About Académie du Vin Founded in Paris in 1973 by Steven Spurrier, the Académie du Vin grew out of a love of wine and a desire to share it with clarity and intelligence. What began as informal wine appreciation courses in 1970s Paris evolved into a publishing house dedicated to the finest wine writing of the past, present, and future. Today, the Académie du Vin Library maintains a deliberately small and carefully curated list, selecting books for their readability, authority and enduring insight into the world’s great wine regions – guided by the belief that fine wine writing, like wine itself, deepens with time. About this article This article presents the introduction to Côte d’Or: The wines and winemakers of the heart of Burgundy (2nd Edition) by Raymond Blake. In it, Blake sets the scene for Burgundy’s most revered stretch of vineyard, exploring the historical, cultural and human forces that shape the Côte d’Or. The introduction offers essential context on place, tradition and the vignerons themselves—laying the groundwork for a deeper understanding of Burgundy’s wines and the people behind them. Introduction The Côte d’Or, the Golden Slope, enjoys a reputation and exerts an influence in the wine world out of all proportion to its size. It possesses none of the grandeur of the Douro Valley, for instance, nor the picture-postcard beauty of South Africa’s winelands. It is not majestic; its beauty is serene, and what strikes the observer time and again is the tiny scale. From north to south it is about 50 kilometres long, is sometimes less than a kilometre wide, and can be driven in little more than an hour. At a push it could be walked in a day. Yet for a thousand or more years this favoured slope has yielded wines that have entranced and delighted wine lovers, with a fair measure of frustration and disappointment thrown in too. Avoiding hyperbole when writing about the Côte d’Or is a problem, for it has held people in thrall for centuries, frequently prompting poetic flights of prose: ‘The Pathetic Fallacy resounds in all our praise of wine … This Burgundy seemed to me, then, serene and triumphant … it whispered faintly, but in the same lapidary phrase, the same words of hope.’ Thus wrote Evelyn Waugh in Brideshead Revisited eighty years ago. Literary critics might cavil at such prolixity, and Waugh himself tamed it severely in later editions, but it was enough to intrigue me decades ago and engender a love for the region and its wines that has never waned. Greater Burgundy is a bigger, more geographically diverse, region than might first be supposed, stretching from Chablis, south-east of Paris, to Beaujolais, north of Lyon. The subject matter of this book, however, is Burgundy’s heart, the Côte d’Or. There is no more celebrated stretch of agricultural land on earth. It has been pored over and analysed, feted and cosseted, obsessed about and sought after for centuries and today, if anything, it exerts a greater pull on wine lovers than ever before. ‘Astronomical’ does not begin to describe the prices now being paid for prized patches of grand and premier cru vineyard, and for the wines produced from them by the top domaines. Such prices hog the headlines and paint a dazzling, though severely one-dimensional, picture of the Côte d’Or today. In the early years of the twenty-first century they are part of the story but they are not the only part. This book aims to get behind the dazzle and flesh out the story, to add some nuance and extra dimension. The Côte d’Or cannot be captured in a sound bite nor, it must be admitted, in a book of this scope – but my hope is that it may add another chapter to the ever-unfolding tale, setting it in the early years of the twenty-first century, a period that may come to be considered by future historians as a golden age for Burgundy but which has brought its own challenges in the shape of those ludicrous prices, the scandal of premature oxidation in the white wines, and the increasing challenge of dealing with extreme weather events such as hail and spring frost. The Côte d’Or has been the subject of forensic scrutiny for centuries, generating a library of books, so why another one now? For the simple reason that it is ever changing. Every year sees new names added to the producers’ roster and old ones slipping away, and thanks to this ongoing evolution the infant domaine of today can be the superstar of tomorrow. The core of the book comprises about a hundred producer profiles. Many fine domaines and négociants whose wines I am happy to purchase and drink have not found a place here. It is important to stress that they have not been included, rather than excluded, simply for reasons of space. The aim was to feature a representative collection of producers, not a top-down selection of the most celebrated names in descending order of renown. As a consequence this book is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a comprehensive A to Z of producers. I write as an amateur du vin, an enthusiast whose admiration for the wines of Burgundy stretches back over four decades, and who has been visiting the region and writing about the wines for some thirty years. I do not trade in wine. I try to see beyond the wine to get something of the backstory, the story of people and place that makes the Côte d’Or so fascinating. To examine the wines in isolation is to dislocate them from that, and not knowing something of the backstory precludes a full understanding of them. A broad lens must be brought to bear on the côte. Too narrow, and the wood will never be seen for the trees. I have learned much by coming across things serendipitously rather than dashing hither and thither, seeing a lot but noticing little. Without time for assimilation and reflection, subtlety and shade are missed. Finally, no gustatory experience can match the thrill of a great Côte d’Or red drunk at its peak. The colour, crimsoned by age; the heavenly scent, perfumed with notes of sweet decay; a sauvage edge, the palate lively and tingling, managing to be so many things at once, oscillating between fruit and spice and meat and game, a merry-go-round of flavour, spiralling on the palate, refusing to be pinned down by anything so prosaic as a tasting note. All the primary components melded by age and yielding up new ones, unsignalled when the wine was young. Everything cohesive and in harmony, like a great orchestra playing at its best. Above all, vital and living, endlessly enchanting and intriguing, engaging the palate and the spirit like no other wine. Learn more about Raymond Blake's Côte d'Or (2nd edition) Shop all books from the Académie du Vin Library Visit the Académie du Vin website Upcoming Event FINE+RARE & Académie du Vin Present: The Impossible Tasting FINE+RARE and Académie du Vin are delighted to present a rare and intimate exploration of the finest wines ever made. Wines of historical legend. Wines that are rarely seen, much less opened. Wines that should be impossible to bring together at one time. Lunch (April 29): River Restaurant, The Savoy Hotel Dinner (April 30): St James’s Room, 67 Pall Mall Club Learn more about the event here

Explore Burgundy with the introduction from Raymond Blake's book: Côte d'Or: The wines and winemakers of the heart of Burgundy. Blake tells the whole story of this hugely influential region, painting a complete picture of life there: the history, landscape, climate, culture and people.

Discover Raymond Blake's Côte d'Or (2nd Edition): a deep dive into Burgundy's wines, winemakers, history, culture and the people behind this iconic region.

