Wine Chronicles2020 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. […]
Bordeaux 2018: Where does reality in bottle meet hype from barrel?
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 24 January 2021 From barrel, I had characterized 2018 Bordeaux as a vintage for “Hedonists and Intellectuals”. Over the course of the last few months, including several visits to Bordeaux during official lockdowns in France, I tasted 2018s on location, after recent bottling. Some bottles had been sent to me to […]
Saint Julien 2018
Consistent excellence By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 24 January 2021 Consistently excellent in 2018, recently bottled wines from this appellation fulfill their promise from barrel: elegant, suave, sometimes powerful, with grip, but overall refined and fresh. I give an edge to the 2016 vintage for superior freshness, as Didier Cuvelier of Château Léoville Poyferré agrees. Still, 2018 […]
Saint Julien the Consistent …
… and consistently delicious in 2018 By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 26 April 2019 This famous Médoc appellation often tends to be the most consistent in any given vintage, and all the more in 2018. The more extreme alcohol levels and lower acidities of Saint Estèphe are not found here. A series of wines combines […]
Assessing 15 vintages of Léoville Poyferré
By Panos Kakaviatos for Wine-Chronicles.com 24 January 2019 Over the last nine years, I have been organizing comprehensive verticals of top Bordeaux estates, sometimes several times in one year, and often in Washington D.C. The most recent, a Friday evening 18 January 2019 dinner at the French embassy in Washington D.C., featured Château Léoville Poyferré, […]
Chinese food and aged Bordeaux?
It works By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 29 January 2018 I recently met with friends at a Chinese restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland where we enjoyed 1970 Palmer and 1975 Trotanoy among other treasures with Chinese food. “Heresy” you say? The crazy spice and umami intensity often associated with Chinese food obliterates the soft finesse of […]
2015 Bordeaux from bottle, part 1: Mostly Médoc wines
Margaux shines brightest By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 17 November 2017 – revised, with new video intro, below. How good are Bordeaux 2015 from bottle? Based on two days of tasting top Médoc wines in early November this year, I would say quite good. It does not seem to reach the heights, on a more […]
Pauillac and Saint Julien: Sweet Spots
Bordeaux 2016 barrel tasting notes New addition: Sensual and strong Saint Julien! By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 2 May 2017 When I was tasting barrel samples in Bordeaux with wine author Jane Anson, exclusive Bordeaux en primeur critic for Decanter, blogger and ace photographer Miguel Lecuona and Bloomberg writer and wine author Elin McCoy, we […]
Underrated Bordeaux 2014
Worth seeking out from bottle: both white and red 29 January 2017 By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com When I tasted 2014 and 2015 Château Montrose side-by-side in October last year at the estate, I learned that less than 40% of the harvest was used to make the first wine in 2015, while over 50% was […]
Saint Julien #bdx15: subtle, suave, successful
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 1 May 2016 2015 was a successful vintage for Saint Julien, with expected elegance combined with Cabernet driven structure. While some tasters seemed a touch under-whelmed, I was happy with most of the wines from this affable appellation. And boy-oh-boy Léoville Las Cases and Ducru Beaucaillou were both amazing – […]
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