Next Stop: Bordeaux!

Post by Shaun Bishop | April 1st, 2011

I'm writing this from the tiny town of Vougeot in Burgundy, France where my team and I have been visiting top domaines and tasting all week. At the same time, another JJ Buckley team has arrived into Bordeaux and is heading to dinner at Chateau Lagrange - I know it sounds 'rough', but I promise you, it really is a lot of hard work (and a long time to be gone from your wife and kids!)

Tomorrow morning, we take the train to Bordeaux to meet up with the rest of the JJB team. The exciting news is that this year, we want YOU to be part of the adventure and encourage you to ask us anything you'd like to know about the 2010 vintage in Bordeaux (or any other Bordeaux related questions for that matter).

You may want to ask Jean-Guillaume Prats a question about his 2010 Cos d'Estournel, or Alfred Tesseron a question about his Ponet Canet. We can do that for you! Perhaps you would like to know more about the up-and-comers making exciting wines in Bordeaux - ask Jeffrey Davies, one of our top negociant suppliers who always has his finger on the pulse of Bordeaux. You get the idea. Just fire away with any question you'd like and we'll get you the answer. The kicker is we'll be replying via video and if we're lucky enough, your reply will come right from the horses mouth. There'll be more on this soon, so stay tuned!

A lot of planning went into this trip and we've put together yet another exciting program that will blow you away. Our team continues to grow, and this year we've got 12 staffers from JJB on the ground to evaluate the wines, talk to people in the know, and report back to you on every aspect of the 2010 vintage. We are passionately committed to you and to our profession and will do everything we can to help you make informed wine buying decisions. You can lean on us for guidance in every way.

To give you some flavor of our schedule, take a look below. This is what a week in Bordeaux looks like for JJB (and this is following a week in Burgundy and preceding a few days in Italy on the far-end):

April 1st
Team 1 arrives into BDX
Dinner at Chateau Lagrange

April 2nd
Team 2 arrives into BDX
Meeting and tasting with negociant A
Meeting and tasting with Stephane Derenoncourt
Dinner at Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou

April 3rd
Visits and tastings at Chateau Pavie, Monbousquet, Pavie-Decesse, Bellevue Mondotte, Monbousquet and Chateau Gracia
Meeting and tasting with negociant B
Meeting and tasting with negociant C
Meeting and tasting with negociant D
Dinners at Chateau Kirwan Dinner at Chateau Prieure-Lichine

April 4th
Visits and tastings at Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, Chateau Latour, Chateau Leoville-Las Cases
Lunch at Cos d'Estournel
Visit and tasting at Chateau Margaux, Chateau Palmer
Tasting of all Margaux appellation wines at Chateau Lascombes
Meeting and tasting at negociant E
Dinners at Chateau Lascombes and Chateau Beychevelle

April 5th
Meeting and tasting at negociant F
Lunch at Pontet Canet
Tasting of all Graves/Pessac appellation wines at Chateau Malartic Lagraviere
Visit and tasting at Chateau Montrose
Tasting of all Pauillac/St Estephe/St Julien appellation wines at Chateau Branaire Ducru
Visit and tasting at Chateau Haut Brion
Dinners at Chateau Pape Clement and Malescot St-Exupery

April 6th
Meeting and tasting at negociant G
Tasting of all Pomerol appellation wines at Chateau La Pointe
Tasting at Circle Rive Droite - Right Bank tasting
Tasting of all St Emilion appellation wines at Chateau La Couspaude
Visits and tastings at Chateau Ausone, Chateau Cheval Blanc, Chateau Barde Haut, Chateau Le Gay and Chateau Fonplegade
Dinner at Chateau Clinet

April 7th
Meeting and tasting with negociant H
Tasting at Moueix
Visit and tasting at Vieux Chateau Certan
Tasting at La Grappe (all wines of Stephane Derenoncourt)
Visits and tastings at Chateau La Conseillante, Chateau Canon la Gaffeliere, Chateau L'Eglise Clinet, Chateau Petrus, Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Chateau Haut-Bailly
Dinners at La Grappe and Domaine de Chevalier

April 8th
Visits and tastings at Chateau Tetre Roteboeuf, Chateau Angelus
Lunch at Chateau Troplong Mondot
Visit and tasting at Chateau d'Yquem
Dinner at Rauzan Segla

April 9th
Depart for Verona, Italy

When you see 'tasting at negociant X', we usually taste 50-150 wines at a time. This means we will sample many of the same wines 3-4 times throughout the week. And in case you are wondering how we can eat two dinners in one night, its because we actually have two JJB teams who are tasting and visiting separately.

As for our week in Burgundy, our highlight visits included Dujac, Drouhin, Comte de Vogue, Mongeard Mugneret, Liger-Belair, Ponsot, Jadot, Etienne Sauzet, Bouchard, V&S Morey, Girardin, Matrot, and Vougeraie. Please see my colleague Chuck Hayward for notes and insight into our visits.

Cheers!
Shaun Bishop