Raymond Blake on the Côte d'Or

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 crop is sacrificed in order to reach the heady levels of complexity the region is famous for. The journey from berry to bottle is one of the most fascinating molecular transformations and one of wine’s greatest miracles. Bérénice Lurton of Ch. Climens describes the process “as a sacrifice, death and resurrection all in one. It is like the rising of the phoenix,” she says. “Within the process of the grapes’ destruction is the ability for transcendence and transmutation into something else, something beautiful.” Every Sauternes vintage is a rollercoaster ride of unknowns – one that would leave most vignerons at the end of their tether. “All the rules you know about wine production: forget about them,” Lorenzo Pasquini – who recently arrived at Ch. d’Yquem – says. The grape’s reaction to its terroir, to humidity, to the process of noble rot: it’s all a gamble and, often, a gamble you lose. No one understands this game of chance better than Bérénice Lurton. The crop at Ch. Climens has been decimated in the last few years. She hasn’t made a sweet wine of any volume for five vintages in a row. Frost has become the biggest threat of late, completely wiping out the most recent 2021 crop as well as 2017. The severity of the damage to the vines in 2017 encroached on 2018 too, where coulure (poor fruit-set) and mildew also dwindled production to zero. In 2019 it was the attack of the drosophila fly that destroyed almost the entire crop, and in 2020 it was hail’s turn to wipe out production. No one in Sauternes is left untouched by the risks involved. Once – and if – your crop survives, there are several key elements to a successful vintage in Sauternes. Pasquini thinks it is best to think of Sauternes as having two ripening phases per season. The first is like any other wine region: the maturation of the grapes. The varied terroir here plays its role. The gravel and clay soils at Yquem, for instance, are vital in reducing the vigour of the vines, naturally producing small bunches of concentrated fruit. Pasquini remembers being taken into the vineyard to try the grapes when he first arrived at Yquem. “It was just incredible how tasty they were,” he says. This concentration is an essential part to the finest Sauternes. At Ch. Doisy-Daëne and Climens, it is Barsac’s limestone soil, which brings added florality, salinity, freshness and aromatic complexity to the final wine. This first phase of ripening will determine the style of vintage (rather than the final quality). Lurton describes how 1997, 2002, ’04 and ’07 were all dull summers in Bordeaux; while not great for the region’s reds, they were incredible vintages for Sauternes. The cooler temperatures produced a brighter, more acidic style with great tension. The development of botrytis following this was a great counterbalance, adding richness, intensity and aromatic complexity. “But it doesn’t have to be a cool vintage in Sauternes to be a great one,” says Lurton. Dry, sunny years like 2005, ’09 and ’15 produced a richer style of wine – with botrytis only adding to the opulence and richness of the year. Once the grapes have reached maturity, and only then, do vignerons pray for botrytis to arrive. “The botrytis plays two roles,” says Ch. Doisy-Daëne’s Jean-Jacques Dubourdieu. “Most famously it is known to digest the skin of the berry and this allows for the water evaporation from the berry, and therefore concentrates the sugar in the grape.” But Dubourdieu believes its second role is just as important, but less well known. “The botrytis causes a chemical reaction in the berry. As a way to fight the botrytis, the berry produces precursor aromatics in the grape. Depending on the maturity of the berry when the botrytis arrives, this directly affects the concentration of aromatic precursors produced.” The magic number for Dubourdieu is a potential alcohol level of 13%. “If the berry is at this level of maturity, it can produce up to 50 times the number of aromatic precursors than less mature grapes.” Once the botrytis sets in, the vignerons then pray (and there is a lot of praying) for another dry period in which the grapes can further concentrate under the effects of botrytis. This is where the wind – a key feature of Sauternes’s microclimate – becomes vital. The wind can quickly concentrate the grapes – but, depending on the varying exposures and terroirs within the region, different styles of botrytis aromatics and flavours develop adding even more complexity to the wine. “Having more botrytis grapes to choose from, creates more flavour complexity in the final blend,” says Pasquini. This is, in many ways, Yquem’s greatest asset – with 113 hectares under vine. In some vintages, quality botrytis might only be successful in one part of the vineyard, but in a great vintage there is opportunity to blend the different botrytis styles from across different microclimates for a more complex expression. This is what brings such variation in style from château to château, and vintage to vintage. Production in the last few years has been on a worrying sliding scale. The sacrifices made seem to be greater with every vintage. For a winegrowing region whose fortunes are so much in the hands of Mother Nature, is Sauternes at risk? Is there a danger that we will lose the unique conditions necessary to make these unique sweet wines? For Dubourdieu, the warming climate has, on the contrary, brought many benefits. Firstly, the grapes much more often reach 13 degrees potential alcohol before botrytis sets in, meaning there are more years in which he can craft “great” wine. His biggest concern, however, is that the climate is pushing the onset of botrytis later and later. “The 2020 is a perfect example of this,” he explains. “The grapes had reached significant maturity by the end of August, but botrytis didn’t arrive until mid-October.” The dry, warm, sunny September held off any onset of botrytis. “The danger of this is if botrytis comes too late, there won’t be enough power from the sun to concentrate the berries through the all-important evaporation process. Also there is the risk of the acidity dropping too.” Beyond mid-October, if no botrytis has formed the whole vintage could potentially be lost. Fortunately this hasn’t yet been the case, but 2020 came close – and it could become more of a threat in the future. “For now, the issue is quantity, not quality,” says Dubourdieu. “The increased levels of mildew in the summer, the hail and the spring frosts – these are our concerns.” Sauternes has had a long line of great vintages, however volumes have been decimated. Whatever the appetite in the market is, there is very little Sauternes available from the most recent vintages. There’s often a question over the appeal of these luscious wines – but Sauternes production is so limited that its audience can only ever be small. Yquem, Climens and Doisy-Daëne all describe themselves as guardians of this unique craft, rather than vignerons feeling commercially pressured to produce a drier style in greater volume. They know that for many wine enthusiasts drinking Sauternes is not a regular occurrence – but they want it to be one of the most memorable wine experiences of their lives when they do. And that’s the magic of these wines. Despite the low volumes, Pasquini, Dubourdieu and even Lurton are optimistic about Sauternes’s future. Quality has never been better and they’re in a long-term game: they look at yields over 20-year, not five-year, cycles. There is a new buzz coming from a rise in tourism in the region, while the spirits industry’s recent interest in Sauternes barrels for cask finishing is yet another alternative income (with old barrels selling for five or six times more than they bought them for), not to mention the publicity – bringing Sauternes to a whole new range of potential consumers. Unfortunately, 2021 is looking like another miniscule vintage for the region and that’s even before botrytis has arrived. But not even this dampens Dubourdieu’s mood: “If you want to control everything, you certainly wouldn’t be a vigneron. As a vigneron you learn to live with uncertainty.” For Lurton, “Living with such uncertainty keeps your feet on the ground.” As the region continues to develop, their experience of uncertainty and necessary sacrifice, Lurton believes, means Sauternes “will never lose its soul”. Discover our current Sauternes listings or read more Editorial

