Wine ChroniclesSaint Estèphe 2018
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 24 January 2021 Fascinating to see – in a blind tasting of the five classified growths – just how impressive Château Montrose turned out to be. I have tasted the wine twice from bottle, once at the estate, once in the blind tasting (held at Château Lafon-Rochet), and although I […]
Wild n’ Crazy Saint Estèphe 2018?
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 26 April 2019 Saint Estèphe is an appellation that tends to thrive in hot and arid summers. Take for examples the torrid heat of the 2003 vintage. The cooler soils underneath gravel in Saint Estèphe seemed to counter the extreme weather better than any other Bordeaux appellation of note. Many tasters […]
Northern Médoc: Sweet spots confirmed in 2016
A modern era 1986? Great stuff in Saint Julien, Pauillac and Saint Estèphe ? (Bordeaux 2016 from bottle, part 2) 11 November 2018 By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com Just as we saw how well Pomerol excelled in 2016, another area of consumer interest, also in terms of quality across all price points, is the northern […]
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 […]
The revenge of Saint Estèphe
Bordeaux 2016 barrel tasting notes By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 29 April 2017 Most readers have read the positive feedback from the barrel samples of Bordeaux 2016, including from me. Yes, there is hype, as usual, and some prices are high (such as for Cos d’Estournel, one merchant told me), but I do believe that […]
Changes afoot at Château Cos d’Estournel
Visit and tasting with Aymeric de Gironde By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com 7 November 2015 Aymeric de Gironde arrived at Cos d’Estournel for the difficult 2013 vintage, although he had a hand in blending the 2012, which we tasted when I visited alongside the 2010, 2005 and 2001. He also shared a recently launched Champagne […]
Bordeaux in barrel 2014: Mighty Montrose, classic Cos and perplexing Calon Segur
By Panos Kakaviatos for wine-chronicles.com MAIN BORDEAUX 2014 BARREL TASTING PAGE When I was asked to do an educational blog for Total Wine, we agreed to have top ten lists: top ten reds, top ten whites, top ten bargain wines. One of the very best barrel samples of 2014 is Château Montrose. Fellow wine writers and […]
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