Just got back from four days in southwest France, visiting appellations of Gaillac, Fronton, Iroulguy and Cotes de Gascogne. Very interesting and more on that in next few days.

But today was interested by a piece in the Guardian ( www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/29/health.healthandwellbeing ) which I will reproduce in part here:

'Reducing the size of standard wine bottles could help cut alcohol consumption and related health problems, a leading medical journal says today.

Piling further pressure on the alcohol industry and retailers, the British Medical Journal urges them to discourage consumers from drinking "supersize" glasses of wine amid moves to ban large meal portions as part of the drive to slash obesity rates in the UK.

Dr Trish Groves, the journal's deputy editor, said: "I like a glass of good wine with my supper. But, once two of us have had a glass each, it's all too tempting to finish the bottle there and then. Coupled with the news that wine is getting stronger, it's no wonder Britain's middle-aged middle classes are getting wasted. Why does wine have to come in 75cl bottles?"

A recent report from Liverpool John Moores University showed that wealthy towns top the league table for hazardous drinking in the UK. The British Medical Association's recent report Alcohol Misuse: Tackling the UK Epidemic also confirms that men and women who are higher earners are more likely than the lower paid to have drunk alcohol at all, and to have drunk on five or more days a week.

While beer remains Britain's favourite drink, wine consumption rose from 10% of all alcohol in 1970 to 28.8 % in 2005. Groves asks whether a wider range of good quality and reasonably priced wine in smaller bottles would reduce consumption, identifying "a peculiarly British problem", as restaurants and cafes in France offer wines by the carafe, pichet (small jug) and half-bottle, and mini-markets have a good range at 37.5cl at fair prices.

The journal's recommendation comes as leading supermarket Waitrose prepares to make such a move. On Monday it will announce the launch in all its stores of Vin à Deux – an all-French range of eight quality wines in 50cl bottles, which it claims is a "comfortable" size for two people to share, providing one glass each. At the same time, it is phasing out the half-bottle, while increasing its range of 25cl solo-glass wines.

Wine buyer Nick Room said: "Drinking 'à deux' will dispense with unfinished bottles of wine or feeling the need to finish off a full bottle. The innovative size will put a stop to wine buffs drinking wine past its best, and the new concept will cater for responsible drinking habits of the future."

As promised, some highlights and lowlights of the 2006 vintage (tasting Millesima). For me, one of the most interesting things was the discrepancy in quality. However, I should say in the wines defense that tasting conditions weren't ideal - some bottles were way too warm, others too cold.

PESSAC LEOGNAN
Chateau La Mission Haut Brion
Beautiful deep crimson and a soft blackberry nose that is instantly envoloping. Bit tannins but very rich. 90

Chateau Carbonnieux
Kess elegance on the nose, but slighly more open with fresh dark fruits on the palate. New oak a touch overpowering. Needs time. 86-87

Domaine de Chevalier
Very deep, rich inky colour. Ver closed nose, perhaps served too cold. Lovely rich brambly fruit, even if it's coiled a little too tightly right now. 87-88

Chateau de Fieuzal
Smoky and warm on the nose, lovely balance of fruit and tannins. Suble but elegant. 89-90.

Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte
I never like the red as much as I think I should, for me their white wine is the stand-out, butthis has great charm. The alcohol is a touch too evident and it's not especially typical of the appellation, but having said tht, it's got good weight of fruit and great definition. 89.

Chateau Haut Bailly
Lovely warm, cedar wood, with chocolate undertones. Graet elegance and finesse, my favourite of the PLs along with Mission Haut Brion. 92.

Chateau Latour Martillac
Always good extraction from this estate - just enough without overdoing it. Very cncentrated and intense, but without hard edges. 89-90

Chateau Malatric-Lagraviere
Almost impenetrable colour, this has a sweet cherry edge and is bright and cheerful. Very appraochable, star-bright fruit. Sounds disingenious, but slightly lacking depth. 88-90.

Chateau Olivier
This isn's showing well, although I normally love wines from this estate. A touch bitter, and not integrating brilliantly with the oak. Note to retaste this in a few months. 86.

POMEROL
For me, the best appellation at the tasting.

Chateau l'Enclos
Not obviously effusive on the nose, this is well extracted and fairly brooding. Can see it ageing very well, but definitely needs time. 91-92.

Chateau L'Evangile
Somehow these Pomerols manage to get plump rich fruit where it seems to have been harder for Pessac Leognan. Very accomplished, fleshy and delicious. Prunes and brambles. 92-93

Chateau Petit Village
Beautiful, inky concentration, layers of black forest gateau. Very appealing. 92

SAINT EMILION
Very mixed, I found.

Chateau Angelus
Beautiful - great balance between fruit and acidity. No hiding that this is a top drawer wine. Very pleasurable, with real presence. 93-94.

Chateau Canon
Mid palate is flushed with black fruits, this is a fairly austere wine for Saint Emilion, almost intellectual (do you need a qualification on that? - some wines are all about instant gratifications, others want to make you think). 90.

Chateau Figeac
Rich, deep red fruits, slight liquorice edge and fairly floral. Very good. 92.

Chateau La Gaffeliere
Gorgeous. Fresh and suble and very enjoyable. Good definition with crisp fruits. 91.