Producing Sauternes is a noble venture – one that often brings more risks than rewards. Gavin Smith talks to three of the region’s leading producers about the perils of crafting the world’s most sought-after sweet wines – and why it’s worth it

Exploring the perils of crafting the world’s most sought-after sweet wines with three leading Sauternes producers, Chx Climens , D’Yquem and Doisy-Daëne.

Sauternes – the great sacrifice

Sauternes: the great sacrifice

Bordeaux 2020 was a vigneron’s vintage, a year in which strategic choices were key to success. Here we delve into how each of the main appellations on both the Left and Right Banks fared in this remarkable year.

Delving into how each of the main Bordeaux appellations on both the Left and Right Banks fared in this remarkable 2020 vintage.

Commune-by-commune guide to Bordeaux 2020  

Bordeaux 2020: breaking it down

There are myriad fascinating twists and turns in Scotch whisky’s long and storied past. From dizzying boom times to disastrous downturns, the distilling landscape – and the major players within it – has been redrawn countless times. 
There's one era, however, that is legendary – whisky's "golden age". Between the 1950s and '80s, some of the industry's most nuanced single malts were crafted. These are now widely regarded as the greatest ever released, which is reflected in the eyewatering secondary market prices – should they ever appear on the auction block. 
These perfectly imperfect, characterful and wonderfully unique liquids, produced at distilleries that no longer exist, or exist in a very different way today, will never be bottled again – making them real unicorns for whisky collectors. 
To understand what makes them so special, it is important to first appreciate just how little liquid exists from this time. The single malt whisky market was unfathomably small before and during this period and entirely dwarfed by blends. A mere fraction of a distiller’s finest liquid would be bottled as a single malt. These minuscule quantities were also made via practices that are now lost in the annals of history, making them more desirable for collectors. 
For context, Scotch whisky was largely made as it always had been until the 1950s, drawing on traditional methods that had been passed down for centuries. Distillers would use their sight, smell and taste to determine when a liquid was ready to cask, and later, bottle. Whisky-making took mastery and patience – something producers could ill afford when demands on the industry intensified and there was a concerted push to produce more for less during the 1970s. While many producers made these changes around the same time, they didn’t all happen at once, creating a wonderfully varied time capsule of whiskies. 
The 1960s – when some of these great bottlings were produced – was sandwiched in between two vastly different decades. Production in the ‘50s was steady but small. By the 1970s, however, distillers – both large and small – were forced to increase their output by almost double, and names that had fallen silent were reawakened once more as global demand for Scotch whisky grew. 
Sadly, by the mid-1970s, the tide started to turn. The bountiful supply of whisky was not met by demand, resulting in a devastating whisky loch in the 1980s and some of the most difficult years the Scotch whisky industry has ever endured. Swathes of distilleries were forced to close, including the now-legendary Port Ellen and Brora – both of which shut their doors in 1983. This depression continued well into the 1990s with a further 20 casualties (of these, only three ever reopened), before the pendulum finally swung back in the early 2000s when the seemingly unquenchable thirst for single malt whiskies, that is still in full force today, began. 
From the 1950s onwards, holders of the increasingly frayed purse strings sought to reduce inefficiencies in the traditional, labour-intensive practice of whisky-making – which defined the golden age. With the introduction of modern, more mechanised, safer processes, it was a new dawn for Scotch whisky.  During this period in history, every single stage of whisky production was “streamlined”. The money men closed floor maltings, introduced distillers’ yeast, reduced fermentation times, installed semi-lauter tuns, made the switch to indirect-fired stills, replaced worm tubs with shell-and-tube condensers, and introduced ex-Bourbon barrels. By the end of the 1970s, you could almost count on one hand the number of distillers who retained traditional methods. 
It’s important to remember that tweaking one of these processes can alter the entire flavour profile of a whisky – just ask Glenfarclas who reverted back to direct-firing their stills after their new-make spirit lost its characteristically heavy and oily profile during their ill-fated flirtation with steam in 1981. And yet, in many instances, producers permanently changed many of these processes. Traditional practices and know-how that varied slightly at every distillery began to be outsourced as they turned to professional maltsters and installed modern, industrial-scale equipment that increased efficiencies and consistency but in some cases compromised the craft and character of the final spirit profile. 
“Every distillery has its own story and evolution of style,” whisky authority Serge Valentin explains, “their own ups and its downs.” 
Valentin was ahead of his time when he started collecting single malt Scotch, almost exclusively from Old Clynelish and Brora. He couldn’t possibly have predicted what his passion project of buying as many different bottlings as he could “simply because they were [his] favourites”  would become. 
Both Clynelish and Brora – as it would be known – produced heavily peated malt during the late 1960s and early ’70s. Bottlings from this time until 1983, when Brora became a victim of the whisky loch and fell silent, have become highly collectable in recent years. Old Clynelish bottlings, (Valentin’s favourites), which are robustly distinctive with aromas of scented wax and heather, are astonishingly rare and modern collectors clamber over one another to get their hands on these golden-age gems for many times the price Valentin would have paid. 
Stephen Rankin has been fortunate to sample whiskies from one of the most remarkable single malt libraries in the world at Gordon & MacPhail. His team is able to pull out liquids from what he calls “pre-evolutions within distilleries” thanks to his family’s foresight to buy barrels from cash-strapped producers who were selling their stocks for survival. The Elgin-based independent bottler had the luxury and fortitude to bide their time and store casks that would otherwise have been bottled young or blended. He has a particular affection for single malts from what was Milton Distillery, known since 1951 as Strathisla, which he describes as a “great example of a whisky that has the flavours of this past era.” 
Independent bottlers like Gordon & MacPhail played a vital role in bringing many of these now-legendary whiskies into the world. One man in particular, Silvano Samaroli, was responsible for bottling single malts that are now widely regarded as some of the greatest ever released.  
Rome-based Samaroli released his first Scotch whisky series in 1968 in the form of the now-iconic, dumpy Cadenhead bottlings – making him the first independent Scotch whisky bottler outside the United Kingdom. Today, Samaroli’s Bowmore, Glen Garioch, and  Springbank releases are held in especially high regard and his  Laphroaig single malts from 1967 and 1970 are in a league of their own. 
“The late 1960s to the ’80s is definitely one of the most remarkable periods,” Samaroli’s Daniele Liberati says, “largely due to the appearance of certain expressions for the first time.”  
“We started to propose different bottlings, moving away from the classic blends and official distillery releases,” Liberati adds. These included single-cask expressions, numbered bottlings and cask-strength releases, all of which are commonplace today but were revolutionary at the time.
 
