If this sort of thing matters to you, one press agency report has resulted in several columns confusing the terms ‘Grand Cru’ with ‘Grand Cru Classe’.  The recent 2006 classification has been thrown out, meaning that ‘Grand Cru Classe’ cannot be put on the label, but there’s no change to the use of the words ‘Grand Cru’, which, confusingly, is not part of this classification or ruling.  ‘Grand Cru’ is part of the qualifying process for the St-Emilion Appellation, not for the Classification, and, as far as consumers are concerned, the words ‘Grand Cru’ in Saint-Emilion might sound grand but they mean rod all, unlike in Burgundy or Chablis.  There are hundreds of wines from Saint-Emilion bearing the words Grand Cru which, frankly, are pretty grim, while others rank as some of the most sought-after (and unclassified) wines of Bordeaux.  As for the words ‘Grand Vin de Bordeaux’…

I feel disappointed for some of the losers in this new ruling, such as Nicolas Thienpont of Pavie-Macquin and Christine Valette of Troplong Mondot, both promoted to Premier Grand Cru Classe, but their wines have been recognised as being at the top level for many years (and comparative bargains pre-2005).  But the 2006 ranking is already out-of-date, in my opinion.  Who knows, with everyone back to square one, perhaps no-one will rest on their laurels and others will try harder each year, without the prospect of having to wait almost a decade for the next re-assessment.

For all it’s faults, at least the ‘en primeur’ method of selling top Bordeaux is completely unregulated and provides a swift insight into what’s happening.  God forbid that the rules should ever by controlled by committees or the courts.  If a chateau raises its game and makes great wine, professionals will chew it over and market forces – and customers – decide as to whether it’s worth buying or not.  (If they don’t want to take part, they can still sell their wine through other avenues – just like the rest of the world).  If like-minded owners want to present their wines as a group or association, there’s nothing to stop them.

Over a relatively short period of time, the good guys succeed and the sloppy ones get found out.  Just ask the people in Pomerol next door.  No classification there – just plenty of classy wines, from Petrus and Le Pin, to Petite Eglise. 

On Saturday, Otto Rettenmaier showed us around his chai (winery) and his vineyard at Chåteau La Tour Figeac, right next door to Cheval Blanc in St-Emilion on the border with Pomerol.  La Tour Figeac is one of the many up-and-coming estates in Saint Emilion making terrific wine at a fair price, and Otto is a very genial host.  After a light lunch in the old town, and an opportunity in a restaurant to sniff what a ‘corked’ wine smells like, we drove around some top spots – Pavie, Ausone and so on – and then trod some of the hallowed ground around the plateau of Pomerol. The most eye-opening part is the 100-fold current price difference of wines from the 2005 vintage, between one vineyard and its next door neighbour – Pétrus and Gazin in Pomerol, with almost as much of a gap between Ausone 2005 and Belair 2005 on the hillside above St-Emilion.

Dinner was at the newish, excellent Auberge de l’Ancienne Poste in Rions near the Garonne river.  Superb côte de boeuf was cooked over old vines on an open fire in one of the dining rooms.  The starters and desserts are in complete contrast to the brilliant main course – all theatre and weird presentation.  Actually they were quite tasty but clearly the chef must be a frustrated artist.  We drank Bauduc white and red, and the wine of Château La Tour Figeac that we had visited earlier in the day.

On sunday morning, we drove up the famous D2 on the Médoc wine route, taking in the picture book views of Chåteaux Margaux, Palmer and others.  Then an unusual occurrence for a sunday: a visit and tasting at a top estate in Pauillac, but I’d better keep the destination quiet in case they get inundated with requests. Lunch at the very sound Le Pauillac restaurant followed, on the quays in the town, and a very good bottle of Pontet Canet 2002 for €55.  Thankfully, one of the party offered to drive the people carrier back home.