Chateau Pavie
For my taste, the more subtle conditions of 2006 suited this property. You still wouldn't place it as Saint Emilion in a blind tasting, but it is rich and smooth, and has real depth of flavour. 92.

Chateau Troplong Mondot
Remember at the en primeur tastings in 2007 I loved this wine, but many didn't. Not extremely expressive, but love the rich, rich flavours backed by exhilerating acidity. A big wine, without the swagger. 93.

Chateau Canon la Gaffeliere
For me, this is over-extracted and lacks the necessary to be truly elegant. Big and a bit brutish, sorry. 86-87.

Chateau Fleur Cardinale
Slight astringency and bitterness on the finish, which is a shame as it starts out with charmingly fresh fruit. But after two years in barrel, the oak should have integrated better by now. 87.

MARGAUX
Again, a good showing. But a lot of these wines were served too warm.

Chateau Lascombes
Deep, fulfillingly aromatic nose and good structure. Hints at over-extractin but they just manage to avoid it. 89-90.

Chateau Rauzan Gassies
Crisp fruit but slightly hollow finsih. Tannins have integrated well and there is a delicacy that is very appealing. But needs rounding out. 89.

Chateau Rauzan Segla
You can taste the terroir here - there's a real minerality and lovely layers of flavour. Black fruits and very elegant, but wouldn't say it's a classic Margaux style. Still, lovely and always a good guarantee of quality. 92-93

Chateau Giscours
Open and welcoming, plenty of rich fruit, and I like that this feels like a real wine, not a polished product like some can seem. 92.

Chateau Palmer
Gorgious, just incredible density and layers of fruit that echo around your mouth. Amazing length. 94.

SAINT JULIEN
Chateau Leoville Barton
Compacted fruit, you'd have to start a long conversation with this wine. Great elegance and length, with tannins that threaten to pummel you into submission.

Chateau Branaire Ducru
Perhaps too cold, this lacked expression. 87.

Chateau Beychevelle
Again, the concentration is marked, tight, upright and focused. Great expression of the black fruits the Medoc is so prized for. 92.

PAUILLAC
Chateau Pontet Canet
Another one I remember loving at the original en primeurs tastnigs. It's also another one of those 'real' as opposed to manufactured wines, and all the better for it. Excellent. Almost too rich, but that just makes it an indulgence worth savouring. 93-94.

Chateau Batailly.
Again, they have pushed their foot against the pedal of extraction, but just got away wiht it. Retains elegance despite the heavy tannins. 90.

Chateau Haut Batailley
Raspberry and rich red fruits that this more instantly pleasing, but slightly hollow finish. 87.

Chateau Lynch Bages
Not as enjoyable for me as some other years of Lynch Bages (I'm thinking 2005, 2004 and 2001 in particular). Neverthelesss, this has great fruit definition, by which I mean every single grape is accounted for. Very accomplished, jsut for me slightly lacking personality. 90.

After the annual AGM on Thursday, held at Chateau Clement Pichon, the Alliance Cru Bourgeois has managed to finally move forward with its plans to reintroduce the cru bourgois classification.

I haven't seen the official press release yet, so there may be slight alterations to these details, but there are to be 275 cru bourgeois chateaux in the new ranking - 180 of them that were part of the 2003 ranking, and 95 who are new. So nearly a third new blood, which is either very good, or shows that there is a lack of confidence in the new system.

Thierry Gardinier remains president of the new Alliance, but several key things have been changed.

Firstly, as long as you have paid your dues etc, your property will be a cru bourgeois - but you have to earn the right to put it on your label every year, through quality testing.

The quality rules relate to two (strange, in my opinion) things - one of which is the size of your barrel and vat capacity, and the other is a minimum guarantee of ageing (approx 18 months in barrel).

One property owner, who doesn't want to be named as he is joining up despite misgivings, said that for a 25 hectare property, this means they will have to add 1,000 hectolitres of barrel or vat capacity between now and September (when adherence to the new rules is due to be checked), at a cost of about 150,000 euros. And what does size of the vat room have to do with quality? That estimated cost, by the way, is for vats - if you choose to increase barrel capacity, the cost will be far higher.

For the barrels, there is no requirement for them to be new, just to be the wine to be kept in them for 18 months. This seems particularly old-fashioned. Perhaps it does keep a traditional Medoc-wine style, which has its advantages, but there are plenty of properties that are going for freshness of fruit and may not want such a long ageing. It is also, again, requiring a lot of investment and the ability to keep capital tied up for almost two years.

Both rules, it seems to me, favour the established players over new entrants. As my mystery winemaker said, 'It's the old French problem of doings things for no good reason, just for the sake of rules and regulations.'

However, on the postiive side, it does get Cru Bourgeois back on the label, which will be welcomed by many people (not least Decanter, who ran a tasting this month saying that the term is still a good indicator of good quality for reasonable price from the Medoc region).

There was also a good sense of reconciliation at the meeting. Denis Hecquet, who in 2003 was driving the insurgents through the Union des Viticulteurs Independent du Medoc, but is now director at the Jean Guyon estates, was there, making nice with Thierry Gardinier (the two of them have apparently only spoken through lawyers for the past five years). Gardinier said, 'at least the two families that were once split are now back together'

In terms of practical details, there will be no cru superieur or exceptionnel at this stage. As Gardinier said, 'For now, the scars have to heal'. The idea is to create a consensus now and build from there.