In recent years, a handful of new distillers have turned to old whisky-making practices in an attempt to recapture some of its magic. Fledgling Speyside distiller Dunphail, for instance, has faithfully – and at great cost – installed traditional floor maltings, direct-fired stills and wooden, open washbacks where fermentation times are considerably longer than the industry average, to produce a fruit-forward, oily, medium-bodied Speyside whisky. Today, however, these traditional methods are always adopted in conjunction with modern practices in order to achieve all the desirable characteristics of yore in a more efficient way.   While there is the temptation to look back on this era with a rose-tinted view, as there are undeniably some exceptional bottlings from this time, it is wrong to believe that all whisky produced in the golden age was of the same standard. Whisky-making 40 to 50 years ago was imperfect, there was very little consistency in quality and for one good cask, a distiller would likely have 10 or 20 bad ones that never saw the light of day.  It’s also important to appreciate that many of these modernisations were vital to guarantee the safety of distillery workers as several stages in production were unstable. These advancements have also resulted in unprecedented consistency. While nuance and singularity might have been sacrificed, it’s now incredibly hard to find a bad dram.   As times evolve – as they inevitably do – it’s highly unlikely whisky from Scotland’s golden age will ever not be considered precious.    Browse all Scotch whisky or read more Editorial

Some of the most exceptional single malts ever released were produced in an era affectionately known as “the golden age”. Bottlings from this time are painfully scarce and have gained near-mythic status among whisky enthusiasts. Holly Motion explores why whiskies from this age are so precious

Exploring the golden age of malt whisky and its most coveted bottlings that are widely considered some of the greatest single malts ever released.

The golden age of malt whisky

The golden age of whisky

Oak barrels have been used in winemaking for thousands of years. While initially their purpose was simply as a holding vessel, today it is much more than this. As we have learnt about wine production at a molecular level, we have discovered the unique interaction between oak and wine – adding flavour, textural complexity and increased ageing potential. These intrinsic qualities have seen oak at the forefront of fine wine’s greatest success stories – but also some of its greatest failures. The use of oak to improve a wine requires great skill and finding that balance has shaped the modern history of fine wine.  What is rather beautiful about winemaking, particularly in fine wine circles, is that despite the input from developments in science and technology, production remains an artisan craft, relying both on tradition and technology. The barrel-maker is a perfect example of this partnership and no one understands this better than François Frères. This lauded Burgundy cooper’s ties to the world’s greatest wines make it one of a very small number that have lived through the development and fashions within fine wine.  Today, business has never been better for François Frères; they produce 30,000 barrels a year and export to every major wine region in the world. The secret to the François Frères barrels historically, Gigandet believes, is their consistency, while the all-important signature toasting is paramount. To keep up with the ever-growing world of fine wine, François Frères produces tailor-made barrels that fit the varying climates and varying styles of each winemaker, meeting the standards set by today’s precision-led winemaking. Despite the growth of the business in recent years, François Frères still remains intrinsically linked to its homeland in Burgundy and the specific microclimate of Saint-Romain that is so important for the seasoning of their oak – another key factor behind the company’s success. “The microclimate of Saint-Romain, in a windy and pollution-free environment is ideal for the seasoning and drying of the oak. This oxidation of phenolic compounds under the influence of fungi, releases enzymes that hydrolyse the phenolic compounds, reducing the wood’s astringency, producing oak of the finest quality for wine production,” Gigandet tells me. The art of the cooper is much more than just sawing and toasting – it’s about sourcing, traceability, control of drying time and heating, hygiene, temperature control, sorting and more. With increased knowledge, the quality of the barrels, like that of the wines, has greatly improved. Even just a few years ago, Gigandet admits that in colder Burgundy vintages, sometimes their barrels jarred with the wine – they “brought too much tension and could sometimes seem too austere”. But now they have a better understanding of the qualities their barrels can bring to Burgundy: “François Frères barrels remain attractive to winemakers because they are great at retaining freshness and minerality.” Perhaps most importantly, François Frères wants its barrels to amplify a wine’s intrinsic qualities. “It wants to accentuate the beautiful tannic structure of a wine, contribute to its flavour but without excess of sweetness from the toasting, as well as amplifying the wine's tension and minerality, helping retain its freshness and its fruit,” Gigandet says. As technology has developed, so has François Frères. It is what Gigandet aptly calls “the evolution of taste” – “the cask has evolved considerably over the last few decades along with the quality of the wines. Today, the barrel is much more