Ch. Palmer is one of the finest producers in Bordeaux. The Margaux Third Growth is known for its significant plantings of old-vine Merlot, typically representing a large portion of the blend and responsible for the generous and supple style Ch. Palmer is known for.

Château Palmer - producer

Ch. Palmer is one of the finest producers for collectors' wine in Bordeaux. Browse exclusive releases, rare past vintages on our marketplace

The wines of Château Palmer, Margaux, Bordeaux

Château Palmer

“The only thing more fun than drinking wine is buying wine,” says Allan Frischman, our new Vice President of Global Client Reserves, arching an eyebrow and laughing. He should know – he’s been working in the wine business since the early 1990s, with the vast majority of that spent sourcing, studying, authenticating and selling fine wine collections for a leading auction house. As of this month, he’ll be working to develop our network of reservists and their portfolios – allowing our clients to both sell and buy even more than before, giving us – and you – access to the world’s finest (and deepest) cellars. Beyond this, he’ll be finessing local pricing for each market we work in and helping manage clients’ wine storage – a job for which he is uniquely qualified. Frischman grew up in New Jersey and never planned to get into wine – but he took a part-time job at college (“to pay for beer”, he confesses) in a wine shop. The shop’s storage system was divided by country and region, with a warren-like basement that he needed to navigate, finding the right bin for new stocks. Reading about the different appellations, and using his staff discount to buy the odd bottle, got him interested – but it was a bottle of 1975 Ch. Talbot, tasted at Mary Ewing-Mulligan MW’s International Wine Center that hooked him: “At that point, I knew that this is what I wanted to do.”  The economics graduate was working at Manhattan’s Morell & Co. when, in 1994, the laws changed. For the first time since Prohibition, wine auctions were permitted to take place in New York State. “I didn’t know anything at all about auctions,” says Frischman – but it didn’t stop him jumping headfirst into something new, organising the state’s first commercial wine auction since 1920. “I didn’t know if we were going to get 10 bidders or 1,000,” he tells me. He shouldn’t have worried, for that auction was met with such enthusiasm that he walked away from the event on cloud nine, confident that he had found his calling.  In the 30 years since, he’s seen the auction business transformed. The 1994 law change created a new hub for wine’s secondary market, with New York rapidly becoming a rival for its traditional heartland in London – and the Big Apple rapidly added its own signature. Until then, auctions were staid affairs, dominated by trade buyers with little action beyond the raising of paddles in muted crowds – in Frischman’s words, “something dreary that dragged on for 10 hours”.  But Zachys – one of the auction houses that popped up in New York – added American flair, a touch of Broadway jazz hands to turn auctions into events, gathering bidders at round tables with great food and wine. Traditionalists said it wouldn’t work – but they were wrong. No longer were auctions purely a way to buy wine, they became fun – they became a place for wine lovers to gather, eat, drink and be seen. Higher attendance meant more bids, higher hammer prices – and more consignments that in turn brought more business, and a shift from trade to individuals.  The late 2000s brought challenges. “The Dow Jones was tumbling and it looked like the world was about to collapse,” Frischman tells me, looking back at the worldwide recession. “It was terrifying and of course people stopped buying wine.” But as Frischman rapidly learnt, people were waiting for the bottom of the market – and then they started buying again. At the same time, Hong Kong abolished import duty on wine (initially halved in 2007 and removed entirely in 2008) – and, like New York in 1994, instantly became a new centre for the wine trade. “The Asian market evolved almost over days,” remarks Frischman. “It became extremely sophisticated very quickly.” American auction houses started opening offices in Hong Kong. “For a few years, Hong Kong was just chewing up all the wine and the big hammer prices were all [there].”  The most recent shift in the world of auctioneering has been the advent of real-time, online bidding – one forced by the Covid-19 pandemic. “There was a perception that it would discourage people to show up in the sale room and would also discourage people from leaving bids in advance,” Frischman says, explaining why the industry was perhaps a little slow to embrace the online sphere. Interestingly, however, he anticipates that before online bidding was introduced, maybe only 10% of lots went to bidders physically in the room. With consumers stranded at home, and the technology already up to scratch, online auctions rocketed – and opened the market to an even broader range of consumers, with bidding wars between wine lovers in Brazil, Singapore, London, New York, Hong Kong and beyond now the norm.  As auction houses realised that online auctions worked, the need for events and associated spend dropped – and the auction style established by Zachys in the 1990s has become significantly less common. You might argue that this also heralds the end of the auctioneer – but even online companies have retained the compère, the familiar patter still something that bidders want.   