The audits will be held (by an external agency) in September 2008, and by January 2009 samples of wine will be provided to give the right to put Cru Bourgeois on the label.

An extensive tasting of the 2006 vintage was held today at Millesima Wine Merchants in Bordeaux.

Full tasting notes tomorrow, but a quick roundup. First of all, I think it's impossible to know what to take from someone's tasting notes unless you know a bit about them - so bear in mind that I tend to like wines that favour elegance and freshness over powerhouses that can get frankly rather annoying after one glass. That's not to say I don't appreciate some very big wines (Troplong Mondot 2006 being one of them, but more of that in my notes), but that you might want to bear in mind that I err on the side of classical, exhilerating wines rather than that much-overused term 'fruit bomb'.

Anyway, Serena Sutcliffe said today, 'After two years in barrel, the wines have calmed down a lot and much improved. I found the Left Bank more homogenous than the Right Bank, and perhaps St Julien the most delightful.'

Personally, I found a lot of great wines, and a number of bad ones, even some of the big names. As far as appellations go, Pomerol was a stand-out for consistency, and beautiful fat, rich fruits without being at all cloying, green or overpowering. Saint Emilion and Pessac Leognan were suprisingly varied, with some excellent wines and some heavily over-extracted ones. On the Left Bank, Margaux showed very well, as did Saint Julien.

Notes tomorrow.

Good article in the Telegraph today about the price of wine creeping up to over £5, and how we should all mourn the loss of a cheap, nasty and thoroughly satisfying bottle of plonk... I for one remember with misty-eyes the tartar-peeling taste of Liebefraumilch and Piesporter...
( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/02/20/ftwine120.xml )

An excerpt from the article:
Those in Whitehall are also unlikely to mourn the passing of plonk, due to the association between cheap booze and binge-drinking. If young people have to pay more than a fiver a bottle, they will drink less, perhaps even drink more discerningly.

So why am I still licking my wounds? Why does a £5 minimum for a bottle of wine seem so much more of a shock to the system than the 50p chocolate bar, or the £1 litre of petrol?

I think it's because wine - more than any other consumer product, more even than clothes - reflects the sort of person you are. Do you sip or slurp?

Let the wine breathe or just uncork and let rip? In restaurants, do you make a beeline for the most expensive wine on the menu, and fantasise about blowing £10,000 on a Château Pétrus 1982? If you are bringing a bottle for your host or hostess, do you feel stingy if you pay less than £12?

There are as many different attitudes to wine as there are varieties of grape; and my own, I realise, is robustly, unashamedly plebeian. At heart, I am still that 19-year-old student, going into a shop with a few pounds in my pocket and scanning the wine labels with a single objective in mind - to find the cheapest.

It would be nice to think that there were enough of us inveterate plonk-buyers, for whom every penny spent over £3 is a source of resentment, to make some kind of a stand on the issue.

I can see us marching down Whitehall with our banners ("Protect Cheap Booze!", "Change From A Fiver!") and bottles of dodgy Bulgarian red in our rucksacks.

It will never happen, of course. Apathy will rule, wine prices will creep ever upwards, and all we will be left with is our memories.

In honour of ViniSud, the wine show for the south of France that is taking place this week ( www.vinisud.com ), I thought I'd share some tasting notes frm the excellent region of Fenouillèdes in Roussillon.

These reviews will also appear in my column in the Drinks Network ( www.drinksbuyereurope.com )

Domaine Finca Narraza, 2006 Cotes de Roussillon Villages
Manual harvest, long maceration, malolactic in barrel and no filtration all make this eye-wateringly serious bottle of wine. Syrah and Carignan round out the Grenache, with a dominance of ripe blackberry flavours. 86-88

Domaine de Bila Haut, Occultum Lapidem, 2006 Cotes de Roussillon Villages Latour de France
Michel Chapoutier’s Roussillon outpost. This rich, sumptuous wine has coffee, liquorice and a whiff of that local fennel. If drinking any time soon, you’d better get the decanter out and let it breathe for an hour or three. 90-91

La Preceptorie, Ecrits de Lumiere, Les Terres Nouvelles, 2006 Vins de Pays des Cotes Catalanes
Gorgeous label, with clever photography and a fresh uncluttered image. The white wine is 100% Grenache Gris, from old vines, aged in oak. On the palate, it is round and luxurious, with plenty of ripe melon and thankfully a fresh edge. A real foodie wine. 90-92

Domaine Tranquillite, 2005 Vins de Pays D’Oc
As you would expect from Bernard Magrez, this is accomplished, precision winemaking. The wine is careful to emphasise fruit over power – though with five grapes in here, it perhaps lacks some regional character. 90-92

Domaine Jorel, Petaillat, 2002 Vins de Pays du Val d’Agly
Young, well respected winemaker who has teased the best out of this organic wine. Its strong flavours of Grenache Noir benefit from having had five years to round out – this is still bright and full of fresh raspberries, but with a laid-back structure. 91-93

Another example of the blossoming wine tourism scene in Bordeaux.

Chateau Haut Bailly, one of the most exciting estates in Pessac Leognan (and namechecked by Petrus winemaker Jean Claude Berrouet as one of his favourite Bordeaux wines, for its delicacy and finesse) is due to open a small wine-centred boutique at the property.