When I was a young man growing up in London, my friends used to squirm in trepidation when I had my hands on the wine list in a restaurant.  Their fears were justified: to paraphrase George Best, I spent most of my earnings as a 25 year-old computer salesman on fine wine, football and a fast car – the rest I wasted.

Those happy, yuppy days are gone but some things – and men, I suppose – don’t change. So it was a real joy to be back in the toy shop yesterday when I was presented with the greatest wine list I have ever seen. And this wasn’t in Bordeaux, or Paris, or even in London, but in Girona, 100kms north of Barcelona in northern Spain and a short drive from the French border. (I drove the 500 kms from Bordeaux in our Toyota Previa, so something’s had to give.)

I was lucky enough to be invited to this celebration dinner at El Celler de Can Roca by a group of old friends from England, Belgium and Holland, and even more fortunate that (a) I wasn’t paying and (b) was given instructions to order only the best. The same group, minus me unfortunately, had eaten at El Bulli the night before and had ordered only Spanish wines, so their preference this time was for reds from Bordeaux.

The restaurant has two Michelin stars, and on arrival we asked for a bottle of cava and the wine list. I should have said ‘lists’ – plural, because the selection is so vast that it’s in two huge parts. I found it difficult to get past the Bordeaux section, let alone France: far too many outstanding wines to choose from, at unbelievably low prices. There’s no shortage of interesting stuff in the cheap seats (the cava was lovely for €25) but my brief was to stick to the royal circle.  And what a pleasure to find mature First Growths at well below current market prices, and way cheaper than any top restaurant that I have come across before.

In fact, I didn’t go for the most expensive – there’s a decent choice of Pétrus – but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Le Pin 2001 for €600 a bottle. Now I know it’s obscene to pay this sort of money for a single bottle in some people’s eyes, but this price for one of the greatest and rarest Pomerols of the decade is, absurd as it may seem, a bargain. This same wine sells for £1500 or more plus VAT from London wine merchants – if you can find it since only 500 cases were made – and here we are in a two Michelin star restaurant. Le Pin proprietor Jacques Thienpont sells his wine now for more than this en primeur, so we had to go for a bottle. In fact, for ten people, two bottles.

We decided to stick to rarer wines within the same area, partly as my Belgian friends are especially enamoured with Pomerol. Château Clinet 1989, La Conseillante 1998 (all Pomerols so far) and from literally just over the road in the graves of St-Emilion, Cheval Blanc 1998. While I was mulling over this lot in the bar area, and then in the superb, cool cellar with one of the sommeliers, I ordered up two different whites to get us started. A dry riesling from the wonderfully named Jesuitengarten, a 2001 from Dr Burklin Wolf, and then to match the middle courses on the tasting menu we had chosen, Leflaive Batard Montrachet 2001, which was outrageously cheap for a Grand Cru from Leflaive. The sommelier and I had scoured the cellar for the 99 that was on the list without success.

The wines

It was a sensational line-up of wines, and for me the Le Pin 2001 was the real star, closely followed by the first Batard Montrachet. Here’s a quick sketch, in order, with the menu below:

Burklin Wolf Jesuitengarten Riesling 2001 91 pts

Delicious, fresh, fragrant riesling. Fine rose petals on the nose. Crisp and medium dry with taught mineral, wet stones character running through it. Served in beautiful – and expensive – Riedel Sommelier Series Riesling glasses, setting the wine off magnificently.

Leflaive Batard Montrachet 2001 97 (first bottle) and 93 (second bottle)

The first bottle, served in magnificent Burgundy stemware from Spieglau, was truly wonderful. My Belgian friend next to me hit the nail on the head when he said that if one doesn’t like this, one doesn’t like white Burgundy. And that was just the aroma. Wonderful, beguiling nose, round and soft on the palate with lovely acidity and great complexity, plus a long finish. Perfect now. The second bottle was less invigorating, less intense and slightly less aromatic. I didn’t detect any hint of TCA or corkiness, so I would just put it down to bottle variation. It happens.  

