Jane Anson’s report highlighted the fact that this exclusive label has been awarded to us for free, and that we’re celebrating ten years as the house wine at his restaurants.

‘Gordon Ramsay’s Selection’ includes two whites, a red and our rosé, all of which are served at his restaurants. All are currently available direct from our website, including a super mixed dozen.

On friday, the same day that the Decanter.com news item was published, we delivered a few cases to the Ramsay household for their post-London Marathon party today. Perhaps our new strapline should be ‘So good, Gordon drinks it at home’.

The real surprise though is that there seems to be a genuine desire to launch a quick ‘en primeur’ campaign, with the possibility of the First Growths – Latour, Lafite, Margaux (above), Mouton Rothschild and Haut-Brion – coming out with an opening offer in the next couple of weeks, before most of the lower ranks. And that would be big news here as it would turn the normal routine on its head.

What usually happens is that the trade and wine press come to the tastings, and there’s much chat about which estates did well and the disastrous state of the market, and then everyone goes home and waits for Robert Parker to release his scores at the end of April. (’I may be disappointed if Jancis Robinson doesn’t like my wine, but I don’t eat if Robert Parker gives me a bad score’, the owner of one top château in Pauillac told me.)

Parker will have liked a lot of what he’s tasted, especially in Saint Emilion and Pomerol (eg L’Evangile, left), and at some of the top estates on the Left Bank, but will not want to be too enthusiastic for fear of the Châteaux getting above themselves.

Merchants and potential customers around the world then have to wait for the château owners to release their prices for the wines, which are still in barrel. It’s potentially quite exciting, and with great vintages like 2000 and 2005 everyone wants to splash out on super wines for much less than they’ll be worth in the future. But in the two most recent campaigns, for the 2006s and especially the 2007s, the wines haven’t been wildly exciting and the top châteaux have taken an age to set their prices – and when they have, the prices have been too high.

So the standard timechart has been for the reviews to be published online by wine critics in April, the trade then waits fruitlessly for some juicy offers in May, and eventually many leading châteaux ‘come out’ in June – after guessing what their neighbours are up to – until finally the First Growths astound everyone with their monster prices at the end of June. That’s three months – and way too long.

For the First Growths to turn the form-book upside down in order to kick-start the 2008 campaign, in a very difficult market, is a bold move. Corinne Mentzelopoulos, owner of Château Margaux, told me that the Bordeaux négociants (the intermediaries between the chåteaux and importers worldwide) were pressing for a quick campaign, and lower prices of course, but that there was still time to reflect. My own view is that she’d have little to gain by waiting for Parker’s score.

Alain Vauthier, proprietor of Château Ausone and maker of Saint Emilion’s most expensive wine, said to me yesterday that he was ‘Sûr. Presque sûr’ that the First Growths would release their prices by the end of April at ‘un prix attractif’. ‘Le marché est mort’, he said. Not for your wine, Alain.

Will the First Growth owners have the courage to breath life into the upcoming campaign, when there is at least some momentum and enthusiasm for the wines?

We’ll see.

‘How was your trip?’ I asked. ‘You’re the first living people we’ve seen’ was James’s first dejected remark to us, after their long drive south to Bordeaux. Their Wine Adventure had begun.

In hindsight, it would have been better not to mention the price of a bottle as it dates very quickly. £6.50? These were the heady days when the exchange rate was 1.47 euros to the pound, and UK duty on a bottle was a lot less.

If you’d like to leave a comment, or ask a question, feel free to do so below.

You can also do this on YouTube by clicking on the video window above. While we’re on the subject of YouTube, it’s difficult not to laugh at this clip from a more recent episode.

Fair to say that by this stage in their relationship, they were letting their hair down.

So the children can cope just as well, as can Ronan, the former head sommelier from Gordon Ramsay’s, below.

Tom and Amelia, sporting the very smart Bauduc apron, would certainly rather do this than go to school.

But what a relief to bring the grapes in this late in the season in such good shape. This is the merlot from the block shown above, pictured last thursday, and the gravel soils have provided excellent drainage.

After all, they’ve been bringing in students from Denmark to Chateau Leoville Poyferré in St-Julien for years (left), and although their harvesters are a touch older, and quite a bit blonder, it looks to be a good way of saving a few bob. 

As well as manual harvesting, the kids are helping us to press the grapes. Oh, hello, is that the Inspecteur du travail coming down the drive? Or the bloke from Axa?

Our vines look great, especially compared to one of our next door neighbours in the Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux, who must have taken the summer off (left). Them grapes are sure gonna be no darn good.

Will our lovely grapes ripen before the ugly rot gets there first (right)?

This row of barrels may give you the impression that we want the wine to taste of oak. Far from it. In the same way that great white Burgundy doesn’t taste of oak, we’re aiming for a rounded, complex wine. Bizarrely, if I want a white wine to taste oaky (other than by using oak chips or cheaper American oak barrels), I’d ferment the wine in stainless steel and then transfer it to oak for ageing. A white wine made this way will taste much oakier than a wine that started life in the oak barrel. I learnt that to my cost a few years ago – the overly-oaky stuff never made it into a Bauduc wine.

In particular, effective spraying against the threat of mildew and rot was important, and the effeuillage in July, or pulling the leaves away from the fruit zone by hand, has kept the bunches well-aired. If they had been encased in a damp canopy of leaves at this stage, the grapes would have little chance of ripening and rot could develop quickly. We nearly bankrupted ourselves with the cost of it all – we had a team of a dozen or so experienced seasonal workers at times (left) – but it now feels like it was a risk worth taking.

This morning was cold and drizzly, so we need the weather to cheer up.

This year, we’ve decided to make a cracking rosé. Not that we have deliberately set out to make un vin rosé ordinaire in the past, it’s just that we haven’t focused enough on the style and that’s been reflected in the results.

You’ll often find that a Bordeaux rosé is a by-product of making red wine. Once you’ve put your red grapes in the tank, you run off some juice the following day to concentrate what’s left (i.e. less juice to macerate and ferment with the skins). You then cool ferment the ‘left over’ pale juice just as you would a white wine – without the skins. Bingo: rosé.

The problem with this method – called saignée, or blooded – is that you are using juice from grapes that you’re making into red wine. The grapes need to be fully ripe for red but for rosé, we need a bit less alcohol and a bit more acidity – we want juice from grapes that aren’t too ripe. 

So this year, we’re making a rosé from specially selected blocks – merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignons. The first to ripen is the merlot so it was a 4am start again yesterday to bring it in as fresh and cold as possible. Just like the white we want to avoid oxidation. And then we pressed the grapes straight away to avoid tannins (pressurage direct), which we hope will bring great results. We’ll have to wait and see.