This will be the first time that a chateau in Bordeaux has linked up with a book store - and they have chosen the oldest, family-run store in Bordeaux, known as Mollat.

The partnership will be ready for the En Primeurs 2008 - so by the beginning of April, and they plan to have books on wine tasting, the Bordeaux classification system, ampelography, plus expanding into food, architecture and other lifestyle areas in the near future.

A few interesting stats, from conference organiser Pancho Campo:

To buy a 750ml bottle from Australia, delivered to Chicago.
Eg Yellow Tail.
Produces: 12 million cases, 144 million bottles~
Production and delivery: glass sourced locally, no wood barrels for ageing, packed into containers, covered with insulator blanket to keep cool, trucked fom Yenda to port in Australia, 33 days journey to LA, then truck and train to East Coast.
Total carbon emissions: 2.2kg per bottle. Magnum 4kg per bottle.
Total emissions from production and distriution: 3.44kg per bottle.

To buy a cult cabernet sauvignon wine from Napa, again to theoretical customer in Chicago.
Produces: 1000 cases, 12,000 bottles.
Production and delivery: Bottled in heavy glass bottles for 'luxury' image, packed in heavy wooden cases, sold through mailing lists, from winery direct to consumer, overnight express delivery (which means FedEx or something similar, by air)
CO2 emissions = 4.5kg per bottle.

The difference, despite the shorter travelling distance, is due to weight and air cargo. So don't always imagine that buying locally (or natinally) is the most carbon-friendly thing to do.

Generally speaking, transportation and packaging creates biggest impact – delivery of bottles and barrels, plus shipping the final product to customers.

The following figures are for grams of CO2 per ton of cargo per km transported.
By ship – 52.1g/ton
By ship in refrigerated container 67.1
By train 200
By truck 252
By air 570
= shipping by sea still most carbon-friendly.

Air cargo emits 11 times more CO2 than container cargo.

What is going to happen to Bordeaux as a fine wine region as the planet heats up?

Opinions are divided. Michel Rolland and Jacques Lurton, by and large, have seen the warmer climate in recent years as being largely beneficial to Bordeaux - longer growing seasons, riper grapes, rounder and fuller resulting wines.

And by and large, according to canopy management expert (and brilliant speaker) Richard Smart, existing cool regions will do best, if they can accept that their international reputation will have to change as variety-suitability changes.

And that surely will be the sticking point for Bordeaux. In fact all of France - will the bureaucracy and tight regulations overseeing everything from yield to grape variety, move quickly enough to keep uo with the inevitable march of the changing climate?

In terms of more concrete changes - we already know that harvests are getting earlier (average two weeks earlier than 10 years ago), and alcohol levels are rising. A few interesting questions: will today's sought after terroirs (the 'hot' gravelly terroirs of the Left Bank) give way to cooler clay climates of the Right Bank? Will merlot survive, given its propensity to over-ripen quickly? Will the old 'forgotten' Bordeaux grape varieties, such as Malbec and Carmanere, make a come-back here as they are better adapted to hot climates? Certainly Petit Verdot will do well out of longer growing seasons.

And is this going to show that varietal labelling, so popular in recent years, has been a mistake, as consumers are going to have to get used to new varieties - and winemakers who stick to regional, rather than varietal, labels, will have an easier tine of it??

I'll write much more next week about this Wine and Climate Change conference in Barcelona, but just to give you some of Al Gore's words at the close of the session today.

'How do you establish a balance between making money with wines sales and being respectful of the environment? Sometimes in the past, there hsa been a tendency to see the relationship between the two as one of conflict. But many companies who are making changes are finding that they can increase profits. When we go further and put a price on carbon, then those businesses who have begun to make adjustments, will find even greater profits.

'The feeling that consumers have about a company producing a product has a huge influence on the choices they make in the market place, and as concern in the climate grows, this will be increasingly true. If they feel (eg) that the Spanish wine industry is leading the world in being responsible, then the monetary consequences of taking leadership on the issue can show up. So there is a great opportunity in providing leadership.

'At an individual level, if winemakers make investment decisions based on predicted changes, on grapes varieirties and viticultural methods that can make a difference, then they can have economic benefits by their greater knowledge of the climate crisis.'

Oh - and he's planning a sequel to An Inconvient Truth in 2009!!

After three years of works, yesterday saw the unveiling of the sleek new winery and visitor centre at Chateau Petit Village in Pomerol.

This chateau is owned by AXA Millesimes (also owners of Chateau Pichon Baron in Pauillac and Chateau Suduiraut in Sauternes), and run by Christian Seely and techincal director Daniel Llose. Yesterday was a lunch and visit aimed mainly at tour operators to show what new wine tourism services are on offer, but I managed to go along - always interested in new wine tourism things in Bordeaux for www.winetravelguides.com

The new cellars are fantastic (I took photos and will upload them, but am right now in Barcelona at climate and wine conference... more on that later).

Many of the ideas for the architecture came from Rioja, where of course architecture in the wineries has been taken to an art form, and there is extensive use of techniques now being employed at Petit Village such as gravity systems, peristaltic pumps etc. Actually, the last one might need explaining a bit further - peristalsis is the process of involuntary wave-like successive muscular contractions by which food is gently moved through the digestive tract, and the same idea is applied to grapes, so ensuring a far gentler handing than normal pumps, causing almost no damage to the grapes.

