Bulletin from Château Lafite's car park

Journalists tasting young bordeaux in a complex gavotte of international relations and châtelains' desires are given the choice of tasting blind or not. These blind tastings are wonderfully calm and well-organised – and for once I have the huge benefit of being able to type my notes straight on to a laptop rather than the old-fashioned scrawl on purple-spotted paper. Yesterday tasting 30 Margaux blind at the beautifully decorated Ch du Tertre (same Dutch owner as Ch Giscours and ripe for a feature in Architectural Digest) our posh salon, silent save for the click of laptop keyboards and...