It isn’t just where and how wine was selling, but which wines were selling that has evolved. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, Frischman notes how the US market centred on Napa’s cult Cabernets, along with wines from the likes Williams Selyem, Ravenswood and, of course, Bordeaux’s top names. “[There was] across the board demand for Bordeaux,” Frischman tells me, “but you couldn’t give Burgundy away.” Of course, that’s all changed now – and Burgundy, despite its extremely limited supply, has become the darling of the fine wine scene. As prices have soared for the Côte d’Or’s top wines, wine lovers have started looking elsewhere, to Italy (Barolo, Barbaresco and some Brunello), Madeira (especially older vintages) and the Northern Rhône (Côte-Rôtie, Cornas and Saint-Joseph) – but none have the liquidity of Bordeaux. “They [the Bordelais] don’t get enough credit for the sheer, mind-boggling amount of great wine they’re able to put out every year,” says Frischman.  Over the years, Frischman has become an expert authenticator – the sort of knowledge that can only be gained by handling immense volumes of fine wine, working closely with producers and getting up close and personal with the rarest bottles. In 2006, he went to check over some wines that had been sent to the auction house he then worked for by a young Asian collector. The consignment was significant, worth millions of dollars – but even from across the room, Frischman knew that the wines didn’t look right. Closer inspection only confirmed that the wines looked like fakes – and the auction house turned them away, sending them back to the collector, then a new name on the scene, Rudy Kurniawan. A couple of years later, he got a call from the FBI’s Jim Wynn, asking if he would be an expert witness in a wine fraud case against Kurniawan, who had – by that point – become prolific. “I inspected, I don’t know, 40 bankers boxes of stuff that they’d gotten from his home, stamps for corks, fake labels, fake import strips – all kinds of stuff,” he says. In a warehouse in Queens, he studied the evidence – “going through bottle after bottle after bottle and writing a report about why I thought that they were fake”. It was – and still is – the biggest wine forgery case to have ever taken place, and Frischman, along with fellow authentication expert Michael Egan, was essential to proving Kurniawan’s guilt.  Wine authentication has become an essential component of wine collecting, and a key reason to work with trusted merchants. There are people who suggest that as much as 10% of wine on the secondary market is fake, but – in Frischman’s view, having handled fine wine for over 30 years – “That’s a substantial overestimate.” Despite such claims, forgery has only become more sophisticated, and it’s important, he says, to work with someone who knows what they’re looking at. “You want someone who is experienced to look at the bottle and who is empowered to say, ‘I don’t like it – we’re not offering it.’” There’s a big difference, he explains, between being convinced something is fake, and being convinced something is real – and you always want the person checking wines you’re buying to be in the latter camp.  The wine business is a people business – and he’s been lucky to spend three decades getting to know the world’s foremost collectors, spending time rustling through cellars, lugging his fair share of cases in and out of vans, and cradling bottles of elusive vintages and cuvées. Beyond this privilege, he’s often found himself on the receiving end of collectors’ generosity – recognising a fellow enthusiast’s passion. When I ask him if there’s a bottle that stands out, beyond the 1975 Talbot that was his hook into the industry, his eyes mist over. It was, he tells me, on a trip to Tokyo, at a remarkable dinner that included some incredible wines, including the fabled 1947 Cheval Blanc. But it was a bottle of 1978 La Romanée-Conti from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti that stole the show: it was “breathtaking, magical”, he says. “I was practically brought to tears.” Until that moment, he’d never necessarily understood why collectors kept this prized cuvée, and didn’t sell it to fund their La Tâche or Romanée-Saint-Vivant – but this bottle made him realise just why people don’t. “This wine was perfect,” he says.  It’s easy, perhaps, to imagine the auctioneering world is over-run with wine investors, but that’s far from what Frischman has found. “The vast majority, regardless of what they say they’re doing, are buying to drink,” he says. On paper, that may not make sense – after all, who needs 30,000 bottles of wine? But that, as Frischman and any wine obsessive knows, is the collector’s mentality – and, deciding to sell, despite owning more wine than could possibly be consumed in a lifetime, is much harder than buying another case or 10.  When Frischman first started auctioning wine, he recalls talking to his father, who wondered if there was enough fine wine to sustain a career. The beauty, Frischman, now knows, is that there’s a new vintage every year – beyond that, and as he’s seen over the past 30 years, the wine world is constantly shifting, with an ever-expanding range of regions and producers. And he’s evolving with the industry, making a move of his own and bringing his expertise to FINE+RARE. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do. Whether you’re looking to buy, sell or anything else, contact Allan Frischman directly at allan.frischman@frw.co.uk

