Lynch-Bages, Lagrange, Saint-Pierre, Grand Mayne
The 2017 campaign came to life on Tuesday afternoon with Lynch-Bages, perennial favourite in the UK market. The price is 24% down on the release price of the 2016 and not only has it become our best-selling wine so far but it has outsold (by value) every other release so far put together! A classic Lynch thanks to the high quality of the Cabernet Sauvignon, it is close in quality to the 2015 and should drink beautifully for the next 25 years. Don't forget, if you'd like halves, magnums, double magnums, Imperiales, now's your chance!
Wednesday saw the release of three St-Juliens. Lagrange, the appellation's largest chateau and situated well inland from the estuary, suffered frost up to 13 metres of altitude. The team here went to extraordinary lengths to make the most of a difficult season, marking 250,000 vines individually to distinguish between frost-hit or not. In the end, their efforts went unrewarded since they found second generation fruit wasn't up to the desired standard even for the second wine. By contrast, the Martin family's excellent but often overlooked pair of St-Juliens, Gloria and Saint-Pierre , were unaffected by the frost. The latter is one of Neal Martin's Twelve Best Potential Value-for-Money Wines of the vintage and his fourth-highest scoring St-Julien of the vintage, behind only Ducru-Beaucaillou and Leovilles Las Cases and Barton.
The week's other notable release is Grand Mayne. Owned by the Nony family since 1934, this 17-hectare property has taken a big step up in quality since Louis Mitjavile of Tertre Roteboeuf was hired as consultant in 2014.
It's Vinexpo in Hong Kong next week so there are unlikely to be any major releases. /AR
Offered subject to remaining unsold; available 2020
