Well that time is nearly upon us. Next week Bordeaux officially unveils the 2010 vintage in the primeur tastings for the wine trade and press. It’s a wonderfully crazy time as the Bordelais open their doors to thousands of men and women from across the world, each in a gigantic hurry to taste the hundreds of infant wines on offer. The crush last year at some of the events resembled the January sales, not ideal circumstances in which to taste wines maybe but it certainly reflects the insatiable worldwide demand for Bordeaux. [A glass of Chateau Léoville Poyferré’s 2010 left].

If you need an insight into the level of determination and effort required to return an estate to the top league then you need to look no further than the contemporary renaissance at Chateau Léoville-Poyferré. Twenty-five years is the time frame Anne Cuvelier points to when she looks back at the efforts that her cousin Didier Cuvelier has put in here since he began managing the property in 1979. Since then there has been extensive work in the vineyards. Old rootstocks were torn out and replaced and the property, then just 48 hectares, brought up to the 80 hectares now under production. In the cellar there has been much investment too and Michel Rolland is now the estate’s consultant, though Poyferré also has its own in-house talent in the form of winemaker Isabelle Davin.

Alfred Tesseron of Chateau Pontet-Canet in Pauillac

I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have had a different agenda. I fear that you might suggest I should rechristen the site ‘wine, hagiography and videotape’ – that’s before you berate me for not posting any videotape yet either – those vast millions of you quietly visiting this site each day! Would I be better writing about the most under-performing estates in Bordeaux rather than the other way round? Say – ‘Five ways to squander great terrior’? That way I could try and answer the question why Chateau Rauzan-Gassies is not a patch on Chateau Rauzan-Ségla, for example. How about a list of the most over-extracted wines in St Emilion – wait a minute I haven’t the space….  How about ‘Slave to labels’ – crus classé to avoid at all costs? This all sounds rather fun, but I’m not yet finished with the hagiographies, though the following property I’m about to describe would have certainly made it onto a list of disappointing estates prior to its purchase by a family of cognac merchants in the mid-seventies.

Digging out the 2010 vintage at Chateau Grand-Puy Ducasse

I’ve just spent the last few days on whistle stop tour of the Haut-Médoc and Pessac-Léognan. It’s been great fun and tremendously exciting, not just because of visits to some great estates, or because the new vintage is in and there is lots of positive talk. Rather it’s because I’ve had some wonderfully frank and inspiring conversations with proprietors generally and met exciting emerging winemakers filled with passion and energy. I’ve even met one owner who flies a helicopter for a living and has set up his chais in a dining room. So interesting times in Bordeaux indeed. There has also been the chance to look again at some 2009s, some I missed earlier in the year, and a few for the second time. There is no doubt at all that this vintage redefines the term extraordinary. More on that soon but before that a brief word the 2010 harvest now that the young wines are in tank and being pressed off….