After two decades at one of the world’s leading auction houses, Allan Frischman has joined our team, as Vice President of Global Client Reserves. We caught up with him to dive into the world of auctioneering, his 30 years in the business and his new role

After two decades at one of the USA’s leading auction houses, auctioneer and wine authentication expert Allan Frischman has joined our team

Introducing Allan Frischman

Hammer time: Allan Frischman

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW has caused quite the stir. In her Bordeaux 2021 en primeur report, her first for her new publication The Wine Independent, she scored some wines below 80 points – and just 20% made it above the 90-point mark. She’s a woman on a mission, determined to bring honour and integrity back to wine criticism. The Master of Wine and Robert Parker protégée stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of the Wine Advocate – the leading fine wine publication – last year. She was tired of what had become a corporate life. Michelin took over in 2019 and her time was increasingly spent in meetings, doing reporting, looking at corporate responsibility as well as managing her team and making sure everything was going to plan – a plan, she emphasises, that was not set by her. Most importantly, her senior position took her further away from what she really loved doing – writing about wine. “I love to sit down with winemakers and capture that story that is not on their website, that is not in their marketing material. Something that is real and raw. There is not enough of that,” she tells me. Her view is that it’s the story that makes wine “more than just a drink” – and that’s why people spend hundreds of pounds on a bottle. This storytelling is what she’s looking to do with her new, small outfit, The Wine Independent. Importantly she’s partnered with Johan Berglund – a professional photographer (whose beautiful images we've used here) – to bring those stories to life, with a modern platform that is a world away from most other critics’ sites (often “a wall of words”, she says). As the name of the new publication suggests, Perrotti-Brown is making a stand against publications that she feels no longer put the consumer first. Her inspiration is Robert Parker’s original operation – the Wine Advocate started as a small newsletter shared with friends. “Essentially a mom-and-pop shop”, she explains, getting back to basics, with minimal staff and no fancy office with big overheads. For her, the goal is simple: to publish timely – and honest – reports, allowing readers to search for wines easily and helping them to discover something new. She doesn’t hold back voicing her concerns about the state of wine criticism today. She’s damning, believing there’s a trend not just to overscore, but that it’s a strategy to gain influence, helping critics be quoted by retailers and wineries – and therefore benefitting from “free marketing”. “When you see people coming in one or two points above everyone else and they hang on and wait until other people’s reviews have come out… I mean, come on, it’s definitely happening,” she says. The compaction of scores, however, is what really riles her. Everything sits between 95 and 99 these days, she suggests. “Nobody dares to go to 100 and nobody dares to go below 90.” Perrotti-Brown is outspoken about critics for whom the tiny number of 100-point scores they hand out is a point of pride. “There are a lot of critics who are just too chicken-s**t to give 100 points,” she says. “If you know a wine is 100 points, it takes a lot of bravery to put it out there.” Some critics – such as James Molesworth of Wine Spectator – don’t believe that a perfect wine exists, and therefore never give 100 points. “Which is ridiculous!” says Perrotti-Brown. “Why use a 100-point scale, if you are not going to use the top?” Her fear is that scores will lose all relevance and meaning. Indeed, she notes that retailers don’t even reference who gave the score they quote. “You go into a shop these days and look at the shelf-toppers and it doesn’t even say whose score it is – it just says 97 points. Every wine is 97 points!”  Critics should be fighting for consumers, she argues, rather than ingratiating themselves with wineries. “I know it is difficult, because we are sat there right in front of the winemaker, listening to their stories and I think the impetus is to really feel for that person, but you can’t. You always have to see it from the consumer’s perspective – it’s what Bob [Robert Parker] always told me. You are working for them.”  Hence, therefore, the broad range of scores that she felt was inevitable for a vintage like 2021. It was, she admits, a difficult vintage to assess in the evolution of Bordeaux. She’s adamant that she hasn’t changed the way she scores: “It just happens to be the worst vintage Bordeaux has had for a very long time,” she explains. Perrotti-Brown refers back to Robert Parker’s original benchmark for 90 points – an “outstanding” wine, a wine that is complex and age-worthy. For her – tasting very widely across the region – the majority of 2021s don’t meet those criteria, but she’s quick to emphasise that wines scored in the upper 80s are very good wines. “I think there has become some stigma over the wines scoring in the 80s and I don’t know why,” she says. Again returning to Robert Parker’s original scoring crib-sheet, these are “good to very good” wines and that is where, she feels, the bulk of Bordeaux 2021 wines fall.  Looking back at Robert Parker’s own en primeur scores in trickier vintages (2007, 2013, 1996), he too was awarding many wines eighty-something points, sometimes less. While Perrotti-Brown accepts the technological advances in viticulture and vinification mean you would rarely see Classed Growth wines receiving less than 80 points today, it only emphasises just how challenging the 2021 vintage was in Bordeaux. Of course, the vintage also produced some surprises. Despite everything that happened climate-wise, there were a number of wineries that produced outstanding wines, even by Perrotti-Brown’s assessment. “Some wines were absolute trainwrecks and there are other wines that are wow… you can tell these people worked their tails off,” she says.  The critic was certainly surprised and disappointed by other reports on the vintage, particularly given she’d worked and trained some of the people behind them. “When I am looking at other peoples’ scores [for Bordeaux 2021], 60% or more of the wines scored 90 points and above and that is astonishing to me,” she says, both confused and outraged. “Some of these wines, they are giving the same score ranges as the 2018 and the 2019s – I mean how is that possible?” Her report is a statement of intent. Lower scores may mean The Wine Independent isn’t as widely quoted by the trade, but what matters to Perrotti-Brown is whether consumers trust the publication. It’s a long-term game. “Eventually I hope consumers will look at all these other scores and say, ‘But what did The Wine Independent say?’” Perrotti-Brown took a huge risk stepping down from what is undeniably the wine world’s most influential publication – but she is confident she’s made the right choice. Her need for autonomy was the impetus for her to set up on her own, and she’s found freedom on her own terms. It is still early days for The Wine Independent and, for now, Perrotti-Brown is their only reviewer – although she confirms an additional critic will be announced in the coming weeks. Competing against more established publications with an extensive database of tasting notes and scores isn’t easy – but Perrotti-Brown has established herself as a disruptor in the field. She’s lain down the gauntlet – daring her peers to put the consumer back at the heart of what they do. Read more Editorial

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW is making a stand. The ex Wine Advocate Editor-in-Chief, trained by Robert Parker, believes that critics are at risk of losing relevance – and for good reason. We talk to the wine writer about why she’s fed up of scoring strategies and set up The Wine Independent.

