The Château Guillot Trochaud of Libournais of Bordeaux

An electronic dart was tossed at us recently by Decanter reader Tim Frances from Kent. It landed on the screen of our magazine editor Amy Wislocki; Amy lobbed it across the virtual room to me, suggesting a column-length reply. ‘Here’s a poser,’ Tim began. ‘How do your experts grade a wine that they find intellectually well made, but that they truly madly deeply dislike? I’ve tasted wines I can admire dispassionately, but would stab my feet with forks rather than drink them. Must be a conundrum f ...

I started to write my thoughts on the vintage as the dust settled from the annual primeur’s week (or month in my case) and when my teeth and lips had finally lost their purple hue – an unsightly image I documented once on Instagram. This year more than 7,000 eager wine tasters were welcomed onto the red carpets of various historic châteaux buildings, past manicured gardens and into beautifully decorated tasting rooms to taste the new batch of baby wines before tucking into lavish spreads, often ...

Several private investors have taken shareholdings in Maison Joanne, one of the biggest Bordeaux négociant firms and leading distributor of grands crus to wine merchants around the world. Company president Pierre Antoine Castéja announced the changes in a letter to business partners and friends on the eve of the Bordeaux 2021 en primeur tasting week. It marks a new chapter for the family business, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this year and has around 5 million bottles of fine wine stor ...