The Château St Denis Belair of Lalande-de-Pomerol of Bordeaux

The largest-ever year for entries, an incredible 18,244 wines were judged at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards – with just 163 wines awarded a Platinum medal. ‘Winning a Platinum medal is something really exceptional’ said Decanter World Wine Awards Co-Chair Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘Platinum is like the stratospheric level’ she commented, ‘so it’s really saying to the winemaker: this is a great wine.’ Making up just 0.87% of the total wines tasted at the 2022 c ...

The Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) revealed that the Bordeaux 2021 vintage was 20% below the region’s 10-year average. Bud burst came earlier than usual amid very sunny weather in March, and many young buds were then destroyed by severe frosts, which hammered the region in early April. It means that producers will have just 503 million bottles from the 2021 vintage, which is significantly below average. The region’s sweet whites, including Sauternes, suffered the sharpest y ...

Disconcerting: I couldn’t forget this bottle for days afterwards. Still can’t. Back in August, wine critic Lin Liu MW (together with her partner Philippe Lejeune of Château de Chambert in Cahors) came to dinner, en route to a short holiday in Provence. One of the bottles Lin brought for us to try together was the 2018 Les Rocheuses, Parcelles No 5 et 6, from Château Le Rey in Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux. It came in a slope-shouldered bottle, not a classic Bordeaux bottle. We tried it with some R ...