Bordeaux Chateau Reccomendations

[casper2096]

Hi,
I'm planning a trip to Bordeaux in early July and and am looking to arrange a few chateau visits and was wondering if any fellow forumites had any personal experiences/recommendations ?

At this stage i am planning on spending 1 day on the left bank and another on the right and from what i have read so far am assuming a max of 3 visits per day. So far i have emailed Latour, Haut Brion, Mouton, Cod D'Estournel and Pichon Longueville and Leoville Las Cases.

I've had a response from Mouton who can fit us in on a group tour @ 60 Euros a person which includes a tasting which i was thinking of doing but it is large group tour and i've read online that some people have been somewhat underwhelmed. Anyone had any personal experience ?

The only other response so far has been from Cos who offered a private tour with a tasting of 4 vintages which sounded really good but was going to cost $500 euros ! I understand that they are pouring expensive wines but even so. I'm not sure if this is becoming normal for Bordeaux or if certain places are just trying to cash in but it seems very different to Burgundy where we visited a number of places last year and either paid nothing or a nominal fee (10-30 euros depending on the wines we wanted to try)

If i don't hear back from any of the others (not holding my breath for any of the first growths) i was going to start emailing a few others and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations.

Cheers
Chris

[simon1980]

Hi Chris, I’m no expert, but did have a lovely trip to Leoville/langoa Barton when I was in Bordeaux a few years ago. Contacted well in advance, private tour...and no cost if I recall correctly. Wines tasted out of barrel and bottle. Simon

[rooman]

Casper I would suggest posting on the UK Wine Pages site. The guys in the UK go there the way we go to the Hunter and you will get much better local knowledge

[swirler]

Pontet Canet.

[Mark Carrington]

Beau-Séjour Bécot. Can be booked on-line. An underground cave of character.
St Emilion is far more attractive than any of the villages in the Médoc.

[casper2096]

Thanks for the tips guys. Got a favourable response from Pichon Baron so things are looking up !
\

[Ian S]

Casper I would suggest posting on the UK Wine Pages site. The guys in the UK go there the way we go to the Hunter and you will get much better local knowledge

Which he did, but Tom (the forum owner) has locked the thread! Probably down to the 'real(istic) names' policy, but he's not usually so brutal.

HI Chris
If you do want more answers from the UK forum, it might be worth sending a 'conversation' message to Tom Cannavan on that site, to ask him to change your id to a realistic name e.g. Kris Casper would be accepted. That forum used to be hidden from search bots and have a fairly strict full/real names policy, but since opening it up, a large number of people have requested names to be tweaked to hide their real names from the world. All a bit confusing / muddled.

FWIW I don't recall a huge amount of Bordeaux visits mentioned over there - the region has certainly come in for plenty of criticism over there for aggressive price increases. Still plenty buying, but it doesn't seem to hold the same enthusiasm as Burg or even Champagne over there.

[dave vino]

I'd also recommend hitting up Wine Berserkers, a few threads like this on there and you can just cherry pick information from them.

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtop ... 9&t=147499

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtop ... 9&t=142580

[casper2096]

Thanks guys. I followed up with Tom and the thread is now unlocked so hopefully get a few more responses.
Will also checkout winebeserkers