3 January 2019 Today's Throwback Thursday free offering is a delve into the archives as far back as 2011 because I refer to the article below with its couple of videos in today's Buckingham Palace claret article about another, much more recent, blind tasting of red bordeaux – my most recent 'task' as a member of the Royal Household Wine Committee. Ch Cantemerle came up spookily often in this collection of magnums submitted for current drinking.
13 April 2011 Today's collection of nearly 100 tasting notes focuses on the great-value appellations of Médoc and Haut-Médoc, including the beautiful Ch Cantemerle at the southern gateway to this hugely important left-bank region.
Below are two short films of the press tasting I took part in last Friday at Ch Cantemerle, in probably the most beautiful setting of the five UGC blind tastings I participated in last week. This one focused on the wines of the northern Médoc.
The Union des Grands Crus organise many of these tastings each day, some for the trade (which I am told are very noisy, rather hectic walk-round affairs) and some for the press. We journalists are assigned to various groups according to whether we want to taste blind or not. You can see some fellow members of my blind tasting group in the film, including Bernard Burtschy of Le Figaro, Raoul Salama of La Revue du Vin de France, Ian D'Agata of Rome and Anthony Rose of The Independent in the UK. Note how quiet we all are!
The only noise virtually was birdsong – hugely appropriate at a property whose name presumably means 'blackbird's song'.