specific, manufacturing almost tailor-made barrels for each customer’s needs.” The business was founded by Joseph François in the early 1900s, never imagining that being a cooper would become a full-time job. Back then, Gigandet reminds us, “It took several trades to live.” But the next generation, Robert and Henri François, saw the demand for oak casks rise, at that time mainly used to transport wines. They took the operation full-time, creating the François Frères brand in 1942. In those days, as Gigandet points out, “The tradition of maturing wines in barrels was reserved only for the very top red and white wines of Burgundy and the great Bordeaux châeaux.” Even within these regions, barrels were a luxury, re-used year after year given their expense, therefore keeping the demand for new barrels low. By the 1960s the brothers were met by the development of stainless steel and plastic containers. The barrel quickly lost it supremacy as the preferred vessel for transportation and demand plummeted. It was only the top producers that helped keep the cooperage going. By the 1970s François Frères was producing barrels for one of the world’s most famous estates, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti – a partnership that would be instrumental in the continuation of the business through a difficult period. The next generation – Robert's son, Jean – was confronted by the economic downturn of the early 1970s and turned to export to save the family business. Fortuitously at this time, oenologists in the United States started to highlight how ageing wines in new oak barrels brought complementary flavours and complexity to the wines. In the 1980s, the French market caught onto the idea and both export and domestic markets grew. The oak barrel was entering an era where it would become the star of the show – and a must for all top producers. François Frères’s reputation for working with the best saw it perfectly placed to capitalise on this new-found love for the barrel. But according to Gigandet, it wasn’t just the fashion of using new oak in the 1980s and ’90s that saw such a huge increase in demand. This trend emerged just as wine exports exploded. What he calls “the democratisation of wine” saw the world of wine suddenly open up to the middle classes – and this increase in sales saw an ever-increasing need to maintain quality and improve consistency. Such demand prompted and funded a better scientific and technological understanding of wine production. More importantly for François Frères, it fuelled the need for a better understanding of what barrel-ageing does to wine – and why. It was already clear that contact with new oak changed wine profoundly. Most obviously the aromas and flavours of the wine develop, becoming more complex. These aromas and flavours are formed during the toasting of the barrels. “It is this toasting of the barrel that remains the signature of the cooper,” explains Gigandet. But the oak didn’t just impact the flavour, they came to understand that, being porous, oak allowed the wine to undergo “controlled oxygenation”. The exchange of air through the oak staves, in particular for red wines, helps stabilise the colour and polymerise the tannins. This polymerisation not only softens the wine, but brings a textural complexity, a millefeuille layering of mouth-feel brought about by the linking of long tannin chains, encouraged by the micro-oxygenation process that the wine goes through when aged in oak barrel. “François Frères barrels are ageing tools, which contribute to the textural improvement of wines, when used wisely,” Gigandet explains. As the wine world’s love of oak grew, François Frères’ main export customers went from little-known names to pioneers in their respective regions – with Robert Mondavi in the US, Angelo Gaja in Italy, Nicolas Catena in Argentina and Australia’s Rosemount winery. Each of these producers further cemented the cooper’s reputation, representing the very pinnacle of oak barrel production. Of course, like all fashions, the oak craze of the ’90s saw some extreme uses – 200% new oak ageing or an over-reliance on oak to provide flavour to wines that lacked the natural concentration to carry it. This saw many producers and consumers react strongly against its presence in wine at all. Even Gigandet admits that there are wines with “excess woodiness” to their detriment. Today, the barrel also has to compete with new trends in wine maturation – concrete eggs and clay amphorae, for instance. But while these new vessels have captured the imagination of the world’s top winemakers, it is not necessarily at the expense of the barrel. “The barrel has an important oenological role in the development of wines from certain grape varieties,” states Gigandet – notably Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Pinot Noir. But he also outlines how different ageing vessels combined can also benefit a wine’s potential for complexity. This is certainly the case amongst some leading producers in Bordeaux and Burgundy that are using both oak barrels and alternative ageing vessels. Coopers like François Frères have weathered the changing relationship wine has had with the barrel; with shifting views of critics and drinkers over the last century. Fortunately for fine wine lovers, there’s little sign of oak fading into the background. Oak remains a vital ingredient in many of the world’s greatest wines, adding to its flavour, textural complexity and – of course – ageing potential. Today oak has never been so deftly handled, bringing so much to a wine, while retaining the grapes’ natural expression. The art of the cooper lives on. Read more Editorial 

