Page 2 - Wine Journal

Unlike their cousins at Mouton Rothschild who release a new wine label every year featuring a new artist's design, Lafite Rothschild almost never tinkered with its label's classic design, until the special occasion of 2018.  In celebration of the family's 150th Anniversary of ownership (1868-2018), Saskia de Rothschild, the chairwoman of Domaines Barons de Rothschild, who took over the executive management role in 2017 from her father, imagined a symbol playing on Lafite’s historic and centenary label, which has two women in the foreground looking into the distance. A hot air balloon was chosen to disrupt the label, sketched by Black Adder, a creative duo of illustrators.  Initials CL (150 in Roman numerals) are sketched on the balloon and inscribed in red on the shoulder of the bottle.

Saskia de Rothschild explains, “In 1868, hot air balloons were the absolute symbols of modernity and adventure. In 2018, we still see them fly but they have become the symbol of slowing down,

Not sure what to gift the wine lover in your life this Valentine's Day? Consider Château Calon Ségur.

A hundred years before the modern-day era of 1855 Bordeaux Classification, there lived a famous winemaker in Bordeaux.  He was the Marquis Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur (1696 - 1755),  who was given the nickname “The Prince of Vines” by Louis XV following a glowing introduction to the royal court.  During his time, the Marquis de Ségur was considered the consummate winemaker with the magic touch in the whole of Europe.  In an unprecedented way unfollowed by anybody since his days,  he simultaneously owned these famous estates: Château Lafite (later known as Lafite Rothschild after Baron James de Rothschild bought it in 1868), Château Latour, Château Mouton (which became Mouton Rothschild in due course), and Château Calon (which later added Ségur to its name).  Exactly 100 years after his death, Lafite and Latour would be classified in 1855 as First Growths, Mouton as a Second

Fresh off the press, the Best Wine of the World competition, sponsored by the Tasting Book, named Château Mouton Rothschild 2018 the World's Best Wine of 2021.

This month's selection:

La Dame de Montrose 2015, Saint-Estèphe, rated 88-90 (Neal Martin).  La Dame de Montrose is the second wine of Château Montrose,  a heavy weight from Saint-Estèphe, just north of Pauillac.

Château La Dauphine 2015, Fronsac, rated 91-93 (Neal Martin).  For modern day wine drinkers, Fronsac is not a household name as Pauillac, Margaux, Saint-Julien, or Saint-Emilion that define Bordeaux.  But, once upon a time, Fronsac's vineyards were among the best in the Bordeaux area.  In the 18th century, Fronsac’s wines enjoyed the best reputation in the Libourne area (i.e., the Right Bank of the Dordogne River), and sold at higher prices than those of Saint Emilion and Pomerol.

As the single largest property in Fronsac, Château de La Dauphine is mounting a major come-back, evoking its ties to Charlemagne (who built a fortress in Fronsac), Cardinal de Richelieu (who acquired the land and made its wine famous among the nobles), and its namesake title resulting

If you were to talk to any wine collector who has been buying wine for decades, from time to time you would hear stories about a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild being acquired for under $80.  That level of pricing, unfortunately, is unlikely to happen again in our life time, especially after a former Fed chairperson was just nominated to be the next Treasury Secretary by President-Elect Biden.  The stock market is at an all-time high.  Inflation - while conveniently absent from CPI numbers - is everywhere if you happen to buy food, medicine, education, or fine wine.

Don't let that general rise in price of everything we consume lead you to conclude that you can't find top wine for bargain price.  We bring you two sub-$25 wines in this month's selection: Château Goubau 2015 and L'Hêtre 2017.  These two wines are so new that most wine critics have not found the time to rate them, except Julia Harding MW who writes for jancisborinson.com.  Her tasting

Château d’Yquem was almost English. During the Middle Ages, in fact, the estate belonged to the King of England, who was also Duke of Aquitaine at the time. In 1453, southwest France was once again brought under the dominion of the French crown by Charles VII and has stayed French ever since. A century and a half later, in 1593, a descendent of a local noble family, Jacques Sauvage, was given feudal tenure over Yquem. The Gironde department archives, as well as those of the château, show that special winegrowing practices and late harvesting already existed at this time. A few years later, the Sauvage family built the château and patiently set about constituting the present-day vineyard, plot by plot. The family became full owners of Yquem in 1711, during the reign of Louis XIV (by which time they had received noble status). In 1785, Françoise Joséphine de Sauvage d’Yquem married Count Louis Amédée de Lur-Saluces. Three years later, in 1788, the count died after a riding accident. His young