While the Côtes de Bordeaux appellations are varied and diverse, the Grand Cercle tasting back in April showed many wines having good, bold colours in 2017. They displayed attractive fruit and purity. There was also a nice balance to many of the wines with fresh acidities. Despite the frost problems it seemed that many properties had succeeded in making good wines. Blaye, Bourg, Cadillac, Castillon and Francs usually offer some of the best value red wines in Bordeaux and given the generosity this year, even if yields have been reduced, there are many wines to consider. For me Château Alcée [Castillon], Château d’Aiguhile [Castillon], Château Réaut [Cadillac], Château Reynon [Cadillac] and Château Veyry [Castillon] especially stood out, but overall quality felt homogeneous.

Haut-Brion & La Mission Haut-Brion report promising wines in 2012

In Pessac-Léognan, estates seem pretty bullish about the quality of the 2012 harvest and resultant wines, red and white. The weather pattern here was similar to the Haut-Médoc – a wet and cool spring and a difficult early summer followed by a hot and dry August. Rain arrived here too in late September and again in mid October, but Pessac-Léognan’s best terroirs seem very happy indeed with quality. We will soon see for sure in the up-coming primeurs week tastings [7-11 April] exactly how good the nascent wines are but the talk is certainly very encouraging.

Frankly who cares? I’m being glib but this country makes such tasty and delicious wine from this variety in so many guises from the crowd pleasing to the simply stunning,  I could easily toss aside its Cabernet Sauvignon, Bonarda and Tempranillo or whatever, even its interesting Syrah and Sangiovese, so vivacious is Argentina’s Malbec. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. It makes you wonder what on earth the French have been doing in Cahors all these years. Are they sure it’s Malbec they’ve got planted down there? Can Argentina’s South American rendition be related in any way to its rustic and tough Francophone brother?

Jim Barry’s decadent Armagh Shiraz

Despite the perception that the country has in recent years lost out to South Africa and the combined forces of Chile and Argentina as the world’s cutting edge wine making powerhouse, Australia remains one of the most exciting places to make wine. Partly it’s because it is a unique place – the country is huge with some of the most diverse terrior in the world – but also importantly because of the open-mindedness and energy of the Aussie wine makers themselves – especially when you get amongst the privately owned wineries.