The new tanks are all made from cement (increasingly cement tanks are seeing a return to popularity in bordeaux, after years when they were taken out to make way for stainless steel). Of course, this being Petit Village, the cement tanks here are entirely black and look like art installations. They have, interestingly, larger openings at the top of the cuves than usual, to allow for manual pushing down of the cap (a technique used a lot in burgundy, known as pigeage). Again this is to encourage gentle manipulation of the grapes.

The architect was Alain Triaud, who has also been working on the new underground cellars at Pichon Baron (due to officially open next month in time for the en primeurs tasting).

Alongside the cellars is a very welcoming boutique, selling the estate's wines (Petit Village plus second wine Les Jardins de Petit Village), plus wine accessories. There is also a tasting room upstairs with views over the vineyards, and chateaux such as La Conseillante next door. The whole thing is going to be opened daily throughout the year - and for Pomerol, this really is a big deal, because today there are almost no wineries that are truly easy to visit, especially unannounced.

Tasting notes:
Les Jardins du Petit Village 2004 Very light and fresh. This is made from their young merlot vines, of which there is an increasing number due to an extensive replanting programme over the past few years. Very flattering wine, with tannins almost entirely melted away. 87-88.

Chateau Petit Village 2004. Now it starts getting serious, they clearly hold back the best parcels for this. Dense, rich, very deep black cherry and damson plum fruits. Well structured with layers of chocolate, perhaos slighty too flashy with the oak. 92-93.

The Cercle Rive Droite (an organisation that represents many well known chateaux in the Saint Emilion / Libourne / Pomerol / Fronsac areas that dont fit in to the grand cru classes category) held a very interesting dinner and debate last night.

It was held at Jean Marie Amat's new restaurant at the Chateau du Prince Noir (Rue Raymond Lis, 33310 Lormont, Tel : 05 56 06 12 52), and hosted by wine journalist Jean Marc Quarin ( www.quarin.com ) who spoke about the development of Bordeaux wine over the past 10 years.

Number of interesting points - firstly that with BOrdeaux wines when they are young, there is not always a link between immediate pleasure and intrinsic quality.

Since the region is now almost forced to show off its wines before they are finished (through the en primeur campaign when buyers are tasting two years before bottling), it puts critics and experts to the fore, as need someone to explain this gap.

He also pointed out a few new realities that I really agree with - namely that the vintage gap is getting less and less, and that today cabernet sauvignon's taste profile has altered beyond all recognition in the past 10 years. In many ways, with warmer summers, cabernet sauvignon can start to taste like merlot (you see this affect already in many southern hemisphere countries), because it is so ripe upon picking.

Already this has led to the first growths reducing their percentage of merlot in their top wines over recent years - they no longer need the softening effect that it brings.

Traditionally, it has been thought that the hot, gravelly Left Bank terroirs are the finest in Bordeaux. But as cool climate wines become more and more to the fore in the light of global warming problems, it's not ripening that winemakers worry about, but keeping alcohol levels down and ensuring elegance and freshness. As this trend continues, perhaps the Right Bank, clay/limestone 'cooler' soils will be seen as the finest terroirs?

In response to Quarin's points, we had Denis Dubordieu (professor at Institute of Oenology, the Harrison Ford of Bordeaux wine - and I'm thinking of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the female student enscribes 'I love you' across her eyelids to bat at him during a lecture) on hand. He was at my table, and it was hilarious to watch all the winemakers fall over themselves to impress him with their incisive comments, while his every word was met by vigorous nods and murmers of assent. I'm not immune though - he speaks with such knowledge on such a wide variety of subjects (but did, I'm pleased to report, get the blind tasting wrong).

He made one very good point about wine critics - that mos will meet the wines when they are young, but not meet them again as adults - and until they do so reglarly, it is hard to trust their assessment of how the wines will really age. A gentle dig at Quarin perhaps??

Yesterday was the official launch of the Bilan Carbon initiative in Bordeaux.
( http://www.decanter.com/news/175396.html?aff=rss )

At the launch, climatologist consultant Jean Marc Jancovici spoke about his previous work with champagne, and gave some very interesting figures about the emissions in the region.

Apparently, Champagne produces 200,000 tonnes of carbon (or equivalent in CO2) per year. The bottles and packaging contribute a massive 40% of that total, with working in the vineyards (heating the buildings/oil for tractors etc) 15%, cellars (temperature-controlled vats etc) for 10% and finally transport (both of bottles and workers) another 15%. That brings it to 80% by my reckoning - not sure where the additional 20% came from.

They now have objectives in place to reduce all of this by 25% by 2050 - which seems a bit harlf-hearted to me; 40 years to reduce emissions by a quarter?

Anyway, Bordeaux is now kicking off its own carbon initiative, with six months of research into current emissions. Hopefully they then try a slightly more optimisic attempt at reducing the levels.

So I gave a group of six winemakers the 'Why hate Bordeaux?' piece (see post below) to read, and asked their opinion. I think if I had given them this a few years ago, they would have been incredulous, but smart winemakers here are now fully aware of the negative stereotypes surrounding Bordeaux.