Clinet 1989 93 points  

Given the reputation of this wine, with 100 points from Robert Parker, it was a tad disappointing. But we only had one bottle so you can never be sure that this bottle was showing the potential of this wine at its best. Nothing wrong with it at all, it just maybe lacked real joie-de-vivre. A delicious Pomerol for sure – but you should never whisper ‘100 points from Parker’ to others if you want an open assessment. I drank the 2001 Clinet at home recently, and preferred it. 

Le Pin 2001 98 points

I have drunk Le Pin 2001 before, sitting next to wine writer Stephen Brook during lunch at Vieux Château Certan during Vinexpo week in June last year.  It was a far better place to be than with the crowds in the Exhibition centre.  Before lunch, Jacques Thienpont had served his 1999 and 2001 during an outstanding tasting of wines from family-owned domaines from Alsace to Languedoc, and casually deposited a double magnum of the 01 on a side table nearby for guests to help themselves.  It was one of the most remarkable wines I have tasted, and it just got better and better in the glass.  So on this occasion I was eager to see if there was any difference between a standard bottle and the larger format. (The wine in different sized bottles matures at a different pace – with the bigger bottles often ending up as the better ones.)  It did not disappoint.  

Decanted just an hour or so beforehand, it opens up to reveal gorgeous aromas of violets, sweet tobacco leaf and almost overripe, plummy fruit.  On the palate it has enormous presence, with wonderful complexity, and yet it is so graceful. The array of flavours is astounding – all rich red fruits married to savoury, almost meaty notes and pain-grillé nuances.  It’s exotic and enticing, a suave, sexy wine, although I’d be quite happy on a desert island with this.  Goes on and on.  Lovely.  Plenty of backbone still – this enormously pleasurable merlot will last a decade or more. Quite simply, a stunning wine.

Cheval Blanc 1998 93 points

One of the group preferred this to Le Pin, but then he is a big fan of Cheval Blanc. I am too, but in the context of a great estate and a great vintage like 1998 – on the Right Bank, that is – it was a mild let-down. However, I feel that it’s not ready to drink and I would recommend leaving it another five years at least, preferably ten. (That’s little consolation to fellow diners with a bottle decanted in front of them but the sommelier had enthused about the current state of the wine beforehand). The cabernet franc appears to dominate the merlot, with harder tannins that need time to soften. There’s lovely black cherry fruit there, good length and a firm structure, and plenty of hedonistic charm. Drink 2011 – 2022.

La Conseillante 1998 91 points

Lovely, quite opulent and rich, easy quaffing Pomerol. This wine was ordered as we ran out of Le Pin and Cheval Blanc, so it was a tough act to follow, but it ‘performed’ admirably.

Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Auslese 2003 91 points

Crisp, racy, and sweet. Beautifully balanced and very refreshing – surprisingly so for a 2003. I expected something more fat and, well, cloying. Thankfully not.

The food

The whole table had the same tasting menu:

Various appetisers, including peas with mint, baby zucchini, pigeon bombon, carrots with orange

Foie gras ‘turron’ with truffle salad

Asparagus with mandarine

Morels in sheep’s milk

Green olives parmentier

Aubergine soufflé with sardines

Amontillado steamed gambas

Cod with bread soup, beans and chilli oil

Lightly smoked sea bass

Kid belly fillet

Pigeon with red fruits

An aromatic pea dish

‘Tresor’ – a perfumed dessert

Endive with coffee

It was an outstanding evening, and special thanks to David, Filip, Ignace and Guust. The food is certainly up to two star Michelin standard. For me, the wine list is worthy of three stars in its own right, and I can see why two of the Belgian guests occasionally fly direct on Ryanair to Girona for a night, have dinner and fly home again the following day.  All the wines were served in beautiful glasses too, mostly from Riedel and Speiglau. I’ll certainly be back. We merrily gave our congratulations to chef Joan Roca, and to his brother Josep, who runs the amazing cellar.

