Flip on over to the Bauduc Blog
June 6th 2009, by GQ
Thanks for visiting GavinQuinney.com. I’ve switched to our Bauduc Blog at blog.bauduc.com. Please come and visit us there.
Hail in Bordeaux – the video
June 3rd 2009, by GQ
Never mind the recession, the strong euro, the weak pound, increased duty costs and global over-supply of cheap, industrial wine. It’s back to nature, and sometimes nature can be cruel.
Thanks for watching. You can leave a comment here, or join the debate (with scores of comments on this video) over at blog.bauduc.com.
Bordeaux Champions
June 1st 2009, by GQ
A few hours after Chelsea beat Everton 2-1 at Wembley to win the FA Cup, Bordeaux became Champions of the French league on saturday night by winning away at Caen 0-1. Les Girondins pipped Marsailles to the title, and some 80,000 had gathered in front of the big screen in the city centre, in la Place des Quinconces, to witness the thrilling finale.
Bordeaux were last champions in 1999, the year we arrived here. It’s also good to see a direct wine connection, in that the Président, Jean-Louis Triaud, is the owner of two châteaux in Saint-Julien – the little-known, classified growth Château St-Pierre and the unclassified but better known Château Gloria.
The Hand of God
May 13th 2009, by GQ
Clatter, clatter, clatter. The worst sound in the world for a winegrower.
In the middle of the night, at 3.30 in the morning on 13th May, we were battered by a hailstorm. And when violent winds accompany the sound of hail, we know it’s very bad news. Parts of Bordeaux were hit the night before, on Monday 11th, and we’d had a smattering of peanut-sized hail too. Our vineyard manager Daniel joked yesterday that if we’d been included in that storm, with hailstones the size of new potatoes, we should change our métiers, or jobs. I don’t think he was expecting lightning to literally strike twice.
On close inspection first thing this morning, this is by far the worst we’ve seen here. We lost 50% of the crop on 24 June 2003, and last year we had frost in April that wiped out much of our sauvignon blanc.