The very articulate Gerard Blanloeil from Producta (www.producta.com,representing various co-operative cellars in the region and previously from Nicolas Feuillate in Champagne) said, 'this is great to read. To remember that there is still so much misinformation about Bordeaux, and to remember that many people have made up their minds about the region without even tasting the wines. It shows we still have a lot of work to do.'

Very interesting entry from The Pour htis week
http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/

I read this blog often, from the excellent wine critic at the New York Times, but found this particularly interesting - I'm going to be discussing it with a group of winemakers tomorrow morning, so will keep you posted about their reaction.

'... started me thinking about why, at least in certain circles, it’s oddly unfashionable these days to like Bordeaux. In fact, it’s downright au courant to express contempt for this hallowed region.

Young sommeliers about town, when they’re not busy pushing the Loire and rieslings from all over, are turning their backs on Bordeaux, and increasingly you see sentiments like this in a post from Lyle Fass, blogger and wine guy extraordinaire, who quickly dispenses with Bordeaux as “over-manipulated, overpriced wine from a region I hate.’’

Now, clearly, Lyle’s sentiment is not universally held. By all economic yardsticks, Bordeaux is still the world’s leading wine region; people still pay through the nose at auctions and in futures markets to get their coveted bottles, and critics and wine buyers still descend on Bordeaux en masse each spring to assess the new vintage by subjecting themselves to hundreds of barrel samples. Yet Lyle’s rant captures an attitude that I see increasingly, especially in younger wine lovers.

Why is this happening? Allow me to speculate freely.

First, this is clearly a generational divide. Bordeaux is so, well, old. Leading wine critics like Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson, Robert M. Parker Jr., Stephen Tanzer, Michael Broadbent, Wine Spectator and the rest may all have their differences, but they all embrace Bordeaux as the world’s leading wine. Many wine lovers coming of age today begin by rejecting the primacy of critics and their scores, and so reject Bordeaux, which stands with them as the established order.

Of course this is a gross simplification of both Bordeaux and wine critics, but I think it accurately reflects an attitude among a small segment of influential wine people.
What’s more, until recently people who grew to love wine were essentially weaned on Bordeaux. It was the easiest great wine to obtain and to understand. Nowadays, that’s no longer true. It’s easy to find great wines from anywhere, not just Bordeaux. You can learn drinking your way through Barolos or Riojas, Mosels or Côte-Rôties.

Wine politics also play into this equation. Much of what is considered natural, authentic and real in wine today – whether sustainable agriculture, biodynamics, natural winemaking, respect for terroir, etc. – is not identified with Bordeaux. Burgundy, yes. The Loire and the Rhone, yes. Champagne, no, but grower Champagne, yes. Bordeaux, no.

Full entry on http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/

As ever, the South Africans show how it's done:
This excellent story was written by Graham Howe

"Creating new drawcards at the cellar-door is a strategic way of brand-building on a crowded winery row. The growth of new tourist attractions in the winelands is taking place along the wine routes rather than in the wineland towns. A whole slew of new restaurants opened this season at inter alia Dieu Donné, Dornier, Hidden Valley, Nitida, Rust en Vrede and Vrede en Lust. A cellar restaurant is de rigueur along with catch-all attractions like cellar tastings and tours, vineyard walks, exclusive cellar-door wine releases, potstill brandy, olive oil, franchised caps, t-shirts and cork-screws.

Dr Johan Bruwer reported in his wine route survey (2005) that "Food plays an important role in wine tourism with 11 - 26% of visitors buying food." He identifies the "silver bullets" - the key brand elements of the natural landscape (the wineland scenery), the built landscape (Cape Dutch architecture) and the human resources (friendly locals). Almost half (47%) of all visitors surveyed on the Stellenbosch wine route were in the 18 - 34 age group (the Generation-X market segment) - "an opportunity to capture a wine consumer base loyal to a regional wine brand at an early age when most purchase habits are formed for products and services".

Wine, cuisine, beer" is the marketing slogan emblazoned at Dieu Donné Vineyards in the Franschhoek Wine Valley. In late January the high-lying cellar launched a 120-seater underground restaurant and micro-brewery with spectacular views all the way to the Drakenstein mountains. The first winery in the Cape to bravely mix beer and wine, it lives up to its logo, the Cross of Lorraine - a symbol of non-conformity. Thirsty beer drinkers in the winelands - domestic and foreign tourists - might also believe a homemade frosty on a hot day is "A gift from God" (i.e. Dieu Donné).

...

We're here for the beer. Setting up a micro-brewery and making his first batches has been a learning curve for winemaker Stephan du Toit who has been at the helm of this wine-exporting estate for a dozen years now. He uses the analogy of bottle fermented Methode Cap Classique wines versus mass-produced carbonated sparkling wines (with larger bubbles that dissipate quickly after pouring) to explain the exceptionally fine bubbles and thicker foam of his own yeasty, naturally conditioned malt beers.

Full story:
http://www.wine.co.za/news/news.aspx?NEWSID=11231&Source=News
www.dieudonnevineyards.com;

A visit to a barrel makers (tonnellerie) is always a pleasure, and I recently took a group of Ecole du Vin students to the oldest one in Bordeaux, located in the tiny village of Saint Caprais de Bordaeux. Called Cooperage Demptos, part of the bigger François Frères Group.