Oak has played a vital role in the changing history of fine wine. In 2021 we spoke to Max Gigandet – Managing Director of leading Burgundy cooper François Frères – to explore the power of a good barrel and why oak isn’t going anywhere

Exploring the vital role oak has played in the changing history of fine wine and the power of a good barrel with François Frères

François Frères on the art of the cooper

Finding the balance: the art of the cooper

Colin Scott should be one year into his retirement. After 47 years at Chivas Brothers, 31 of which were spent as the Master Blender, he should be enjoying a well-earned rest. Instead, the ebullient Scott is lighting up the screens of the FINE+RARE team as he talks about a certain 50-year-old blended whisky he has created for remarkable spirits curators The Last Drop Distillers.   “It’s just fantastic to come to The Last Drop and find these nuggets of gold and all these wonderful casks of very precious liquid that have phenomenal complexity and flavour,” Scott says with unabashed glee.   Despite his near-50 years in the whisky industry, this is only the second 50-year-old blend Scott has had a hand in producing. Well-aged whisky was, until relatively recently, only a small part of Chivas’ business.   “By the time we’d filled a cask and it had matured to 12 years, most of that went into Chivas 12. Once it reached 21 years old, we put it all into Royal Salute. So, there was very little maturing. But of course, as time goes on, the stocks have been held back and the super-premium part of the inventory has grown.”   Scott joined Chivas Brothers in 1973 and became their fifth Master Blender in 1989. But he would have to wait a further 13 years before a 50-year-old whisky project presented itself. The result was The Royal Salute 50 Year Old, released in 2002 – a dual commemorative bottling for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and Royal Salute’s 50th anniversary.   Today he’s talking about his latest 50-year-old creation, The Last Drop’s 22nd release and first in-house whisky: a 50-year-old blended Scotch. After a whole three months as a man of leisure, the “retiree” joined the Sazerac-owned company as their first Master Blender in autumn 2020.   “When I joined in September last year, it was really the beginning of finding out what all these nuggets were within the inventory. Sorting through the very special and remarkable casks and finding out a little bit about what they were and what they did and how we could bring them together.”  Scott explains that everything in the blend started out as either a single malt or a single grain whisky, distilled at different distilleries around Scotland over 50 years ago. “At various stages along the way, blends have been made but then of course the balance has been put into cask and stored away for further maturation. So, what we have is a mixture of some of these malts and grains, all with their own unique characters and flavours, that we bring together at the last moment.”   Tasting the blended whisky alongside Scott is like being escorted on a journey back through time – to an age when a lot of distilleries were doing their own maltings and adding peat to the kiln to get a little smoky flavour.   “To me, blending is all about taking the flavours and then balancing them,” he says. “What you have here on the nose is a tsunami of flavour. But, when you taste it, nothing actually lingers and stays on top.”   Scott encourages tasters to add water to remove the aggression of the alcohol and maximise the release of the aromas and characters. When he is tasting more than 50 samples around a nosing table, this trick is vital to reduce all the whiskies to 20% alcohol and allow the flavours to present themselves.   In the case of The Last Drop 50 Year Old, its mellowness, richness and depth means you don’t necessarily need to cut the 48% dram.    “When we blend, we don’t add something, sniff it and then add a bit more of that. What we do is actually write down the whole formula in its entirety. We then pilot blend it. When we add the last addition, it will change the balance of everything you have already. So, you don’t know the final answer until you add that last part of the formula. And then once you’ve got them all together you can evaluate what you have actually created.”  For Scott, the act of blending and evaluating is an entirely personal thing. “All whisky – grains, blends – are fantastic. They are all different and they all bring their own song to the party. The only reason one is better than other is your own personal experience.”   Scott, for instance, isn’t “a fan” of the smoky Islays. “I don’t think they’re bad,” he adds. “It’s all about personal taste. There’s not a bad whisky in the world.”  The Master Blender talks at length about whiskies having different personality traits that require nurturing and, ultimately, respect.   “If you take a single malt as distillate at birth – that has a flavour package. It’s like you when you’re born – you have a character. If you put that new distillate into a cask, over the years this distillate will react with the oak in the cask and take influences and nuances which will then promote other flavours in the new spirit.  “So as time goes on, the volume actually goes down, the strength goes down, but that flavour package actually intensifies and intensifies and multiplies and multiplies.”   When it comes to age, there is some debate about how old you can go. For Scott, the 50-year-old is undoubtedly a rare beast, but he doesn’t see any reason why you can’t go older and rarer if the whisky has been sufficiently nurtured.   “If the angels didn’t interfere, in a quality cask, you could take it to 60-, 70-, 80 years,” he says. “If you’ve got quality casks, you don’t get that wood influence. You get a little touch of the oak but what you have at the end of the day is this small amount of highly intense, complex flavoured whisky that started as the new distillate and just grew with all the different influences from the oak and the cask whether it is Sherry or Bourbon.”  While there have been scientific advancements during Scott’s career, he says there are still a great many unknowns about the maturation and flavour process, and you get the impression this only adds to the allure for him.   “Because it’s nature, we don’t actually know what’s going on,” he adds. “It’s massively complex and the technical people still don’t know the number of components in Scotch whisky. I think they’re up to about 800 now. When I started there were about 200.”   Regardless, you sense Scott will continue to do what he does best: respect, nurture and blend remarkable liquids – retirement be damned.   Browse all Last Drop listings or read more Editorial 

As he approaches his 50th year in the industry, Colin Scott tells Holly Motion about the allure of well-aged whisky and plundering The Last Drop’s remarkable spirits inventory 

The Last Drop Distiller's Colin Scott on the allure of well-aged whisky and his new role plundering the independent bottler's archives.

