The Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste of Pauillac of Bordeaux

I’d like to say we took advantage of the lockdown and its related commotion to do a stock-take, explore new avenues, turn over intriguing stones, widen and deepen our drinking, taking careful notes as we went. Sadly, no. I won’t say we got stuck in a rut, but we did tend to stick with comfort wines – and “comfort”, in our case, means familiar. Regular readers of this quarterly column can probably guess the labels on the resulting empties. We have a wider range of comfort foods, I’m afraid, than ...

Having joined Domaine Barons de Rothschild in 1999, Congé has since held the role of oenologist and wine operations manager across Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Duhart Milon for over 22 years. He has now been appointed MD of  Saint-Estèphe fourth growth Château Lafon-Rochet. He takes on his new role with immediate effect. Congé will work closely with Emmanuel Cruse, director of Vignobles Cruse-Lorenzetti, which acquired Château Lafon-Rochet from the Tesseron family last year. The appoint ...

BCAP, a group controlled by the Castéja family, has agreed to acquire Château Peyrabon and Château La Fleur Peyrabon from Millésima, a subsidiary of the Bernard family, a joint-statement by both families said. Financial details weren’t disclosed. Peyrabon, in Haut-Médoc, was ranked as a ‘Supérieur’ estate in the Cru Bourgeois 2020 classification, which saw the ranking return to a three-tier system. ‘Supérieur’ is above standard Cru Bourgeois level but below ‘Exceptionnel’. Millésima and the Bern ...