News & Events

Tertre Roteboeuf £1,250 per doz ...Sold 0ut


Roc de Cambes £44 per doz


Domaine de Cambes £295 per doz


Guillot Clauzel, Pomerol £360 per doz

A stone's throw from Le Pin but at about 1/40th of the price !



Le Blason d'Issan, Margaux £195 per doz

I thought the "second" wine of Ch d'Issan lost little in comparison with the "grand vin" this year and at less than half the price it therefore represents something approaching a bargain.


Phelan Segur, St Estephe £295 per doz

Underrated and consequently undervalued. The 2005 has turned out to be as brilliant as we predicted so we have high hopes for their 2009.


Haut Batailley, Paulliac £295 per doz (low stocks)

Wonderful value Paulliac in this overpriced vintage



Domaine de Chevalier, Graves £550 per doz

A model of elegance as usual and still looks cheap by comparison with other left bank chateaux of comparable class.


Brane Cantenac, Margaux £540 per doz

This may indeed turn out to be even better than their 2005 vintage. The price for a second growth looks modest when compared with the ridiculous £2050 for Ducru Beaucaillou

Vieux Chateau Certan, Pomerol £1,950




16th Jun 2010 Francois Mitjavile: 2009 En Primeur Prices

Tertre Roteboeuf : £1250 per doz / £625 half doz in bond

Roc de Cambes: £440 per doz in bond

Domaine de Cambes : £295 per doz in bond


19th Apr 2010 2009 BORDEAUX: What do we think?

Following the invasion of Bordeaux by some 6000 of the wine world’s leading writers and tasters, myself excluded, for the annual bunfight to taste hundreds of rude young cask samples, it is hard to avoid reading reviews of this most recent vintage, but I have to do my best not to be influenced prior to having the chance of forming opinions based upon my own tastings and discussions at a cross section of good chateaux. It had been clear all through the winter that 2009 would be a victim of the same sort of rather frenzied hype that afflicted such recent vintages as 2000, 2003 and 2005, each one supposedly superior to its predecessors, so now that the campaign is about to get into top gear, few of us will be surprised to be told that 2009 is the greatest vintage since time began. Such a concept is of course absurd, but we live in a world driven increasingly by money and marketing rather than by sanity and patience, a virtue that will not be tolerated by a market keen to speculate on the putative financial gains that may be made by those who are fast out of the starting gate. Memories are also rather short.

So the result is that in view of the enormous early interest in this vintage, I am under pressure to respond to enquiries from many people who want to know what my own take on the vintage might be. The short answer now can only be unhelpfully non-committal since I have yet to go and taste and I am therefore unable to give my own opinions with regard to the vintage in general or any specific individual wines. These will follow quite shortly however, following my imminent visit to Bordeaux during the first week in May.

I make no apology for not having tasted sooner. I think that the annual ‘en primeur’ tasting circus in Bordeaux in March takes place rather too soon and that a better picture is achieved by tasting at least a month later. Bear in mind that the last winter was long and cold and the fermentations correspondingly slow to finish, making it even less likely than usual that the ‘assemblage’ for the final wines will have been made in time for the March tastings. The value therefore of detailed tasting notes at this stage must be highly questionable. It should certainly come as no great surprise to find equally experienced professional tasters producing very different assessments of the same wines.

I am thus unable at this early stage to say whether this will be a vintage that we will admire or whether we will have strong reservations about it. What is clear is that demand will be very considerable and we therefore need to encourage you to register any interest early so that we may respond when we can and do our best to minimise the risk of disappointment.


I cannot say whether we will offer a broad spectrum of wines at the ‘en primeur’ stage. Much will obviously depend on the level of the opening prices when released, at which point we must take a view as to whether they represent genuine value in the light of prices obtaining for older vintages. As regards the wines from Francois Mitjavile where I have had a special responsibility for the UK distribution since his first vintage, it is increasingly apparent that the trade is particularly excited by his genius at realising the maximum potential of his two vineyards. Perhaps unsurprisingly the level of interest grows every year and the number of visitors to his cellar to taste the young wines from Tertre Roteboeuf and Roc de Cambes has never been greater than it was during the past month. He knew from the day that the grapes were harvested that he was sitting on a great vintage. But then it must be said that we have never had a single disappointment from him in three decades and have usually enjoyed the supposedly more ‘difficult’ vintages every bit as much if not more than those that have been more widely acclaimed by the media.

We ourselves were agreeably surprised at the ease with which his 2007 and 2008 wines sold, both vintages of his that we personally admired very much, but given the lack of enthusiasm expressed in general, though not by ourselves, about the 2007 Bordeaux vintage, not to mention the economic climate at the time and the weak state of sterling, we were less optimistic than usual that they would sell fast. We clearly underestimated the depth of the loyalty that now attaches to his wines, fully merited in view of their unbroken track record of success. We must therefore assume that the demand for his wines will again far outstrip the supply this time round and urge you not to hesitate at least to register your interest if you want to have them in your cellar.

MARK SAVAGE MW
April 2010



“ Tertre Roteboeuf continues to plough its own distinctive furrow”.
Jancis Robinson, Financial Times, 17 April 2010


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