time (initially sparked by Demeter’s upper limits of 70mg/l), the wines have become more aromatically complex and expressive. The introduction of amphorae by Italian producer Tava has allowed for microoxidation without overextraction, contributing to a more delicate balance of flavours, with the 2019 estate wine a blend aged one third in amphorae and the rest in barrel. ‘It’s not a big wine,’ says Lurton. ‘And it’s what I was looking for with biodynamics, in terms of style.’ Château des Graviers Christophe Landry’s pioneering status in Margaux stems from an instinct refined over decades at his own estate. He grows medicinal plants — horsetail, absinthe, calendula, chamomile — for vineyard treatments, as well as using the manure from his own cows. ‘What we need to remember is that biodynamics isn’t just a practice,’ he tells me. ‘It’s about finding your own path to self-sufficiency.’ His precision extends to the cellar, where he uses concrete tanks, amphorae and oak barrels (produced according to the biodynamic calendar) tailored to each of the five cépages’ oxygenation needs, then ages the wines for different lengths of time. Timing is everything, with harvest choices also following the biodynamic calendar. Obsessive care for the vines’ life cycles goes hand in hand with the level of precision in the cellar. The outcome is two phenomenal wines that are, as Landry puts it, ‘thirstquenching’. Château des Graviers and Quintessence — which contains a higher proportion of Petit Verdot and is aged longer in barrel and amphorae — are aromatically expressive, velvety and strikingly lively, with the latter offering more depth and an enveloping finish. Expanding to 18ha, Landry has also turned his focus to Clos Dufourg, cultivating vines on previously wild land nearby and hand-building a striking new cellar with cement tanks painted with clay from the surrounding earth. Le Puy For technical director Harold Langlais, the Le Puy estate’s significance lies in how it challenges Bordeaux’s conventional identity. Outside of the region’s traditional focus on appellations and classifications, Le Puy sits on a plateau near St-Emilion. The estate’s land is unusual, with no topsoil but a deep limestone bedrock beneath red-brown clay, which forces the vines to develop deep roots to access the earth’s natural water and nutrients. This is further supported by horse-ploughing and biodynamic sprays made from horsetail, buckthorn and nettles, which grow on the property. ‘Our approach focuses on rooting the vine deep,’ Langlais explains, ‘encouraging it to search out hidden nutrients.’ A vigorous wind circulates around the vines, and Langlais explains the effects of the elements. ‘The beauty of Le Puy is that it’s an acid factory. The whole place creates acidity in the berries.’ The biodynamic philosophy extends to the winemaking, with two different processes applied to their 100% Merlot cuvées. Cuvée Emilien uses a ‘decantation method’, or ‘fermentation by infusion’, while Barthélemy is produced with zero sulphites and a process of lees-stirring called ‘dynamisation’, which is done on fruit days and involves a specific motion to create a vortex in the old barrels it ages in. ‘Barthélemy is much more intense,’ Langlais says. ‘All the matter taken by the plant is in there.’

Written for Club Oenologique in 2025, Joel Hart visits Bordeaux to track the region’s belated embrace of biodynamic winemaking. While other French regions ploughed ahead, Bordeaux had its reasons for delayed adoption. Yet now the practice is booming, and Hart gauges its employment across estates.

Written for Club Oenologique, contributor Joel Hart visits Bordeaux to track the region’s belated embrace of biodynamic winemaking. 

Taking root: the rise of biodynamic winemaking in Bordeaux

General impressions Feedback from clients and staff aligned around one key observation: 2023 is more approachable than expected. The vintage’s moderate alcohol, ripe Merlot, and fresh acidity make many wines accessible even at this young stage. While some still need time, the overall impression was of balance rather than power. The focus is medium-term drinking for maximum confidence and reward. The Right Bank was widely viewed as the stronger side, echoing early commentary from en primeur reports. Pomerol and Saint-Émilion wines displayed generous fruit and fine tannins, while Left Bank estates were more varied, producing both classic structured wines and some leaner examples. FINE+RARE’s en primeur analysis described 2023 as “a vintage defined by equilibrium.” The bottled wines seem to confirm that view: consistent, expressive, and shaped by freshness rather than extraction.  Right Bank highlights In Pomerol, Clinet and Gazin were among the most admired, showing ripe fruit and supple texture. In Saint-Émilion, Canon, Canon la Gaffelière, Clos Fourtet, Troplong Mondot, and Valandraud stood out. Valandraud, as expected, was the powerful wine of the night, while Canon and Fourtet impressed for their precision and length. Beau Séjour Bécot also received great feedback — a reassuring note for those who secured it en primeur. Left Bank highlights The Left Bank produced a number of notable successes, though with more variation across communes. Léoville Barton and Lynch Bages were two of the most consistently praised wines for their depth and classical balance.

