Phew!

The 2007 Union des Grands Crus tasting in Bordeaux is over.
Our move to Château La Dominique seems to have been a good idea. Plenty of parking space, space to present wine, a private room for journalists wanting privacy, comfortable dinning room and, of course, all the infrastructure of Château La Dominique (fax, telephone, internet, etc..).
The staff present for the event was also appreciated, especially for Murielle and I who were used to deal with the bulk of the chores, wash glasses… This year cooking was handled brilliantly by our colleague and friend Michel Puzio, owner of Château Croix de Labrie.
Who will volunteer next year? Note that there is a double goal: Keep the cost down (some of the exhibitor sell their wine for less than 2.5 Euros) and make good home cooking.

In any case, I think that we had the same amount of visitors as last year, rue Vergnaud, maybe even more, and this despite Vega Sicilia not attending and Alain Brumont’s unexpected visit.
Lots of journalists and a good number of importers: Swiss, German, Americans, English, Japanese and Russian. Of course, many other countries were also represented by one or two importers.

Almost all French distributors attended except Carrefour/Champion, and, of course, many companies we developed good relationships over the years, some even became friends.

Last night we enjoyed our last meal with a few Russians. We drank Harlan 1998, Valandraud 2003, Clos del Rey 2004, « 3 Marie » from Calvet-Thunevin 2004, The rest of Essensia 1999 Pajzos and a cuvée Madame 1997 from Tirecul La Gravière, and to end cognac Rémy Martin « extra ».

Today, we followed up on several projects. In the meantime, you can read articles published during the week in the Sud-Ouest newspaper on Paul Marie Morillon and Marojallia (in French). Jean Marc Quarin also wrote an article on Paul Marie’s wines, as well as my comment on Gault et Millau regarding expensive wines published in the Revue du Vin de France.

You can also read the notes published in the Wine Spectator, which seemed to be more influenced by the exchange rate with the Dollar than the wines tasted. However, this is James Suckling’s point of view…