The Château Belair Saint-Georges of Saint-Georges-Saint-Émilion of Bordeaux

The Barton family announced yesterday (19 January), ‘We have the immense sadness to inform you that our beloved Anthony Barton passed away at the age of 91 years old.’ Known as the ‘gentleman’ of Bordeaux wine and admired for his sense of humour and charisma, Anthony Barton was also widely respected for modernising family estates Léoville Barton and Langoa Barton – the respective 1855 second and third growth châteaux in the St-Julien appellation. Barton was credited, too, with maintaining ...

In November of 2021, Spain’s DO Penedès announced a massive overhaul of their bylaws with many changes aimed at re-orienting the region via a “10-year plan”. One of the key aspects was a new classification system for the estates of the region called, “Vi de Mas”, the first five of which have just been certified. While most wine regions looking to implement a system use the so-called “Burgundian Pyramid” as a structure, Penedès took a different approach that merged some of the Burgundian sy ...

My book The Complete Bordeaux, which has been revised every five years, is soon to be published in its fourth edition. This may seem like excessive haste, given the scope of the book, but it is astonishing how rapidly changes can take place in the region. Burgundy, in contrast, is relatively stable, since most properties are family-owned and tend to stay that way. But not so in Bordeaux, where there are ample opportunities for newcomers to acquire established properties, as they have been doing ...