Bewitching blended whisky

The bewitching blend

Xavier Vignon could best be described as a maverick winemaker whose inquisitive mind and extraordinary experiments have taken him on journeys all around the world, working on some of the must cutting-edge developments in today’s burgeoning wine scene. Initiated into oenology from a scientific background he has always had the benefit of operating free from the shackles of tradition yet now in his 40th year as a winemaker, his wealth of experience has seen him integrate his science with sensibility, developing an appreciation of producing wine in its most natural form.  We spoke to an initially noticeably weary Xavier Vignon, who is still recovering from a fairly serious bout of COVID-19. However, as soon as he starts to talk about his current projects he becomes distinctly more animated as he begins to describe all the fascinating projects he is currently working on.  This is a vigneron who clearly cannot stay still for long and has a huge drive and enthusiasm for his work. In fact, in his early days as a vigneron he was on the move all over the world working in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, California for half of the year whilst returning to his native France to work through the harvest in the northern hemisphere. He carried out 40 harvests in 20 years.  His winemaking career started in Champagne before exploring the other wine regions of France, working in Alsace and Bordeaux among others. Coming from a family of stonemasons whose philosophy was to travel when young, he was encouraged to explore the world before settling down. These travels and the variety of experiences working in oenology from one country and climate to the next are surely a vital part of the puzzle for Xavier’s success as a winemaker. It was the Rhône Valley that finally stopped him in his tracks. Admitting he had never really
been interested in the wines of the Southern Rhône, hence the reason he arrived there later in his career, only to find that it had everything he was looking for. A huge variety of terroirs, varying altitudes, an array of grape varieties. This meant lots of freedom in blending (reminding him of his work in Champagne) lots of work on tannins (harking back to Bordeaux) and working in warmer climates of the new world. He was well-prepped to take on the region, setting up his own laboratory and consultancy practice initially advising for 20 – 25 winemakers before it expanded to over 500 in the region. Minerality, water and wine Xavier’s technical skills certainly helped many traditional vignerons to develop their wine
for global export but it also gave Xavier a tremendous opportunity to explore the multitude of wines throughout the region. Xavier became fascinated with things that were clearly evident in tasting so many wines of the region, which his scientific background couldn’t always explain. “Minerality” for example, is a term bandied around wine circles everywhere you go. We all know it exists but science cannot tell us what it is. It is not clear that we even all think it is the same thing, Xavier claims.  He was part of an extensive global research paper exploring what consumers and wine professionals identify as “minerality”. The study interviewed 5,000 consumers and 5,000 professionals resulting in no clear evidence that people were talking about the same thing. The only clear answer was that Chablis had minerality! Half the study thought more about smell, 50% thought about flavour. There is no definition still states Xavier. But this began his fascination with water and for him the key to understanding the secrets of minerality – despite him knowingly accepting he had no scientific data to prove it. This was his first step towards trusting his sensibilities over scientific analysis. For him you need to look to water to understand minerality. 85% of wine is water, water is
a huge proportion of what we taste, he states. Xavier looks to mineral water companies, even beer and whisky companies who have invested much more analysis on the affects of water, than the wine industry, largely because they have more money to do so, but also because water plays a much bigger role in their taste profile (in beer water is 90-95% water compared to wine which technically is 100% grape juice).  In their analysis of mineral salt, bottled mineral waters from different parts of the world have distinctly different levels of each mineral affecting the flavour of the water. Beer companies have also accepted that their beers made in different factories around the world taste different depending on where they are made because of the composition of the water. Whisky famously is obsessed by the quality of its water in regard to the final flavour profile of each distillery.  "So why not wine too?", asks Xavier. In different parts of the Rhône he identifies how high levels of silica in a wine makes the wine taste more acidic. How different chloride minerals provide a flavour of salinity in the wine, magnesium creates bitterness and so on. Scientific analysis doesn’t register the difference, but the difference is extraordinarily apparent when tasting. The effect of water is intrinsic, Xavier believes, to the strong mineral flavours of the Southern Rhône. The wines of the region could never taste like they do elsewhere because of the effect of the mistral. The mistral wind in places (particularly Châteauneuf-du-Pape) is so strong that it evaporates water from the berries, heightening the concentrations of mineral salts the grapes have absorbed in the water from the ground whilst the water evaporates from the berries. Xavier believes Gigondas, where the vines tend to be more protected from the mistral due to the protection of the hills, is less mineral for that reason. Xavier’s fascination with the effects of water on wine was a big reason why he began his
Arcane series, a set of one-off wines that are produced with minimal manipulation. He looks back at some regions he has worked in, stating parts of California and Australia require one to one and a half tonnes of irrigated water just to produce one bottle of wine. This is crazy! Whilst we have the science and technology for this to work, it doesn’t make sense. The Arcane Series of wines by Xavier The first wine made from the Arcane series was called “Le Diable” – translates as “the devil”. It came about when one of the vignerons he was advising took him to a high altitude Mourvèdre vineyard. The winemaker now in his eighties had struggled his whole life to get the Mourvèdre this high up to ripen, never achieving the results to use in his final wine. Xavier convinced the vigneron not to harvest the grapes with the rest of his crop, to leave the grapes on the vine and to see what happens.  It was 2015, a very late harvest already Xavier recalls but this extended Indian summer caused something in the vineyard they couldn’t believe. As the grapes continued to ripen and sugars increase, the acidity also started to go up as well! They had never seen anything like it. Xavier convinced the grower to sell him the grapes and produced the wine made just from these grapes. Xavier took the wine back to the elderly grower, who on tasting the wine began to cry. In his lifetime he had never been able to produce a wine from the vineyard, particularly not a 100% Mourvèdre!  Xavier named it Le Diable, the nickname of the Mourvèdre in the Southern Rhône because it was so difficult to ripen. Xavier knew that what happened in 2015 was unlikely to be repeated. This was a wine that made itself. It was vines in the perfect place at the perfect time and this is what he wanted the Arcane series to represent. Ever since, the Arcane series (now in its 6th and 7th cuvee to be released in the next few weeks) are complete one offs never to be repeated. The story behind the Arcane series informed Xavier’s winemaking philosophy ever since. Whilst he believes we can use science and technology to manipulate wines, he wanted to move away from this, preferring nature to tell him where and when he should make the wine. That hasn’t stopped him experimenting however and there are plenty of other cuvées that
show off Xavier’s inquisitive scientific brain operating at full speed. He is currently working with a winery in Turkey that wants to produce a wine free of any manipulation. Not only organically and biodynamically grown, natural yeasts etc but they even want the fermentation and maturation vessel to have no impact on the wine – he came up with the “vinarium” – a dark glass tank for fermentation and maturation – a natural product that does not infuse any flavour in the wine.  His next experiment is to get rid of closures altogether by extending the neck of the bottle and melting the glass at the top to seal the wine without any other material such as cork to affect the flavour. He eventually wants to create individual wines from individual vines!  He is experimenting with ageing wines both in the ocean and with his own invention of submerging a tank of wine within another bigger tank of wine. He does this with his Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Ange, comparing the process to a baby in a womb, completely protected from the outside world.  He believes you can age wine like this for 50 years without any need for sulphides or racking because there is 100% humidity and an even atmospheric pressure on the wine all the time. It’s an expensive operation and for the moment not possible for all his wines. But the level of experimentation and inquisitiveness gives you a good impression the sort of lengths Xavier will go to to push the boundaries of modern winemaking. He has no problem blending a Châteauneuf-du-Pape with a Côtes du Rhône village cuvee to make it a better wine only for it to be downgraded to a Vin de France because a Châteauneuf-du-Pape cannot be included in a blend and be titled Côtes du Rhône Villages. His interest lies in how it tastes, accentuating the multifaceted variety and complexity that exists in the Southern Rhône, rather than the traditional restraints of the appellation system. This is a maverick whose wines today are some of the most exciting in the Southern Rhône. Discover all Xavier Vignon listings or read more Editorial

Based in the Southern Rhône for the last 25 years, Xavier Vignon has amassed a huge following from critics and consumers alike, with his wines often scoring in the high nineties, yet remaining extraordinary value. We caught up with him to find out the secrets to his success

Southern Rhône winemaker maverick Xavier Vignon on the secrets to his success and high-scoring wines