Why the wine critic left the *Wine Advocate* to go her own way, determined to bring honour and integrity back to wine criticism.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown on why she left Wine Advocate

The voice of independence: Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW

Anyone who’s had the misfortune of tasting a de-alcoholised version knows that alcohol is key to wine. Take it away and it leaves a gaping void in the glass – stripping the liquid of body and flavour. Those attempting to craft alcohol-free alternatives look to make up for its absence with sugar or flavourings, but the results don’t come close to the real thing. And of course the very fermentation process is key to complexity – there’s a reason we aren’t collecting single-site examples of even the finest raw grape juice. But alcohol’s a hot topic – and not just because of any health considerations. Trends and shifts in climate have seen the average ABV (alcohol by volume) inch upwards. Indeed, a report last year from Liv-ex suggested the average alcohol level has leapt almost an entire 1% for both California and Bordeaux since the 1990s. While once 14 or 14.5% might have been the purview only of the New World, it’s rapidly become the norm in Bordeaux. Rising temperatures are one element, as indeed is technology and know-how – harvesting cleaner, riper fruit and more efficient winemaking. Then, of course, there’s the fashion factor – the pendulum swing, arguably driven by Robert Parker, for bold, ripe, sweet and inevitably high-alcohol wines. “He loved that weight, that impression of sweetness,” Paul Hobbs tells me. “We jumped on the wagon – but we didn’t know what we were jumping on.” A cult name, Hobbs crafts some of Napa’s highest-scoring and most expensive Cabernets; indeed, Parker named him his Wine Personality of the Year twice. Born in New York State, the Davis-trained winemaker founded his namesake estate in 1991. He’d started his career at Robert Mondavi (arriving in 1977), working at Opus One and Simi before setting up on his own, with a flurry of personal projects and list of consultancies that has grown ever since. He openly admits that he got caught up in “Parkerisation”, crafting big, bold wines – no great surprise given the scores, and sales, that followed for those who did. But he’s been pulling back in recent years, and has never quite fit the cookie-cutout for the cult Cabernet crew. Ever since he first started making his own wines in the 1990s, he’s championed native yeasts (relatively radical at the time), and no fining or filtering. While he embraces oak, he’s always been aware that it’s the quality of fruit in the vineyard, preserved by operating a flawlessly clean winery, that is key to producing fine wine. Make no mistake that Hobbs makes rich, plush wines – and the alcohol levels certainly don’t sit at 12.5% – but for him there is much more to alcohol than one number. “I didn’t give much thought to it in the beginning,” Hobbs says. “And there wasn’t really much reason to.” When he was at Mondavi, the wines tended to sit at 13.5% – but then they started to go up. “There was a time when 16% was normal,” he confesses with some amazement. “Some of these wines were difficult. They didn’t age. They would get tired,” Hobbs says. “But all that took us time to learn – no one had ever been in that domain before.” He notes that there was “a backlash” in the British press against wines that didn’t please the palates of “the Hugh Johnsons, the Jancis Robinsons and Anthony Roses”; a response he clearly feels was a little unjust. “It’s far more complex than a simple number,” he says. “15 isn’t always 15.” And it’s true – alcohol doesn’t feel the same. How many times have you looked at the label of a wine and been surprised – either for better or worse? Alcohol is one element working in tandem with a wine’s body, concentration and flavour complexity – and there’s no easy figure to tell you how it integrates with these other components. But there’s another key reason why the same alcohol level can seem so different: the nature of the alcohol. The main alcohol in wine is ethanol (a molecule with two carbons), however fermentation produces other types of alcohols – specifically superior or higher alcohols. Often known as fusel oils – from a German term “Fusel” which is colloquial for low-quality booze – these alcohols have three to six carbons in their molecular form and are significantly more viscous (hence “oils”).  While ethanol is pure and relatively neutral, these heavier superior alcohols can – in low volumes – bring flavour, texture and interest. “It’s what makes something more than vodka,” Hobbs explains. Hexanols can add herbaceous aromas; 2-phenylethanol gives a rose-like scent. But they’re also associated with headaches and hangovers. In the world of spirits, these fusel oils are what runs out of the still last – forming the “tails” of distillation, which are used to varying degrees depending on the type of spirit being produced. “Alcohol is alcohol? Well, yes and no,” says Hobbs. It's high numbers of these superior alcohols, he believes, that can make one 15% wine feel clumsy and lumbering, while another – with lower fusel oil levels – can carry the same ABV with ease. The production of these superior alcohols depends on many things – yeast strain, temperature, oxygen availability and acidity. In general, red grapes produce more of the compounds (which is partly why spirits tend to use white grapes as their base). But Hobbs thinks it ultimately comes back to the vineyard: he’s started noticing that if berries are heat-damaged, they produce more superior alcohols. “Our goal is to keep these superior alcohols as low as possible – and that’s just about harvesting not sun-damaged fruit,” Hobbs explains. Under the warmth of the Californian sun, it’s common to get sun damage early in the season, but shrivelled berries tend to fall off nascent clusters of their own accord; more concerning is fruit that can be damaged internally and then won’t go through véraison, which needs to be sorted out. Late in the season, Hobbs and his team look to walk through the vines and cut off any “shoulders” (the side cluster at the very top of a bunch of grapes) that have been exposed. With global warming, this is an increasing threat – and an element of climate change that is only now being considered. If grapes are sunburnt or shrivelled, they tend to struggle with fermentation, and the stressed yeasts produce more of the superior alcohols. “The wine is going to be fat and heavy on the palate,” says Hobbs. “You can lower the alcohol by adding water – but it doesn’t change its personality.” If the fruit is in good shape – he says – you simply don’t have that issue, even at 15.5%. And those wines, provided they’ve got the requisite balance, age amazingly. Rajat Parr (star sommelier turned winemaker) and Jasmine Hirsch (of Hirsch Vineyards) founded In Pursuit of Balance (IPOB) in 2011 to champion lighter wines that they felt “weren’t chasing after ratings from wine critics”. These “new California” wines (Jon Bonné published his book The New California Wine in 2013) tended to have lower alcohols and less oak – following the swing of the pendulum back the other way; an anti-Parker effort in many ways. I attended the last London IPOB tasting in 2016, catching the crest of the wave as the movement called it quits – feeling they’d achieved their aim of building the reputation of an alternative California. Paul Hobbs arguably sits at the opposite end of the California wine spectrum (“Should all wines be 13.5%?” he says to me, “Why is that the magic number?”) – but philosophically, they’re surprisingly aligned. It’s not about the number, it’s about the balance – and Hobbs, like any posterchild of the new California movement, will tell you that the secret lies in the vineyard. The challenge is to farm and pick the perfect fruit – to find the sweet spot between flavour, sugar and phenolic ripeness. As Hobbs says to me, “That’s the dance between man and nature.” Forget the maths; this is farming. A note on the numbers Strictly speaking, the alcohol level on any label isn’t exactly what’s in the bottle. For wines sold in the EU and UK (both those made here and imported), producers are given 0.5% leeway – meaning that what’s on the bottle is generally reflective of its contents. In the US and Australia, however, wines sold domestically can differ by as much as 1.5% from the label – meaning a wine labelled as 14% could be anything from 12.5 to 15.5%. Browse all Paul Hobbs listings or discover more Editorial

