Wines made from Sauterne grapes

A magnum of Lafite Rothschild 1887 sold for £22,500 ($28,300) at a Sotheby’s auction of ‘vinous treasures’ spanning nearly 200 years. The wine, held in storage with Octavian group in Wiltshire, had a pre-sale high estimate of £18,000. A single bottle of Château d’Yquem 1831 sold for £27,500 (pre-sale high estimate: £20,000). Another bottle of Yquem, from the 1896 vintage, sold for £15,000, tripling its pre-sale high estimate. ‘An extraordinary wine from a very great Sauternes vintage,’ said Sere ...

President Emmanuel Macron will host King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla when they arrive in Paris on Sunday 26 March. It will be King Charles’ first overseas tour since succeeding Queen Elizabeth II last year, and the royal couple will be welcomed with a state banquet at the Château de Versailles. They will also address senators and members of the National Assembly at the French Senate. On Tuesday 28 March, King Charles and Camilla will leave Paris and head to Bordeaux, which was chosen due t ...

I was with some wine students in Chablis, visiting the affable Guillaume Michel of Domaine Louis Michel. The 2018 vintage in Chablis was prolific, though Guillaume’s team pruned the vines as hard as normal. Guillaume has a little more than a half-hectare of the smallest of the grands crus, Grenouilles (8.74ha in production in 2018, most of which is controlled by the cooperative La Chablisienne): delicious in 2018. And, after a year’s pruning and vine-tending, after hand-harvesting and scrupulous ...