I can't recommend highly enough taking the time to visit a barrel makers if you are in a wine region. You will never experience cellar visit again in quite the same way once you realise just how much work goes into making a barrel.

First of all (for French oak), the trees have to be around 150 years old. That was the legal minimum until a few years ago, when the age was lowered sligtly, sometimes to around 120 or 130 years old. And for one majestic 150 year old oak tree, you will be lucky to get three oak barrels - more usually two. Of course the off-cuts go into making furniture and other wood products, but that still means a lot of tree for a litte barrel.

One of the very interesting thing about a visit here is seeing where the barrels end up. Demptos export between 60 and 70% of their production, and many of the final barrels were labelled LVMH - not for their local properties of Yquem and Cheval Blanc, but ready to be shipped over to New Zealand for Cloudy Bay (I imagine destined for Te Koko).

The life cycle of a barrel goes something like this: the government holds auctions where different tonneleries (even individual properties for the really big guys) will make bids for their trees (this used to be where the price started high and got lower in the traditional manner with farming in France but today is more likely to be a straight-forward price-rising auction). The main forests used are the Allier, the Limousin and the Vosges. Your choice of forest and age is important: Oaks with a slow growth rate are finer grained and richer in aromatic compounds (eugenol and whisky lactones in particular). Older wood is also more porous which facilitates oxygen uptake.

So, you've successfully bid on your oak - you then are likely to have to wait another few years before it's cut, and then it's brought to the cooperage, where it spends a further few years air-drying outside. This is crucial and lasts usually from two to three years. The purpose of this is to dry out the sap, of course, to begin the process of softening the tannins. Bad weather is important aswell - rain is the physical medium that washes away the harshest tannins. With exposure to the open air, certain strains of fungi develop that influence the phenolic profile of the wood, converting lignin into vanillin far more effectively than kiln-drying.

Apparently, two years used to be the average, but as the fashion heads away from over-oaked wines, many wineries are asking for their oak to stay out for three years, to lessen some of the more obvious flavours.

Okay, so now it moves inside, and things speed up - in fact you can expect your barrel to be ready within a few days. Demptos makes around 150 barrels per day, but of course cooperages vary enormously in size.

The amazing thing to watch is what a tough phyiscal process it is - there are machines of course to cut the staves and cut out the bung hole etc, but a lot of work involves men (and it is men, I have yet to meet a female barrel maker - please correct me if you know one) physically hammering the thing together.

The most magical bit to watch is the toasting. This is done not only to make the wood pliable enough to move into 'barrel shape' but also to season the final product. Wineries can choose from light toast, medium toast, medium plus, high toast and a variety in between. The length over the fire doesn't alter (around one hour), but the intensity of the flames do.

According to Demptos, although more difficult to control, toasting over an oak chip brazier results in a more even "toast" of the barrel surface. This process releases the aromatic substances (vanillin, eugenol, syringol, etc) far more effectively than other toasting methods using electricity or gas burners or even infrared light.

A lot of great info (some of which I have reproduced above) is on the Demptos website:
http://www.demptos.fr

Had dinner last night with three young winemakers from the Cotes de Bordeaux (all Premieres Cotes de Blaye) and an importer from Seattle. We were discussing whether the soon-to-be-introduced new appellation was a good thing or not (background on http://www.decanter.com/news/73039.html although it will now be four not five, as Cotes de Bourg is not initially joining).

Both the importer (David Mark at Cascade Trade) and myself were on the side of the consumer, thinking it will simplify the offer, while the winemakers (Valerie and Jerome Eymas at the excellent Chateau La Rose Bellevue and Jerome Bonaccorsi at Chateau La Rivalerie) think it is diluting their offer, and feel let down that they are getting no financial compensation for having to change all their labels, cartons, wine boxes, marketing materials etc etc. They also think the Cotes are too geographically distinct to be seen as one entity.

I've been to several meetings about the new appellation, and surveys into consumer recognition of names such as Blaye, Francs and Castillon are really almost non-existent, so I can really see the benefit of a generic 'Cotes de Bordeaux' label. But Valerie made a good point when she said, 'The complicaton of our appellations, that points towards individual winemaking, small families, the opposite of big business, is what sets us apart from the New World, and we should be careful about giving up too much of our individuality in the search of an easy solution to our problems.'

Talking of new-style negociants, I read in the local paper this morning that a museum about the Place de Bordeaux, and the history of the merchant system here, is finally going to get its own museum.

In recent months/years, all the wine museums in Bordeaux have closed down (even Vinorama, although you'll still read about it in most guidebooks). This one is to be started by a young negociant, called Gregory Pecastaing, and will be housed in the old Musee des Chartrons building, where he also has the offices of his merchant business (he specialises, by the way, in creating special, more modern cuvees for big chateaux such as La Gaffeliere, as well as finding young and upcoming chateaux).

Apparently it is due to open in May or June 2008, and will have a recreation of the port as it was in the 18th century, when all those merchants were rolling their barrels of wine on and off boats along the Chartrons Quays.

No site to link to you, but I'll keep you updated...

It's an old question, but there have been a few developments recently that maybe signal bigger changes ahead for the Bordeaux negociant system, and the way the top chateaux are only sold through these merchants.