Pichon Comtesse, which many had admired from barrel, was again among the favourites and considered by some to be even more complete in bottle. Other highlights included Pichon Baron, Rauzan Ségla, Les Carmes Haut Brion, Brane Cantenac, Duhart Milon, and Domaine de Chevalier.

Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc also earned strong reactions for its freshness and clarity. Sauternes and Barsac The sweet wines drew particular attention. Several tasters named them the stars of the evening, with Suduiraut widely described as exceptional – rich, poised, and long. Coutet also impressed for its balance of sweetness and acidity. The general view was that 2023 marks another successful year for Sauternes and Barsac, following two strong vintages. Conversations with producers A recurring theme in discussions with château representatives was comparison between recent years. Many cited 2022 as their standout vintage of the decade, particularly on the Right Bank, with 2016 also frequently mentioned. Summary For both clients and colleagues, the evening confirmed that 2023 is a vintage of clarity and balance, with Right Bank wines especially convincing. The Left Bank offers several strong classical examples, and Sauternes continues an excellent run. In short, 2023 should not be viewed as a blockbuster but as a measured, consistent, and thoughtful vintage – one that speaks more of balance and terroir than of scale. It will be interesting to see how these wines continue to settle in bottle over the next few years. FINE+RARE extends sincere thanks to the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux and all the participating producers and their representatives for sharing their remarkable wines. Our gratitude also goes to the event team from Otaria, and to Fromagerie, who supplied exceptional cheeses for all our attending guests and helped make the evening such a success. Read our full Bordeaux 2023 vintage report and browse all wines featured in the tasting.

This year’s UGCB tasting at Lindley Hall brought together Bordeaux’s leading estates and a record FINE+RARE audience. The atmosphere was vibrant, with engaged guests and wines that revealed both the highs and limits of the 2023 vintage across Left and Right Banks.  

Last week's UGCB tasting at Lindley Hall showcased Bordeaux 2023, revealing both the strengths and subtleties of the vintage across Left and Right Banks.