With climate change and the influence of Robert Parker, it’s undeniable that we’ve seen a rising tide of alcohol levels. But there’s much more to the conversation than a simple number – as we discovered tasting and talking with Paul Hobbs, one of Napa’s leading names

The Napa winemaker Paul Hobbs on how we perceive alcohol in wine and why the alcohol level on any label isn’t exactly what’s in the bottle. 

Paul Hobbs on alcohol in wine 

The nature of the numbers: Paul Hobbs on alcohol

The 2020 vintage was challenging for most vignerons. But for the Durantou family, it was a year that demanded everything of them. Denis Durantou – patriarch and leading light of Pomerol – passed away on 12th May. For many people, their day-job would be the last thing on their minds. But for the Durantous, they threw themselves into work, into the vines.  “Dad passed away right in the middle of the pouring rain in spring," Noëmie Durantou 
Reilhac, Denis’s daughter – who has taken over running the estate – explains. “… Working is our way to deal with things.” With the rain, there was immense mildew pressure and risk to their crop – they had to go on, getting into the vineyard to spray and protect their fruit. Her voice unsurprisingly thick with emotion, she tells me how it was a way to be close to her father – in amongst the vines that he so loved.   Denis Durantou was first and foremost a vigneron – an increasingly rare breed in the polished world of Bordeaux. While Ch. l’Eglise-Clinet had been in the Durantou family for generations, it was leased out to Pierre Lasserre of neighbouring Clos René for over 40 years. Denis arrived in 1982, fully taking over the property a year later, and transforming the then rustic estate into one of the region’s most respected.   The 1998 vintage was pivotal – putting the property, and the talents of Denis Durantou, firmly on the map. While the wines earned high scores (and even higher prices), Denis remained grounded. He continued to run the show, staying just as involved in the day-to-day work; walking the vines and making the wine, getting dirt under his fingernails.  As the reputation of l’Eglise-Clinet soared, he became committed to producing more affordable, “everyday” wines. He acquired Ch. les Cruzelles (in Lalande-de-Pomerol in 2000) and Montlandrie (in the Côtes de Castillon in 2009), while also leasing vines in Saint-Emilion at Saintayme (from 2012). These “lesser” wines might not have been the reason for his fame, but they have long been an insider choice – offering stunning value. Each of his wines was made with precision, finesse and elegance – but he constantly questioned his decisions and sought to do better.  While Denis himself may have passed away, his passion and philosophy lives on. There was something very salt-of-the-earth about the way that Noëmie tells me: “When you have no choice, you have to take action.” The family – Denis’s widow and artist Marie Reilhac, and his three daughters, Alix, Constance and Noëmie – pulled together, dedicating themselves to crafting wines worthy of Denis’s legacy. Not – of course – that they’d take any of the credit.  “We can thank the vines,” Noëmie tells me. “They are living beings and we ask them to go through a lot.” Explaining the unusually extreme conditions of 2020, she says: “If you were drinking a gallon of water every hour for a month, and then no water for two months…”  The vintage kept them on their toes, but for Noëmie it was a fascinating and exciting year, one she saw as an opportunity to learn more than ever. While the property’s style is always elegant, with careful extraction and cool fermentations (never over 25 or 26˚C), this year that was particularly crucial because of the thick skins and ripeness of the fruit. “I like this idea that the vines had gone through so much, [we] had to treat [them] with delicacy,” Noëmie explains.  As for the wines, she’s pleased – and thinks they’ll be even better in six months’ time when they’ve finished élevage. She describes them as very fruity and juicy, but like “a flower garden in the rain”. For her, élevage was of particular importance this year – a risk that it could have been “very charming, very seductive, but not as deep as it could be”. Time in barrel, however, has brought depth to the year’s “flashy fruit”.   The emphasis chez Durantou is on purity of fruit, and expressing each property’s respective site. The barrels used are key: they have always been very loyal to Darnajou. Denis conducted many trials over the years, and the aim is to bring texture – rather than flavour – to the wine with oak. “We want the pure flavour of the bunches of the vines,” Noëmie says. This is why their barrels are double-toasted, to avoid a vanillin character. They find Darnajou lends “sucrosity” – but it’s not wooden or too smoky, something they want to avoid. They use a tiny percentage of Taransaud as well – barrels that are “much more exotic and vanilla-like” – but only want a touch, as this intensity can easily overpower the wine.   Our conversation drifts into white Bordeaux – prompting a twinkle in her eye. “I’m a huge admirer of white winemakers – it’s so technical, you have basically 48 hours. With red wine, you have this little margin to adjust…” So can we look forward to white wines joining the Durantou portfolio? “I would love to – but I have a lot on my plate right now,” she says, laughing. “It might not be for another decade, definitely. First, I want to make sure things go well here.”  Heading up the team, working with Olivier Gautrat (who worked with Denis for 20 years), there’s certainly a lot for Noëmie to tackle – including the current replanting of plots used for La Petite Eglise, l’Eglise-Clinet’s second wine. But she’s not doing it alone – along with her mother, sisters and the rest of the team (“I have an amazing team – I loved working with them,” Noëmie gushes to me).   If the 2020s are any indication, there are no concerns about Denis’s legacy. These are stunning wines, with an aromatic finesse that belies the warmth of the year. Delicate florals are complemented by a glorious weight of fruit, fine but structured tannins, and yet also great freshness.   Only in her 20s, Noëmie is clearly talented – and her love of the vine shines through. Talking to her is energising, her joy infectious – but what is apparent is how she empathises with her vines. She might look fashionable in a tan leather jacket on our call, but you can feel that she’d sooner throw it off to get her hands dirty. She’s not just a winemaker, but a sensitive farmer. While I never had the privilege of meeting her father, I can only imagine he’d be incredibly proud.  Find out more about Ch. l’Eglise-Clinet or read more Editorial