Footnote

This small group gather every two years to celebrate the life of our late friend, Christopher Smail, who died of cancer at the ridiculously young age of 42 in 2004. Christopher used to fly a group of friends and business colleagues out to Bordeaux for a weekend of golf, food and wine. He never held back on the wine or food, instructing me to order only the best. It’s fair to say that we did him proud, although I’m quite certain that he would have preferred to have been with us. Or perhaps he was.

I first tasted a barrel sample of this ‘legend in the making’ in April 2006 with Christian Mouiex, who runs Pétrus and a few other choice estates in Pomerol. Scores of other tasters – mainly merchants and critics – had a chance to taste the young wine that same week before the wine was sold ‘en primeur’. Monsieur Mouiex is one of the most charming men you could hope to meet, and it’s no surprise to see that he picked up Decanter’s Man of the Year award this year. (Although with titles like that, it’s no wonder that women sometimes feel intimidated by the world of wine.)

He told me that Pétrus shouldn’t be thought of as being one of the most expensive wines on the planet, but as the best value wine in the world. ‘You only have to own it for a short time and it goes up in value’.

He has a point.  Corney and Barrow, the UK agents for Pétrus – one of the handful of exclusive arrangements for top flight Bordeaux – released the 2005 ‘en primeur’ at £11,000 a case (of 12) in July 2006.  Less than two years on, I see that Berry Brothers are offering the same wine at £42,000 a case, and Farr Vintners for a mere £36,000. (In fact, the wine was first sold in ‘physical’ cases of 3 or 6 bottles.)

Frédéric Lospied, who looks after export sales for Mouiex, thinks the price is ‘indecent’, but I guess a wine is worth what someone will pay for it.  When I tasted the other Moueix wines in bottle last autumn – La Fleur-Pétrus, Trotanoy and so on – Frédéric explained that he couldn’t open the Pétrus because it didn’t have a label on, and would I mind coming back (label? who needs a label?).  He told me that they only open three bottles a year from a vintage like this, so I wasn’t going to say no.

I cannot comment on the whether the wine is worth the money being asked today, but the bottled wine certainly lives up to my expectations from that first barrel sample. In a brief note for Wine & Spirit in the May 2006 issue, in my selection of the Top 100 wines from the great 2005 vintage, I rated it 96-100 points.

“2005 reminded Christian Mouiex of the 1982 vintage, only now they are better equipped to handle the vines to achieve ‘perfect ripeness’”, I wrote. “This phenomenal wine will only be available to those who already have a prior reservation. Drink 2015-2040″.

Tasted from bottle, the wine has taken on weight from the barrel ageing and the colour is extraordinary. I haven’t seen a wine this colour before: it is a deep, dark, perfect blood red. The texture too is remarkable – it is very rich and velvety but not at all heavy or viscous. On the palate, there is unbelievable complexity and wave after wave of brambly blackberry and redcurrant fruit – and yet it feels that there is so much more in reserve.  It has an ethereal quality that I have only tasted in wines from the plateau of Pomerol, and even then it has a beguiling character that’s quite different from Lafleur, L’Evangile, VCC and others.  More like Le Pin – and both are almost all merlot. Behind the hedonistic appeal is a stream of persistent but superfine tannins.  The finish is long. Very long. 60 seconds? It is a perfect expression of merlot from this unique plot on the plateau of Pomerol. For me, this wine merits a perfect 100 point rating and is one of the greatest wines I am ever likely to taste.

I felt quite guilty, not because of the price or the fact that I am so privileged to taste it from bottle, but this wine should be left for 20 years or more for it to be at its peak. Infanticide. I have a horrible sense that few bottles will survive that long, which means that it might even be a reasonable investment at today’s price.

I was not surprised to see James Suckling of the Wine Spectator subsequently rate the wine 100 points but I was quite shocked that Robert Parker, the world’s most influential critic, only gave it 96+ points.

Maybe that bottle didn’t have a label.