UGCB in London: Tasting Bordeaux 2023

I. Distractions In 1987, when I was 18 and a dollar was worth more than twice as much as it is today, I started reading magazines: M, Esquire, GQ. Nearby, in our somewhat cultured Texas town, a new bookstore opened in a cavernous space that had formerly housed the shag-carpeted roller skating rink of our childhood. Through the front windows, which had before been darkly tinted to give the place an alluring den-of-prepubescent-iniquity vibe, now streamed bright, clean light, showcasing a look and layout that would become the interior design gestalt of today’s national-chain, big-box book superstore. The rows upon rows of open, dustless shelving bearing a veritable warehouse of volumes; the ceiling hung with its industrial innards on display; the enfilade of check-out cubicles; and the wall – the great wall – that displayed a preposterous-to-behold assortment of glossies, quarterlies, journals, newsweeklies, fanzines, tabloids, almanacs, and all other flora and fauna of magazines arrayed upon a rack perhaps 50 feet long.  I went in there to look for a book. I liked books, and, one day, I was sure I wanted to write one. But I got distracted and bought a magazine instead – that August’s issue of GQ, which still stands out in my mind as a thing of formative significance. At that time, the zeitgeist was defined by a Walkman-wearing version of the American Renaissance Man – the highly-ambitious, status-obsessed, money-motivated, health-nut known as a Yuppie. No magazine positioned itself more authoritatively in defining this new sociological creature’s lifestyle than GQ, and it did it with whiter teeth, snappier suspenders, better accessories, bigger polka dots and more caffeine in the ink of its display copy.  I remember that issue less for the photos by Richard Avedon or Steven Meisel, the words of Martin Amis or Frederick Exley, than for this: Erzeugerabfüllung. It was one of the longest, strangest strings of letters from the Roman alphabet I had ever seen. Neither did it seem designed to come out of someone’s mouth. But there it was in Alan Richman’s Wine & Spirits column, accompanied by a lovely still-life photograph of his topic: two bottles of Riesling Kabinetts on a white, sun-dappled tablecloth. Richman’s main point – made almost 35 years ago – still holds true: estate-bottled, table-quality German wines remain some of the least expensive, most delicious wines in the world, chiefly because – then as now – the labels, as he wrote, “cannot be understood by anyone who is not a part-time oenophile, linguist and cartographer”. One US dollar in Richman’s pocket, as I have already said, bought what roughly two-dollars-and-fifty-cents does today; what he was on the hunt for was a good dry white in a range that would now cost somewhere between 12 and 30 bucks, and he easily accomplished that by finding a dealer in New York City who carried a good selection of wines from the Mosel and Rheingau. At the time, I didn’t know the meaning or significance of any of this, but it staked a claim in my brain. The only wine I had ever tasted was the one served at our Episcopal church during Eucharist on Sundays. The flavour it had was of a strange, super-concentrated jam that somehow warmed your upper body. Even as a young kid, I liked it. But the adjectives these German bottles were squeezing out of Richman – “citrus-like”, “honeyed”, “tart-sweet” – weren’t close to describing what was in that chalice, even if you believed in transubstantiation. Was it because Richman’s wine was white, and the parish’s was red? Perhaps, but both colours of grape juice bottled by Welch’s tasted pretty much the same to me. No, I sensed there was something – a lot – I had to learn, and, along with the romance and beauty of the labels, and the contextual air of well-bred taste and cultural with-it-ness featured on the other pages, this, I feel sure, was the decisive moment, the true origin point, when I came to believe that among the many extraordinary things that make life worth living, not just words but wine reigns at the top.  I warned you about distractions, didn’t I? Because that would be my excuse for now informing you, as a quite apropos footnote, that, yes, there was something unusual about our church’s Communion wine. It was, as I have confirmed with the church, actually port (Taylor’s Tawny, to be more accurate), cut, according to tradition, with water. There is a good and fascinating reason for this. In 1701, when the War of the Spanish Succession kicked off, France also became an enemy of England, and its wines, as a result, were no longer made available for import. The Anglican Church searched for and found a replacement, the fortified wines of its new ally, Portugal, and port continues to be an acceptable option to pair with the Host.  II. Distillations A satisfying story, not unlike a satisfying life, is one that surprises you with the mystery of its unfolding. A thing pulls in a certain direction long enough to reach the proximity of something else which then turns toward a new destination. I had actually gone into that bookstore, as I said, to look at books. But I came out, even though I didn’t yet know it, with a different compass point. Within a few years, shortly after graduating from college, in 1992, I got hired by The New Yorker, where I stayed for almost nine years. I then met my future wife, who wisely laughed at the thought we might be able to survive in New York City on my meagre salary, so I went to Vogue, and soon after became the founding editor of Men’s Vogue. After 23 issues, and four years, the financial crisis laid an axe to many magazines, including that one. Eventually, I took on the editorship of Town & Country. Then, finally, in 2016, I moved up to Esquire, the magazine, as it happens, that didn’t offer me a job when The New Yorker did, and became that storied magazine’s editor in chief, until – well, you best read about that in The New York Times.  