Having taken over from her late father, Denis Durantou, Noëmie Durantou Reilhac of Ch. l’Eglise-Clinet tells Sophie Thorpe how the vines were a constant in an emotionally wrought year – and what lies ahead for the vigneron family 

Noëmie Durantou Reilhac of Ch. l’Eglise-Clinet on how the vines were a constant in an emotionally wrought year – and what lies ahead for the vigneron family 

Ch.’Eglise Clinet's constant farmer

The constant farmer: Noëmie Durantou Reilhac

Over his 16-year career as CEO of the estate, Thomas Duroux has come to know Château Palmer’s identity, its nuances and its ability to evolve better than anyone. He has an intimate knowledge of the last 70 vintages of Château Palmer and admits he has already tasted the 2010 vintage more than 100 times during its evolution over the last 10 years. But the decision to release it 10 years on was not always the plan. Duroux says, “2010 is really one of the most extraordinary vintages, up there with the 2005, 2009, 2015 and 2016 but for me the 2010 is probably the most serious, deepest wine of all of them and I believed would require a long time to open up.”  But, on the final day of the 2019 vintage, as is tradition, Thomas holds a big party with the harvesters and always opens a special bottle of Château Palmer to share with them. “I don’t know why I decided on 2010 that day, but it turned out to be a flash of inspiration. The wine had changed so much from just a few months before, incredibly open, still deep. How wrong I was that it would remain closed for longer.”  The ageing potential of Bordeaux   Bordeaux’s capacity to age is extraordinary. No wine seems to retain freshness and structure for so long, with top vintages easily reaching their 50th anniversary and some twice as long. But with Bordeaux leading the way on scientific development and research within winemaking and a better understanding of its molecular make-up, the style of modern-era Bordeaux has certainly changed. This change in style has many questioning whether with these new techniques, the wines might open up earlier, but struggle to go the distance.  Despite 2010 Palmer entering its drinking window at just 10 years, Duroux has no concern over its longevity. “In the past, a wine with this depth would take time to open. I remember tasting the 1928 with Claude Chardon, the former manager of Château Palmer, and he said this wine took 30 years even to show up! The vintage was undoubtedly exceptional, producing massively concentrated berries, but the grapes were possibly not all picked at the right time. In those days the harvest started and every parcel was picked in one go.”  Today each parcel is monitored separately and – depending on the conditions – the harvest could last up to a month, with breaks in between as they wait for the perfect maturity, explains Duroux. Back then all the berries would have been extracted the same regardless of the vintage conditions, regardless of the different characteristics of the varying parcels. This laissez-faire attitude meant the wines would often shut down for many years. Today, with better understanding and a more precise approach, the wines’ extraction time varies, “Our pump-overs could be two hours or could be 10 minutes, with every tank assessed individually. Today the wines don’t have to go through that shock process that they used to.”   But Duroux believes the ingredients for long-ageing are still there, just without the extended dumb phase often found in the top vintages of the past. Duroux constantly monitors the development of Château Palmer and, as he has witnessed Palmer age, its drinking window isn’t simply a linear timeframe but goes through several, what he calls “drinking plateaus”.  Even in not-so-great vintages, the ageing of the wine is a fascinating exploration. “1957 as a vintage does not have a great reputation, but recently I tasted it and it was spectacular and totally different from three years ago. Yes, there will be disappointments – ’72 and ’73 will never reach a new plateau in their drinking life, but typically as Palmer ages, it will open and close with distinct drinking plateaus in between.”  The Palmer identity  With so much experience tasting Palmer through the ages, I’m fascinated to understand what it is Duroux believes defines Palmer in the glass. “There are many easy words,” he says. “Complexity, depth etc – but perhaps the two most distinctive elements are its aromatics and its distinct texture on the palate within a Margaux context. First and foremost Palmer has a very strong Margaux character defined by the softness and elegance of tannins. But in Palmer specifically, it is both fine but also textural – a velvet-like texture giving the wine more structure than is necessarily typical of Margaux. I believe it’s due to the unusual distinction at Palmer, that some of our best grapes come from are old Merlot vines grown on gravel – typically a soil kept for Cabernet Sauvignon.”  