Xavier Vignon, a Rhône wine innovator

Xavier Vignon: A Rhône radical

The red wines in 2019  Whether you’re in Pauillac or Pomerol, Saint-Estèphe or Saint-Emilion, 2019 is a vintage big in colour, concentration and tannins.The wines are packed with fragrance and flavour, with a welcome level of freshness that producers had not anticipated in the weeks leading up to harvest.   Left Bank   “I would say that 2019 is great for all varieties,” says Philippe Bascaules, Managing Director of First Growth Ch. Margaux. “Merlot is in the style of 2018 – concentrated and very ripe; Cabernet Sauvignon is in the style of…2019! Fresh, elegant, and very well-balanced between opulence and vivacity.” But if he had to make comparisons, he sees a combination of characteristics of the lauded 2009 and 2010 vintages: “2009 for the texture, concentration and silkiness; 2010 for the freshness.”   It’s a similar story a little further up the Médoc in the appellation of Saint-Julien. “Tasting the wine at this stage reminds us of the 2009 vintage with its sunny characteristics and that creamy unctuosity but the drop in temperatures from the beginning of harvest time gives this vintage a freshness in the expression of these aromas,” says Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier of Ch. Léoville Poyferré.   The blending components of a Bordeaux wine go beyond the grape varieties and picking dates. It’s also important to take into account the soils. On the Left Bank, the cooler, clay-rich soils provided grapes with greater freshness while the gravel-dominant sites provided richer, riper fruit. In Saint-Estèphe, the teams at Chx Montrose, Calon Ségur and Phélan Ségur, credit the appellation’s higher proportions of clay for negotiating the prolonged dry spells and bringing balance to these ripe wines.   Right Bank   On the Merlot-dominant Right Bank, you can expect plenty of colour, abundant tannins and generous fruit. However, the good pH levels have maintained a greater sense of freshness than the sumptuous 2018s, providing balance.  In Saint-Emilion, producers on the limestone plateau and clay-limestone hillsides, home to its most revered vineyards, fared better than those on the free-draining sandy plain during the long dry periods. Expect a little more freshness than in 2018 – site and picking date dependent – but with plenty of dense, rich fruit.    Maylis Marcenat, whose family estate Clos de Sarpe sits on clay-limestone, says: “2019 is going to be a very good vintage for us, a classic Bordeaux vintage but with greater smoothness,” she says. “It has slightly less alcohol than 2018 and greater balance. The tannin texture reminds me of 2016 but it has a freshness of its own. It’s a vintage that reminds me of 2001 and I am sure of its aging capacity.”   In neighbouring Pomerol, the appellation delivers on its classic rich, dark fruit and trademark chocolatey tannins. Omri Ram, Ch. Lafleur’s winemaker, believes that 2019 however is fresher than 2015 and not as massive. While the two vintages have similar concentration of tannins and a high level of solids, 2019 is much more communicative than the 2015 was at this early stage. “2015 is a difficult vintage to taste young but the 2019, although sharing similar characteristics, is more open but has the same seriousness, the same depth, creaminess and balance,” he says.  The dry white wines  in 2019  ”It is great in white and red. This is the strength of this vintage. The white wines show a great richness: [they are] fresh, balanced and suave,” says Olivier Bernard, the head of Domaine de Chevalier, a Graves estate renowned for both its whites and reds.   In the University of Bordeaux’s annual vintage report, Professor Laurence Gény-Denis and his team said: “Despite an exceptionally hot summer that was sometimes incompatible with the greatest dry white vintages, the absence of early and excessive water stress produced perfectly balanced, aromatic grapes with good acidity and not overly high sugar levels. Their composition is ideal for producing wines with outstanding ageing potential.”   It was a relatively early kick-off for the dry white harvest to avoid stressing the vines, which means a very small reduction in average alcohols versus 2018 at around 13.7%.The team at Ch. Smith Haut Lafitte explained that the Sauvignon Blanc, which makes up 90% of its lauded white blend, has an element of fatness – but not at the expense of freshness. While the average pH of Bordeaux white in 2019 is marginally higher than in recent vintages, it remains low at a pretty zesty 3.2.  The sweet white wines in 2019  For sweet wines, things were a little more challenging. Dry, warm weather delayed the onset of noble rot but rainfall in late September allowed perfectly ripe grapes to develop botrytis cinerea and berry concentration rapidly increased. The majority of the grapes were harvested in several days, just before heavy rains in mid-October.   Eric Kohler of Domaines Barons de Rothschild, which owns Ch. Rieussec in Sauternes, adds: “September’s rains were very beneficial – as they were in 2017 and a first window opened on 8th October to pick perfect botrytised grapes for the Grand Vin – with a special mention to some lovely Muscadelle. It then became more challenging due to development of sour rot/acid. The team worked like gold diggers to really sort the best possible grapes until 21st October.”  Comparing 2019 to other vintages  Comparing vintages is like comparing children. Every vintage, like every child, has its own DNA but that doesn’t stop us looking for similarities and differences, providing an anchor in a sea of claret.   The scientists at Bordeaux University do the hard graft, compiling data from around the region to give us in-depth analysis of the region and its vital statistics. Put your lab jacket on, here comes the science.   The data shows that Cabernet Sauvignon berries were the smallest since 2010. Packed with tannin and colour, these small berries have created wines that are deeply coloured and rich in tannin. The tannins are also ripe and the fruit is rich with high sugar levels at harvest equating to some fairly weighty alcohol levels on a par with 2018 and 2010. Acidity is critical to maintain balance and compares with 2016 while pH in the Cabernet Sauvignon – critical to stability and another indicator of freshness – is lower than 2018 and sits in the ballpark of 2015 and 2016.   Based on the wines coming out of their stable from Pomerol to Pauillac, Eric Kohler, technical director of Domaines Barons de Rothschild’s Bordeaux estates, which includes Lafite-Rothschild, Duhart-Milon and Nénin, says: “Our gutfeel is that just as there will always be a discussion between 2009 and 2010, that we will have the same between 2018 and 2019; 2018 being closer to 2009, and 2019 being closer to 2010.”   When it comes to Merlot, once again the dry, sunny weather has led to small berry sizes; tannin levels are sandwiched between the impressive 2018 and 2015/2010s. The ripeness levels are comparable to 2010 and 2016, but the total acidity is a touch lower than these two vintages.   Jean-Baptiste Bourotte of Pomerol’s Clos du Clocher, whose 2019 is comprised of 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc, says, “The question is if the alcohol is fairly high – for Bordeaux, because other regions have long been used to these levels – can we still find the balance and elegance that makes classic Bordeaux? On the earlier plots, the liveliness has been maintained with a pH of 3.6 and the tannins are ripe and abundant, which means there’s no perception of high alcohol in the mouth and you’ll find that the 2019s are balanced in a true-to-type Pomerol way.”  

The 2019 vintage in Bordeaux is special. Although, with the Covid-19 outbreak, we were unable to make it out to the region, we interviewed producers and tasted wine samples in the UK. Here’s everything you need to know about the year 

Everything you need to know about the 2019 vintage in Bordeaux – a year that produced exceptional wines

Full report on the 2019 vintage in Bordeaux

Bordeaux 2019 vintage report

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This item is at FINE+RARE, available for storage, transfer or delivery.
 Most UK deliveries can be made within 3-5 working days, with next day delivery for London;
 an exact date will be available when arranging delivery.
 International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

This item is at FINE+RARE HOME Hong Kong, available for delivery or local pickup. Most Hong Kong deliveries can be made within 3 working days, an exact date will be available when arranging delivery. International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

Wines sold en primeur will be released from the producer after bottling, typically 18 months after the so-called campaign ends. Your wine will then be stored by FINE+RARE in a bonded warehouse until you decide to take delivery.

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange expedited shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 2-4 weeks is typical for expedited sourcing.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 6-12 weeks is an average estimate.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

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