I had dinner with Jonathan Maltus on Saturday night, owner of Chateau Teyssier, Le Dome and many other propeties in St Emilion - who has more than successfully bypassed the Place to sell direct (not just to the public, but to importers around the world, the job traditionally done by a Bordeaux merchant). Apparently, Chateau Latour are only putting 20% of their production through negociants, the rest they are keeping back to sell through their own channels. We know that Yquem (and to a lesser extent Cheval Blanc) are doing this increasingly, through the highly efficient sales channels of LVMH. Le Pin has long been known to release just 80 cases to the Place, the rest (around 500 cases), Thienpont keeps again to sell through his own channels.

So the question is; if the big names increasingly see the benefit of emoloying their own sales arms, where does that leave negociants, who traditionally rely on the big names to bring in punters and then shift many of the lesser known chateaux?

New-style merchants work in partnership with properties, on joint marketing and sales solutions, targetting specific markets, and for those properties who dont have the volume/money to have paid-for agents in every market, surely the system has its benefits? So who are these new negociants? Would love to hear from some of them!

This is an article I wrote on the subject around six months ago for Wine Business International.
http://www.wine-business-international.com/156-bWVtb2lyX2lkPTEyOSZtZW51ZV9jYXRfaWQ9--en-magazine-magazine_detail.html

And a smaller news story a while ago about a merchant suing Latour for cutting its allocation
http://www.decanter.com/news/127592.html

Interesting piece by Alok Chandrain the Business Standard on wine clubs in India.
I keep being told about the number of Bordeaux clubs there are in South Korea also, and would love to hear more if anyone knows anything about it...

An extract from the article (whole piece found on :
http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=312295&subLeft=0&chkFlg=How%20to%20spend%20it )

Delhi
The Wine Society (of Delhi) (www.thewinesociety.org) is the grand-daddy of them all — founded in 1997 by Ghulam Naqshband, Bunty Singh and Prem Behl. It has a very exclusive membership and only a few events annually.

The Delhi Wine Club (www.delhiwineclub.com) started around 2000 and is run by Subhash Arora, who has probably done more to popularise wine in India than any other individual. The website has a wealth of information.

Bangalore
The Chaine des Rotisseurs (www.chaine-des-rotisseurs.net), an international gastronomic society founded in Paris in 1950, held the inaugural meeting of its India chapter at the Leela Palace, Bangalore last week.

Mumbai
The Bombay Wine Club (www.bombaywineclub.com) started by wine importer Vishal Kadakia is yet to take off. The other is the Wine Society of India (www.thewinesocietyofindia.com) which seems to be in the nature of a wine promotion organisation (members buy six wines each quarter for Rs 7,000-10,000). It has wine authority Steven Spurrier and wine importer Sanjay Menon on its board.

Other cities
The Pune Gourmet Club (www.punegourmet.blogspot.com) started in 2006, and recently held a two-day wine festival with wines from 10 Indian wineries.

I'm currently updating the Bordeaux chapters of Wine Travel Guides (www.winetravelguides.com), and just in the year since the guide was first written, it's interesting to note that the Medoc, far more than the Right Bank, has really started to professionalise its approach to wine tourism. Whereas most classified chateaux were offering free tours and tastings last year, a lot more have started to charge between 5 and 10 euros for tasting their wines. Personally I think it's a good idea - if people pay for a visit, they are more likely to be treated as guests rather than annoyances, and the chateaux are far more likely to put thought and attention into the visits.

On another wine tourism note, the Napa Valley Vintners Association did a wine tourism survey last year, and found that for every 1 dollar invested, the properties made 7 dollars back in terms of tourist dollars spent. Bordeaux needs to do a similar survey, to encourage even more properties to take the idea of wine tourism seriously. Maybe they can get Alain Juppe to do an Arnold Schwarzenegger
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8118518
http://www.landofwineandfood.com

Sometimes I write stories for Decanter that get picked up worldwide in hours - this was one of them...
Also interesting to look at is their own website, which has already been given a makeover: www.latourlaguens.com

First published on Jan 29, http://www.decanter.com/news/176561.html

Chinese company Longhai buys Bordeaux chateau
January 29, 2008

A Chinese trading company has bought Chateau Latour-Laguens in Entre-deux-Mers – the first Chinese purchase in Bordeaux.

The 60ha property in Saint Martin de Puy, 50km south of Bordeaux centre, has 30ha under vine.

It bottles its reds under AOC Bordeaux Superieur and produces 160,000 bottles per year, a large proportion of which is now expected to be exported to China.

The price Longhai International, based in Qingdao, paid for the property has not been disclosed.

The average price per hectare in this southern part of Entre deux Mers is between €18,000-20,000 per ha, among the lowest in the region and one of the areas most affected by drops in land value from the recent wine crisis.

Daniel Carmagnat, of property agency A2Z who were handled the purchase, told local newspaper Sud Ouest, 'The attraction wasn't the appellation itself, but a foothold in one of the most prestigious wine regions in the world.'

Qingdao, a region between Beijing and Shanghai, has a rapidly growing wine centre, with several vineyards, as well as a history of beer production.

According to its website, the company already imports wines from Australia and South Africa into China, and is now looking to further expand its operations in France.

The purchase was completed on 24 January 2008. Current owner Serge Laguens declined to comment.