For Duroux the old Cabernet vines provide the precision, but it is these Merlot grapes that provide the distinct textural qualities of Palmer. Secondly, Palmer’s aromatic complexity remains a reliable trait. “The aromatic complexity will always come out of the glass when the vintage enters its drinking window,” testifies Duroux. Many believe they can recognise Palmer by its smell alone.   Thomas Duroux’s influence   In recent years Château Palmer has undoubtedly become one of Margaux’s most consistent producers and one of Bordeaux’s most collected wines. After 16 years at the helm, Duroux contemplates his proudest achievements at Palmer. “The first necessary change, which I believe has had a great impact at Palmer, was to not see Palmer’s vineyards as a whole – but to see Palmer as made up of separate and diverse vineyards. That we should act differently from one plot to another and then to reflect that diversity in the vineyard back in the winery. Every plot is now managed independently, treated independently, picked independently and vinified independently.”  Once the plots had been differentiated, Duroux’s second change was to have a global vision of what “our farm should be”. Most importantly, to bring life back to the soils. By working the vineyards biodynamically, Duroux says, “We have seen much more diversity, complexity and life in our soils, our cover crops, our trees and animals. We have brought more autonomy to the estate, each year relying less and less on bringing stuff from outside.” Today the estate fertilizes the vineyards from manure from their own cattle, “This is not a revolution but returning to how we farmed 100 years ago.”  These changes have not come without risk. As a biodynamic producer, Duroux explains, “We have fewer weapons to fight disease, but we have the feeling that with time we will limit the risk, we will not see mildew as a disease but as an imbalance in the vineyard.” The 2018 vintage was hugely difficult for Palmer, who lost two-thirds of their crop to mildew. The 2020 vintage brought similar mildew pressures but Duroux says they were nowhere near as affected, “We have learnt so much about our vineyard since 2018.”  Bordeaux’s developing market  Perhaps Duroux’s decision to re-release Palmer 10 years on will be his third big influence at Château Palmer. This decision will no doubt be carefully monitored by other châteaux, who like Duroux are aware the Bordeaux market is developing.  “In 2010 we recognised the market was changing. Releasing the wine en primeur, unfinished, receiving the wine two years later and storing the wine for 10 years before approaching it has been the norm for many years – but for many new customers, this was not how they liked to buy wine. Many people, for one, don’t have the storage capacity and also want to purchase wines ready to drink. From that point we began to hold back a little, rather than releasing all the wine en primeur. By 2014, we were holding back around 50% of the production and (apart from 2018 – where our production was down by two thirds), we have continued to do this, to this day.”   But these late releases are not set to replace en primeur at Palmer. “I still have a strong belief in the en primeur system,” says Duroux. “It is not about doing one or the other. Customers who invest in a product early should be rewarded for that price-wise. But at the same time we also need to cater for our other customers who want wines ready to drink.” For the 2010 at least, Duroux confirms this will be the last time you will be able to buy the vintage direct from the château.  The wine world watches as Duroux’s next step could not only have a huge impact on the future of Château Palmer, but could also influence how all Bordeaux is sold going forward.   Browse all current Ch. Palmer listings or read more Editorial

We caught up with Thomas Duroux the day before he was due to start harvesting the 2020 vintage to find out the reasoning behind the late 2010 release, what is set to become an annual event for the château.  

Thomas Duroux of Chateau Palmer on the reasoning behind the late 2010 wine vintage release, what is set to become an annual event for the Bordeaux château.  

Château Palmer interview

Thomas Duroux: Château Palmer interview

Of course, the reputation and quality of the wines from this estate long predate the modern-day critics. Prior to the 1855 classification, Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion was one of the most expensive wines in Bordeaux, second only to its historic neighbour Chateau Haut-Brion. The two properties are both owned by the Dillon family (Domaine Clarence Dillon) who bought Chateau Haut-Brion in 1935 and purchased Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion 48 years later, in 1983. We caught up with Deputy Managing Director Jean-Philippe Delmas and Sales Director Guillaume-Alexandre Marx to find out what makes this Chateau so special. 
In the vineyard Since taking over the property in 1983 the Dillon family undertook a major effort to upgrade the estate. They initially focused on the vineyards. Substantial investments were made to replant vines on some of the finest gravel soil in Bordeaux. 
Over the years, each and every plot of La Mission Haut-Brion has been replanted with the grape varietal best suited to it. These vines are now an average of 30 years old. The high vine density (10,000 vines per hectare) is conducive to intense wines whose hallmark is their unique charm. Starting with the 1991 vintage, a second red wine was created at La Mission: La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion.  The vines that originally produced the second wine starting in 1991 have since aged, and now
produce a wine of exceptional quality. However, another factor is also of great importance. In 2006, the vineyard of Château La Tour Haut-Brion, another estate belonging to Domaine Clarence Dillon, was integrated into that of La Mission Haut-Brion. Starting with this same vintage, all the grapes from La Tour Haut-Brion’s vineyard, a Classified Growth of Graves in
1953, went into La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion, making the second wine of La Mission a truly fine wine. The Pessac-Leognan terroir
 Wines from the Pessac Leognan have a unique, distinct fired earth, tobacco, spice note that are not found elsewhere on the Left Bank giving the wines an added aromatic complexity. Haut-Brion stands for hillock and the vineyards of both Haut-Brion and Mission Haut-Brion are planted on these raised hillocks with distinct gunzian gravel soils giving the wines good drainage and exposition, as well as retaining the typicity of the aromatic complexity consistent with the Pessac-Leognan region.  The other important elements of Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion is that they are the first winery to harvest in Bordeaux, picking their Merlot before anyone else in Bordeaux due to the specific climate and exposition at the property.  They typically start to pick the Merlot at the end of August / early September, benefiting from the warmer summer months enabling veraison earlier and avoiding the risk of wetter weather in the latter part of September. Despite the vineyards neighbouring Chateau Haut-Brion there are distinct differences between the styles of Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion. First the vine density and the positioning of the vines in La Mission Haut-Brion are very different with the vines planted at a density of 10,000 vines per hectare compared to Haut-Brion at 8,000.  The vines at La Mission Haut-Brion are positioned from North to South and therefore the sun exposure is felt much more, heightening the sun’s effect on the wine. La Mission Haut-Brion is therefore more concentrated, has more intensity of flavour and typically riper fruit character compared with Haut-Brion. Haut-Brion is more gentler, more refined style providing potentially greater elegance, and potentially more earthy, savoury terroir
character rather than fruit intensity. Tasting the two together they are so different
and are wonderful contrasts in style despite them being neighbouring vineyards
made by the same team.  La Mission Haut-Brion is also half the size of Haut-Brion in terms of vineyards and production levels. Haut-Brion has 50 hectares under vine and typically produces 100,000 bottles each year. La Mission Haut-Brion has just 25 hectares under vine and produces 50,000 bottles each year. The production on both is a lot smaller compared to the other First Growths of Chateau Margaux, Lafite, Latour and Mouton Rothschild. In the winery 
A new, ultra-modern vat house was installed, opened to mark the 1987 vintage, followed
by significant renovations to the château, chapel and cellars. In 1996, a new bottling chain was introduced and a new tasting room was built, christened the Chapter Room, in honour of the Lazarists.  In 2007, new cellars were built, plus a tasting room sculpted by the best Italian woodworkers, which now features original engravings by Albrecht Dürer, plus a bottling centre and an improved storage area. However, the jewel in the crown of this major renovation project is a vibrant new tribute to
the Lazarist brothers. Returning to the Frontenac quarries – which in the 18th century supplied the stone for the most beautiful monuments in Bordeaux – the estate chose this material to build the Grand Chai, described as a “modern cathedral to wine".  
The consistency at La Mission Haut-Brion Arguably there is more consistency in quality throughout the vintages in wines from Pessac Leognan, since Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc play distinctive rolls in the region allowing for the assemblage to vary depending on which of the varieties have performed the best in each vintage. In Pauillac for example they are much more reliant on the performance of their Cabernet Sauvignon which makes up typically over 80% of the blend.  The winemaking team is exactly the same at both Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut Brion. The winemaking team at Haut-Brion has in fact been within the same family for three generations of the Delmas family going back to1923. Since 1988 the same team of three– Jean-Philippe Delmas, Jean-Philippe Masclef (Technical Director) and Pascal Baratié (Vineyard Manager) have been making the wines at both properties providing a very consistent style across both
Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion.  Bordeaux today With the global warming effect in the last twenty years tannins are riper and the quantity is
higher. This means the team have to pay more attention on the extraction process than before. They have tried to  maintain the balance and the freshness. The tendency being to shorten the length of maceration. Thanks to the level of ripeness the wines according to Jean-Philippe can drink sooner than before without altering the ageing potential. In fact, the window of accessibility is wider than ever before. The second wine made at Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion is the highly regarded La Chapelle la Mission Haut-Brion. The grapes are treated exactly the same whether they go into the first or second wine. Each year, the 27 individual parcels at Mission Haut-Brion are vinified separately. The wines are then tasted blind by the team and it is at this point the wines are separated into the Grand Vin and the second wine. All the wines are then typically aged
for 15 to 18 months in barrels with a lower proportion of new oak used in the second wines. The greatest vintages of La Mission Haut-Brion are the ’75 ’98, ’90 and 2000. Guillaume states “They are some of the finest wines I have ever tasted and show the quality of the property at
its best. For me they are the epitome of the La Mission Haut-Brion style. The 1998 La Mission Haut-Brion is drinking beautifully right now.” 
 The 2019 vintage Asked about the upcoming 2019 release, Guillaume is very excited about the vintage. It is the first vintage since 1998 where the three varieties of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc are all at the same high quality with not one varietal performing better than the other. Early tastings around the region shows there is some variation in quality from appellation to appellation but he is super happy with the quality in 2019, even more so than the excellent 2018. It is similar to ’18 but the Spring weather in 2018 was very difficult in the vineyards and the vintage was saved by a fantastic summer. In 2019 the weather was much more consistent right up until harvest.  Explore all current Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion listings or browse more Editorial 

Ch. La Mission Haut Brion is one of the greatest wine estates in all of Bordeaux and is arguably the King of the Left Bank. Robert Parker has awarded it more 100-point scores than any other wine in the Medoc, equaling Petrus in achieving 11 perfect scores. 

Ch. La Mission Haut Brion is one of the greatest Bordeaux wine estates. We explore the wine that has received the most Robert Parker 100-point scores 

Château Palmer

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