Harvest

I visited the cellar of Cheval Blanc during the harvest. This cellar is fully functional, clean, smelling great and with good “vibes”, quality grapes and know-how. It will most likely be a great vintage if I believe Kees van Leeuwen’s comments and my belief that Cheval Blanc has the capacity to reach the stars.

The harvest gives us good reasons to think that this is a good vintage. Why? How? The experts will tell us (as usual).

We were invited by friends in Fronsac, Ruinart Brut champagne and blind Beau Sejour Duffau Lagarrosse 2008 today, completely dissociated (89 + RP), is it a problem with the bottle? What does Jean Marc Quarin think, 89 as well?
Still blind Soutard 2008, good wine, a little austere today, should be a good in 5 / 6 years, 89 + well deserved. Still blind, we enjoyed a fine bottle wit original flavors, Cabernet Franc, organic with Stéphane Derenoncourt’s signature and the talent of Stephan von Neipperg. Rated 91 by Quarin, suave, he is right, and 93RP who is even more right: Canon La Gaffelière 2008 is a very fine bottle.
Still blind, Malartic Lagravière 2008 which we usually like but this bottle seemed to have a problem or maybe it’s the cork; I couldn’t identify the supplier. I would definitely want to re-taste this wine which was rated 90 by Quarin and 91 PR, without any problems of cork or wood, I do not know.

I bought the magazine Optimum from Jalou publishing which covers fashion, restaurants, high tech, movies, music, sports, high-end men's fashion, and especially a section on wine this month by Benoit Simmat (magazine also published in Ukraine which is good for my distributor). He wrote the comic strip “Robert Parker’s seven capital sins” and “The wine buying guide for dummies”. He is prolific, this lad!

As always, written in a youthful style, new, it was fun to read, between the lines, it's kind of spicy but with “kindness”. I am pleased to have been mentioned with Valandraud 2003 and Bad Boy at the same time than my friends Hervé Bizeul and Jean-Michel Deiss. With Benoit, at least the comments on wine are not limited to color, nose and palate. Probably a new and more current way to talk about wine and its creators.

Meanwhile, our harvesters started to pick the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from the warm terroir of gravel and silica in the valley.