Wine's world

La Gaffelière throws in the towel

02/06/2022

After Ausone, Cheval Blanc and Angélus, now it's time of La Gaffelière to leave the Saint-Emilion classification.

Classified since 1955 as 1er Grand Cru classé B, the owner, Alexandre de Mallet, has decided to leave the classification after remarks about the quality of his terroir which he considers unjustified.

He also wishes to express his disagreement with the organisation of the tastings for this edition (the tasting committee would have rated his 2013 better than his 2019 and 2020!).

This decision comes a little more disruption to the classification of Saint-Emilion (expected in September 2022), create a new category: the "Out of classification", and may well be followed by others. To be continued...

2021 vintage: small portion

10/05/2022

The 2021 harvest was historically low in France, lower than those of 1991 or 2017, as a direct consequence of widespread spring frosts (April 2021) and also of the regular reduction in the area under vines.

The two grape varieties most affected are the earliest: Chardonnay for white wines and Merlot for red wines.

Taking the average of the previous 5 vintages (2016 to 2020) as a reference, the loss of production amounts to -18% throughout France, with unequal situations depending on the region:

-74% in the Jura
-49% in Bourgogne-Beaujolais
- 33% in the South West
- 27% in Bordeaux
- 26% in the Loire Valley
- 23% in Savoie
- 22% in Languedoc-Roussillon
- 17% in Alsace
- 9% in the South East

The only vineyard spared in 2021: Corsica (+9%).

[Agreste data - Ministry of Agriculture]

At the top!

26/11/2021

Every year since 1988, the Wine Spectator has published its list of the 100 most exciting wines among the thousands tasted during the year (12,500 in 2021!). This ranking, which includes promising new winemakers as well as traditional wineries used to the podiums, is based on three criteria:

  •     the quality of the wines (based on the score obtained in tasting),
  •     their value (based on price),
  •     and their availability in the United States (thus excluding certain confidential wines that are not, or only slightly, imported into the United States).


This year's Top 100 features the United States (33 vintages), Italy (23 vintages) and France (17 vintages), thanks to the very high quality of recent vintages.

We are pleased to note that four vintages currently in our catalogue are included in the 2021 list, two of which are in the Top 10:

2nd : Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2018 (Pauillac)
7th : Château Léoville-Poyferré 2018 (Saint-Julien)
13th : Château Carbonnieux blanc 2018 (Pessac-Léognan)
76th : Louis Roederer Collection 242 (Champagne)

Furthermore, when compiling the top 10 wines from each of the last 10 rankings (from 2012 to 2021), we note that many of the estates usually present in our selections are praised: