I went last week to Mendoza, Argentina, for a conference on wine tourism held by the Great Wine Capitals, a group of eight cities - Bordeaux, Bilbao-Rioja, Napa-San Francisco, Cape Town, Melbourne, Florence, Oporto and Mendoza - that are working together to attract wine lovers to their regions. it's a great idea - neither old nor new world but just 'wine world'

A good summary (with quotes from my speech) can be found at the following link:
http://www.wine.co.za/news/news.aspx?NEWSID=9399

This week I've tasted two wines - one of which has been in my garage for the past two years, the other I was given on a tour of Chateau Clos Dady in Sauternes, that are just amazing, and worth tracking down.

The first is from Chateau Le Luc Regula in La Reole (a very pretty chateau but unfortunately for them stuck right down at the bottom of Entre deux Mers, so not exactly great for passing trade). The wine is called Max (after the owner Max Poussard), and was made in the very hot year of 2003, as it's a 100% petit verdot, which doesn't normally ripen enough round here. It's fairly expensive, selling at around 16 euros in France (and there's very little of it left from what I understand), but it's gorgeous - enormously delicate in the way that merlot and cabernet sauvignon never achieve, and great with the chicken, prawn and avocado salad that I was sampling!
www.chateau-regula.com/

The second wine was more traditional of Bordeaux, but still produced in an entirely modern way. The red Graves wine of Chateau Clos Dady in Sauternes (which in itself is a very modern take on Sauternes, with no cloying heavinness), it's called Clos des Remparts and is made in very limited edition, very boutique winemaking with tiny yields and lots of new oak. It's very very smooth, and probably one of my favourite smaller Bordeaux since I discovered Chateau de Seuil white Graves about a month ago. And the owners are great, the epitome of hip new winemaking (oh, and full marks to Christophe for his excellent hairstyle).
www.clos-dady.com