Third wine for Château Margaux

Châteaux Margaux is to release a third wine onto the market this year. As reported on db.com, Margaux de Château Margaux 2009 is made from wine that didn’t make it into the estate’s second label, Pavillon Rouge. According to Margaux’s managing director Paul Pontallier, around 3,000 cases of the wine were made, with the majority coming onto the market this autumn rather than being sold en primeur. A price for the wine has yet to be decided.

Margaux de Château Margaux was created due to the favourable conditions of the 2009 vintage, which meant that the wine that didn’t make it into Pavillon Rouge was of such a high standard it merited its own bottling. Previously, the wine had been declassified and used for generic AOC Margaux. The addition of Margaux de Château Margaux to the Margaux portfolio means the estate now produces four wines, taking the AOC Margaux into account.

Like father like son: Paul and Thibault Pontallier

As for the 2012 vintage, Pontallier told me during a tasting at the château last week that the key to a successful 2012 en primeur campaign would be finding the right price point for the grand vin. “The global market is more open than it’s ever been but we need to come out at the right price point and listen to what the market wants,” he said.

Proving that it does listen to the market, last year Margaux came out at €360 a bottle for its 2011 vintage, down 40% on the €600 release price of 2010. Composed of 87% Cabernet, Pontallier describes Margaux 2012 as sharing the concentration of 2009 and superior in quality to 2011 due to its better tannic structure, freshness and softness. Pontallier believes that while 2012 Margaux is drinking well early, it is “built for the next 50 years.”

While he was pleased with the quality of Margaux’s top wine, quality was by no means uniform across the board, with more AOC Margaux made in 2012 than any previous vintage. “For us the vintage was very heterogeneous, with different levels of quality and style. For our best terroirs, it was an outstanding vintage for Cabernet, but it didn’t ripen well in the lesser terroirs in the region,” he said. 

Chinese names for Bordeaux revealed

Christie’s auction house has unveiled an official translation of the 61 châteaux in the 1855 classification, after a year of discussions with the estates. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, all but four of the châteaux have approved the Chinese translation of their names.

“We have confirmation from all but four châteaux that these Chinese translations are the agreed names for the whole Chinese speaking world,” said Simon Tam (above), Christie’s head of wine in China. “We are trying to make wine as accessible as possible for our clients. Language is the first barrier and we want to break down those barriers,” he added.

The auction house worked with châteaux to agree on a Chinese translation for the 61 estates. Though a small number of châteaux, including Cos d’Estournel, have decided not to take a Chinese name. The translations have been published on a poster (right), which will be unveiled to the trade during the 2012 en primeur week.

The posters will also be given to Christie’s clients and journalists. Tam is hoping that other auction houses and the wider wine trade will adopt the official translation. Christie’s is working on similar translations for properties in Sauternes, the right bank of Bordeaux and Burgundy, which it hopes to release later this year.

Julio Iglesias interview

Julio Iglesias doesn’t do things by half. During his 42-year music career, the Madrid-born singer has sold more than 300 million albums in 14 different languages, making him among the top 10 best-selling musicians in history. Last year, the 66-year-old, who has reportedly slept with over 3,000 women, released album number 77, and he’s currently midway through a world tour – ‘It’s a great excuse to drink wines from different countries every night,’ he says, laughing.

His speech is littered with huge numbers – a million dollars here, 800 million pesetas there, and I quickly get the impression that Iglesias’ world is one in which money is no object. ‘I used to spend more than a million dollars a year on wine,’ he tells me, in a genuinely casual, rather than boastful way. The singer has bought so much wine over the years that he seems to have lost count of how many bottles he has in his three cellars in Spain, Miami and the Dominican Republic.

‘I’ve got about 5,000 top wines and hundreds of thousands of normal wines,’ he admits, without hyperbole. Generous with his plentiful stock, he gives away about 100 cases of wine to friends every year and thinks nothing of cracking open a bottle of Pétrus 1982 after a concert to share with his band. Isn’t it wasted on the uninitiated? ‘Not at all,’ he counters. ‘They’ve all become wine connoisseurs and have built cellars too. The vodka days are over!’

It was in the summer of ’82 that Iglesias tried to buy the acclaimed Ribera del Duero estate Vega Sicilia. ‘I was having dinner with friends in Madrid and it came up in conversation that Vega Sicilia was on the market for 800 million pesetas (around US$6m back then). I got on the phone to them the next morning, but it was too late.’ The winery had already been sold to a Venezuelan family, who went on to sell it to the Alvarez family, the current owners. ‘It wasn’t my lucky day, I guess,’ Iglesias says wistfully.

Vega Sicilia aside, he insists he’s not just a trophy collector – wine has shaped his outlook on life. ‘My understanding of life has become much stronger and clearer through my appreciation of wine,’ he says, describing spending those millions on wine in the ’80s as: ‘the best thing I ever did in my life’. Brought up in Madrid in the '50s by his doctor father, Iglesias got by in the early days by drinking ‘any old stuff from Valdepeñas’. In his late teens he played as a goalkeeper for Real Madrid football club, until a near fatal car accident in 1963 ended his sporting career. During his rehabilitation, to develop dexterity in his hands, he started playing the guitar and subsequently, writing music.

