Wine Chronicles2024 Bordeaux: just before bottling
By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 15 April 2026 All eyes this month are on the promising 2025 vintage from barrel in Bordeaux, and the world is abuzz with an urgent need to get a successful en primeur campaign or else “en primeur is dead”, Edouard Moueix is quoted as saying in a Decanter article. […]
Margaux, Latour, Trotanoy and so much more
New Year Wine Dinner with Friends By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 5 January 2026 Thanks to Tamar and Keith Levenberg for hosting an excellent dinner with Maureen Nelson, Joel Davidson and myself. I had not seen Maureen in ages, so it was especially great to see her: You haven’t changed one bit, Maureen! Each […]
Just in time for the holidays: Dinner at Giscours
Biodiversity contributes to Margaux Renaissance By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 12 December 2025 It had just rained when I arrived at Château Giscours – the eve of my birthday on 5 December this year. Under a veil of evening mist, the estate had fallen into contemplative quiet. As my car that early evening rolled […]
Château Lafon-Rochet
A New Chapter of Freshness and Finesse By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 30 October 2025 When Vincent Bache-Gabrielsen (photo above, credit to Château Lafon Rochet) took charge of Château Lafon-Rochet last year, it marked a quiet but meaningful shift for this celebrated classified growth in the Bordeaux appellation of Saint-Estèphe. Having worked within the […]
The Long Game of Greatness: Mouton Rothschild 1986
By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles Main photo: Chateau-Mouton-Rothschild-Cuvier-nuit-©-Pierre-Grenet-Astoria-studio.jpg 17 October 2025 “I bought this wine upon release,” a dear friend told me, speaking about Château Mouton Rothschild 1986. “When I tried one of my bottles three years ago, it still hadn’t opened up”, he said in September 2025, nearly 40 years later. World famous […]
Médoc Blanc officially born
The red stronghold has a white awakening — Bordeaux’s Médoc embraces a lighter side. By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 14 October 2025 Last year, I wrote in Decanter of prospects for an official Médoc Blanc appellation. That consideration is now reality. Starting with the 2025 vintage, winegrowers from all eight Médoc AOCs, including Margaux, Pauillac, […]
Legend bottled: Château d’Yquem 1967
By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 13 October 2025 Over a recent dinner with wine pals in Strasbourg, we enjoyed older vintages, some better than others. Château Mouton Rothschild 1986 was stupendous, and I loved Château Ducru Beaucaillou 1986, happily sans TCA: From 1986 to the early 1990s, the estate had some TCA problems, so […]
Top brand Bordeaux 2015
Tasted 10 years on by Panos Kakaviatos for Wine Chronicles 7 March 2025 Thanks to the London-based Bordeaux Index wine trading company, I tasted topflight Bordeaux from the 2015 vintage, “10 years on”. Bordeaux Index hosted the daylong January tasting under excellent conditions: wines at proper temperatures and stemware and plenty of space to comfortably […]
2020 Bordeaux: bottled classic
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 21 October 2023 TASTING NOTES CLICK HERE Dear Readers, It has been a while, but after buying a new apartment with renovation work, prioritizing articles in magazines for which I am paid, and work from my day job at the Council of Europe, I took a hiatus from this website. […]
Mouton Rothschild: reaching back 40 years
And some talk of “first growth bias” By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com A wonderful evening at the cozy and elegant French restaurant La Chaumière in Georgetown in Washington D.C. It was great to catch up with wine friends most of whom I hadn’t seen since Covid struck. We chose as theme the venerable First Growth […]
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