I’m buying a ton of half bottles. Definitely go for it!
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What’s your website? Can you send a link?
Reposting as I dont know if it tagged to you properly - enprimeur.info - its just an aggregation of critics scores, etc, with a bit of lightweight statistical analysis on it. But it also holds an easy way to find release prices, and barrel scores, for the past few vintages (Since 2019, when I started collecting the data), even if you dont care for any of the analytics
There is actually more of a history of stems in Bordeaux, and especially with Cabernet Franc (aka Bouchet) in Saint-Emilion, than you might think. I have Guyot’s Étude des Vignobles de France open in front of me, where in the 1850s he writes, 'destemming isn’t practiced in Saint-Emilion; many producer crush the bunches before vatting. The grapes are put in open oak vats, and the cuvaison doesn’t last more than 4-8 days, depending on the vintage. The best wines aren’t either punched down or pumped over during the fermentation. The wines are drawn off into new oak barrels and the fermentation concludes in the barrels, with topping up every 8 days, and a racking in March and then in September." He goes on to talk about the “domaine du Mondot” putting whole clusters in the vats, sealing the vat with a layer of straw covered with clay, and doing a 8-10 day maceration.
Retention of whole clusters continued to be practiced into the 1960s (I seem to recall that Figeac stopped with the 1970 vintage) in Saint-Emilion.
Carmes is definitely doing the most of it today (makes sense given their mesoclimate, which trends ripe, and their high percentages of Cabernet Franc, plus the fact that Guilluame has a lot of experience with stems in the Rhône so actually knows what to do with them), but there are a few others using a bit here and there. La Tour Figeac does a reasonable amount, and now Jean Faure uses stems for their old vine Malbec, for example.
It’s an interesting technique but I try to avoid giving it too much prominence to avoid it becoming a gimmicky talking point, which is liable to happen if the Bordelais associate stems with good scores. As Pouthier says himself, whole cluster winemaking is at its best when you don’t taste/smell the stems.
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…and make further allowance for things getting lost in translation / the technical dimension of winemaking being largely outside of most writers’ purviews.
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Great post thank you sir
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[quote=“William_Kelley, post:1394, topic:299143, full:true”] As Pouthier says himself, whole cluster winemaking is at its best when you don’t taste/smell the stems.
[/quote]
Levet excepted.
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Anyone know any scheduling for the coming week?
From Millesima
Monday 6/12: Pichon Baron (95-97 Parker)
Tuesday 6/13: Clos Fourtet (94-96 Parker)
Wednesday 6/14: Clinet (94-96+ Parker), Gruaud Larose (94-96+ Parker), Issan (93-95 Parker) & Cos d’Estournel (93-95 Parker)
Thursday 6/15: Calon Segur (96-98 Parker)!
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I’ve heard one merchant say Wednesday is canon day btw.
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I am really looking forward to Canon’s release!
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It’ll be expensive. I’m expecting 650-750/6 first tranche, which will be the highest Canon has ever released at, significantly ahead of 2020.
Pichon Baron £810
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At the price of PLL and Pichon Baron (plus others), Rauzan Segla looks a steal.
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Release schedule as just shared by Tom Mann. Not sure if these direct links work or not - let me know. If it doesn’t I can drop an invite or see if I can copy the image over here
Apparently the link doesn’t work,
Hopefully the attachment here works okay - if anyone wants a link in to the discord let me know though!
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Thank you Henry, very helpful as always.
I have not seen anything yet about the Brane Cantenac release. Do you know if that happened?
Yes it came out about 30 min ago. 360/6 GBP IB.
I’m just a regurgitator of information, fwiw 
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Yes, I am not expecting good things price-wise. When Rauzan Segla came out above the high estimates, I wondered if Chanel was testing the waters for Canon. Since Rauzan Segla appears to be selling slowly, it’s possible, albeit unlikely, that Canon will come out not so far above the estimates. On the other hand, the lowest current price for the 2020 Canon in the US is $200.
Canon will pose an interesting dilemma. The 2018 can be had for about $120, the 2019 for about $130. If the 2022 comes out around $200, that’s a pretty big gap compared to recent vintages of near-equal quality.
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And the challenge is if it’s comparable to 2020 or better than, that’s currently 850/6 on the market which means they could do 750)6 with ease
Who is this Parker fellow they speak of?
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