As far as distractions go, magazines were a good one. They made me who I am, gave me a tremendously worldly education, honed my taste, introduced me to all manner of accomplished people, required me to build quite a wardrobe, and paid me pretty well to do all of this, often with a glass of wine not far out of the picture. There was really no other way I would have ever got to taste all the bottles I have (a lot of the big names people whisper about from Burgundy and Bordeaux, Champagne and also Piedmont, Tuscany and Napa). I built a modest cave à vin of my own by buying the Smith Haut Lafittes of the world way before hedge-fund hoi polloi ran up the prices, and by having access to rare offerings, like 12 bottles of Fiorano, the legendary white wine Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa, made before ripping out all his vines. I smelled the musty perfume of Margaux in the cellar as I watched the workers rack the wine by candlelight. I lured Jay McInerney away from the Wall Street Journal to become my wine columnist; and I once stood in Bordeaux’s town square, tight on 2002 Pétrus, trying with great focus to commune with the statue of Michel de Montaigne while my French friend, a true oenophile, extolled the majesty of the Big Mac’s special sauce.  As the editor of a magazine, curiosity is your profession, even to the point of distraction. Editors – writers, too – are prone to it. It’s a hazard of the gift, and having a jumble of ideas, if you’re any good, is key to making a magazine of any real intellectual or creative daring. Now as a husband and father of three, working from home and trying to be ‘present’, and a still youngish former editor and occasional micro-influencer trying to stave off the solitude to fathom and plot the next phase of a fruitful future, this skill of mine, the strength of which became even more magnified over two decades, is something of a family project.  The way I most often hear the word ‘distraction’ now, for instance, is when it’s being hurled at me in verb form by my wife or daughters accusing me of being more of a phone-enslaved screen vegetable than they are. (I respectfully disagree.) But it’s a sore point for two reasons. One, what I did as an editor is, in a nutshell, now what a smartphone essentially does. Not very imaginatively, of course, and not with taste or charm or originality, but with a bloody, money-grubbing ruthlessness that stalks every step of our digital peregrinations and doesn’t give a twist if the algorithms that are its brain make us its slave by retrofitting our attention spans for kindergarten.  The smartphone – not the former me or any of my fellow kind still in the media biz – is now the true croupier of culture, dealing out a targeted shuffle of Pavlovian temptations to the point of daily mental exhaustion. And, though this thing is in many ways my personal nemesis, I am, against every fibre of my being, too often its obedient servant. Aiming not to live according to the famous line by T.S. Eliot – “distracted from distraction by distraction” – I recently decided to at least take a serious inventory of my favourite ones, both those of the pre-digital sort (tennis, The Walking Dead, checking the mailbox, my sock collection) and those of the post-digital sort (the any and everything I do because my phone wants me to). Then I caught myself watching tennis on my phone and realised this might be harder than I thought. It’s enough to drive a person to drink, thank god! With that in mind, I like to keep a special something for the occasion around, in this case – what else? – two bottles of Riesling Kabinett, for it had struck me as more than a little weird that I’ve probably tasted fewer than a handful of German wines in my entire life. Part of the reason is that those I had were bad, and, like a lot of other simpletons about this great wine region of the world, I’d come to think of Riesling as a cloying elixir equal parts green Jolly Rancher, apple cider vinegar, and hairspray. This, I knew, was wrong, not true and, in terms of wine equity and inclusion, on the wrong side of history. But, if you happen to live in a place like I do – a bourgie swathe of Connecticut bordering New York City where the shops cater heavily to Cali-Fran-Taly banker’s tastes – it might take you a few stops to find what Richman recommended, an erzeugerabfüllung (estate-bottled) Kabinett (wine made from grapes with a minimum must weight/sugar content) Riesling, and when you do it will probably be coated in a fine sift of years-old dust. I bought a green (Mosel) bottle for US$16 and a brown (Rhine) bottle for US$20, both handsomely labelled. I opened them a few minutes ago and took several investigative swigs. The words bright, invigorating and snappy came to mind. One is indeed sweeter, and, though not my usual jam, it is tamped by a pleasing peachy tartness, and the classic overtone of honey isn’t making my palate feel doused with syrup. The other example is, as Richman said so long ago, a very finely layered creature with mineral clarity and an echo of baked bread, something a gluten-free person like me finds particularly appealing. A rather obvious thought: why haven’t I been buying this instead of throwing a ton of endless money at affordably bad white Burgundy, which is mostly a product aimed at fulfilling a desired outcome, like White Claw hard seltzer? III. Words But don’t let me get distracted, again. A writer really has to be careful about such things. Just think about it. Unlike, say, a painter or musician or actor or photographer, the process of writing requires zero physical exertion, no chance to score an endorphin release while sitting staring anxiously at a blank page. Of the many things in life that vie against the counter intuitive impulse to be glued to a desk, Cyril Connolly, in Enemies of Promise, his classic