The Château Fontbernard of Montagne-Saint-Émilion of Bordeaux

Australian wine exports dropped by 19% to A$2.08bn in the year to 30 June, said trade body Wine Australia this week. While exports to some countries rose, notably the US, the group’s report for the 2021-22 financial year offered fresh insight into a slide in shipments to China. Mainland China imposed varying import tariffs ranging from 116% to more than 200% on Australian bottled wines from late 2020 onwards. Exports to China, including Hong Kong and Macau, dropped by 74% in the 12 months to 30 ...

Majestic has this week announced its re-entry on the Bordeaux en primeur scene, starting with 2021-vintage offers on a range of big names, including First Growths Châteaux Lafite Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Mouton and Margaux. Its list also includes Cos d’Estournel, Palmer, Calon Ségur, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Cheval Blanc, Angélus, Canon and La Fleur-Pétrus, among others. Wines were being offered per single bottle or in six-bottle cases, all in bond, showed the retailer’s brochure. Fine wine m ...

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 ...