Iglesias’ wine epiphany was equally notable. In 1973 he was invited by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild – a big Iglesias fan – to a dinner party at her home in Paris after one of his concerts. ‘She asked me what I thought of the wine and I told her that I’d never tasted anything like it,’ Iglesias recalls with brio. ‘She summoned the butler to serve a second wine, this time in a decanter, which I later learned was Lafite 1961. It was the first time in my life I’d felt a wine all the way down to my toes. It worked its magic through my body and made me realise that wine had a lot more mystery and history than I had first thought’.

The memory of the Lafite lingered, sending Iglesias on a lifelong wine journey. He began picking up the odd case in the countries he toured in – reds in France, whites in Germany – and got seriously into collecting in 1978, after building a 4,000-bottle cellar in the Miami home he shares with his second wife and their five children. He grew his cellar by seeking out bargains at New York merchant Sherry Lehmann. ‘In the late ’70s you could still get hold of great 1947s and 1961s. The ’75s were coming onto the market and I started spending a lot of money on Bordeaux, buying up all the Pauillac, Pomerol, Graves and Margaux I could get my hands on. Before you can appreciate great Burgundy, you’ve got to cut your teeth on good Bordeaux’.

Outside of France, Iglesias collects Spanish icon wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero, particularly (perhaps still longingly) Vega Sicilia, as well as Pesquera, Pingus and CVNE Imperial. ‘I’ve recently got much more interested in Spanish wines’, he tells me. ‘I love trying wines from lesser-known Spanish regions like Calatayud, Jumilla and Zamora’. He dips his toe in the New World via Australia, South Africa, California and Argentina, but his wine heartland is very much Bordeaux and Burgundy. ‘My latest obsession is Pinot Noir,’ he tells me excitedly. ‘Romanée-Conti from a good year is absolutely unforgettable. When made well it’s so approachable young. You don’t have to wait for it, which is great, because I don’t have too much time.'

Article originally published in Decanter magazine

Decanter First Growths masterclass

Saturday was an iconic day for the Decanter team. We hosted our First Growths masterclass at The Landmark hotel, bringing together the directors of the five Bordeaux First Growths: Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild and Haut-Brion for their first ever public tasting in the UK - and their second ever in history.

All 90 tickets for the masterclass, spanning 20 years from 2008 to 1988, sold out within minutes of going on sale back in August.

Working at the masterclass, I was lucky enough to taste a sip of each wine at the end, after each measure had been poured. For me, the classic vintages – Margaux 2005 and Lafite 2000, really stood out.

Tasting notes:

Latour 2008

Dense blackcurrant, rich, opulent, perfumed, young but approachable, sleek, fine grain tannins, restrained and stylish, with a licorice and mint finish.

Mouton 2006

Rich blackcurrant nose, oak dominant, fleshy and voluptuous on the palate with big tannins to balance the bold fruit.

Margaux 2005

Rich, opulent, concentrated, delicious on the palate, elegant but voluptuous, velvety, powerful and rounded. Intense and pure – an iron first in a velvet glove. A wonderfully complete wine.

Haut-Brion 2004

Earthy, terroir-driven, fruiter on the palate, blackcurrant, black cherry, spice, chocolate and mint. Textured if a touch lean.

Latour 2003

Can taste the heat, fruit forward – plums, cloves, spices, developed but will go on, smooth, soft, very approachable, drinking fantastically now, upfront, baked fruit with an exotic finish.

Lafite 2000

Lovely development, sumptuous secondary aromas of game, leather and pencil shavings – classic, classy Bordeaux, silky, suave and textured on the palate, drinking perfectly now.

Haut-Brion 1998

Still youthful, fruit forward - black cherry nose, smooth, elegant, broody, grippy tannins, tight, concentrated and virile, with a licorice finish.

Margaux 1996

Oaky nose with vegetal, developed, savoury notes of game, leather, spice and smoke. Graceful with sleek, stylish tannins.

Mouton 1989

Autumnal, classy, forest floor aromas, sweet fruit, toasty blackcurrant, fennel, mint, full bodied, elegant and suave.

Lafite 1988

Still surprisingly fruit driven, blackcurrant, black cherry, mint, secondary aromas starting to come through, elegant, soft, supple, rounded, smooth and velvety - typical Lafite finesse.

First Growths masterclass

Wine and the City goes behind the scenes at the Decanter First Growths masterclass on Saturday at The Landmark hotel. A first for Decanter (and for the UK), this was only the second time in history that directors from all five Bordeaux First Growths: Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild and Haut-Brion, have gathered together to taste their iconic wines in public. Find out what vintages the lucky ticket holders tasted here...