study of the things that distracted him (and others) from becoming a great writer, names the temptations but does not say much about why they’re so deeply tempting to someone who would otherwise be sitting alone in an empty room. Praise, money, fame, social prominence, affairs and journalism are the most common boltholes, according to Connolly, who, as a famously late sleeper that married three times, might have also added the bliss of unconsciousness and excessive alimony. In 1938, the year the book was published, he would never have imagined how hard the task might get without a cigarette. Smoking is a death wish, I know, but when you want to off yourself for still having a hundred pages to go, being able to snap open a nice lighter, flick some ash, stub a butt and inhale some lungfuls of focus-enhancing nicotine must have been kind of helpful. Connolly also doesn’t have much to say about drink except that artists who drink to excess do so “out of the consciousness of wasted ability”. According to that, the 20th century’s most famous literary alcoholics – Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Styron, Elizabeth Bishop, James Joyce, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner – might have left behind even greater treasures than they did. Because Ernest Hemingway did almost everything with more gusto than any of his peers, including running up his bar tab, as a drinker he belongs in his own sentence. He is the novelist who most romanced a good drink or nice bottle of wine as one of life’s great pleasures. Who didn’t want to have a vermouth with Jake when reading The Sun Also Rises? (Don’t, it’s gross, at least if you order it at one of those kiosks in Montmartre where the bottles are hung upside down with spring-loaded dispensers.) Or, track down a bottle of Valdepeñas, Hemingway’s favourite variety of Spanish wine. Or, get a drink at the bar named after him at the Ritz, in Paris, and then go somewhere on the Left Bank to order “a dozen portugaises and a half-carafe of the dry white wine”.  In the early work, he is not boastful about drinking so much as he is the possessor of an unusual appetite for a good buzz. He is also, like Connolly, aware of the need to keep writing separate from drinking, and drinking within his control. It is hard to read the first paragraph of A Moveable Feast, in which he describes an “evilly run café where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness”, except as a kind of terrifying admonition to himself. It is tragic that he didn’t heed his own advice. Late in his life, Hemingway became fond of rum daiquiris at the Floridita, his favourite bar in Havana, which might explain his taste for a prose style that soon became too often cloying self-parody. In one of the most extraordinary drinking sessions ever committed to words, in the roman à clef Across the River and Into the Trees, a 50-year-old Hemingway, who was smitten with a teenage Italian countess from Venice, fictionalises his infatuation with a last muse. In one stretch (that covers an evening-to-dawn crawl from Harry’s Bar, the grill at the Gritti Palace, a gondola and a hotel room), one half or another of the couple imbibes: one scotch whisky and soda; six Montgomery Martinis (15 parts gin; 1 part vermouth), two of which are described in size as ‘super’; a bottle of Capri Bianco; two bottles of Valpolicella; two bottles of Roederer Brut ’42; and two bottles of Perrier-Jouët. That is, I suppose, one extreme, and, clearly, not one to be tried at home.  The other might have been espoused by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great critic and lexicographer. As a young man, he’d drained “many a bottle of wine” but loved port especially. (Perhaps Johnson, a devout Anglican who was born in 1709, in the midst of England’s 14-year war with Spain, also first encountered port as a boy at the Communion altar.) He describes himself to friend and biographer James Boswell as having been “apt to go to excess in it”, adding that, “therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it”.  Boswell, who worried about his own dependence on alcohol, even keeping a journal of his intake in an attempt to enforce moderation, argued for a third way, which some of the Romantics later adopted. Wine, he claimed, “produces truth; in vino veritas”. Hoping to persuade Johnson of his point, Boswell once convinced the critic to come down off the wagon for just one glass of claret, so Johnson “might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation”. Boswell reports what happened after the glass was emptied: “Johnson shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men,’” adding, “‘A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’”  That actually reminds me of something I think I forgot to mention about Riesling Kabinetts – they’re also highly admired for their low percentage of alcohol. On that note, I think I’ll have another glass.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Jay Fielden, former editor of Men’s Vogue, Town & Country and Esquire, recalls how a magazine column on wine, read in a Texas bookstore, shifted his ambitions beyond journalism and set him on the path to becoming a writer of books.

Former Esquire editor-in-chief Jay Fielden reflects on magazines, writing, Riesling Kabinett and the distractions that shaped a life in words and wine.

Jay Fielden on Wine, Words and Distraction

How one became another  

Each November, the wine world looks to Burgundy for the Hospices de Beaune auction. We dive into the history of this philanthropic institution, the domaine and the wines it produces

Explore the history of Burgundy’s Hotel-Dieu and Hospices de Beaune, its wine estate and the famous annual auction, the Vente des Vins

Your guide to the wines of the Hospices de Beaune

Everything you need to know about the Hospices de Beaune

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