Our last day in the Rhône valley and feeling a little road weary, but we’ve saved the best till last. Appointments at Clape, Graillot and Chave proved to be as exciting as we had anticipated. A multiple cask sampling chez Clape is always an enjoyable experience, but not for the faint-hearted. The 2010 vintage in Cornas is another corker and is arguably more typical than the fruit-forward 2009. With blackened teeth and stout hearts we bade our fond farewells as we headed off across the Rhône to see our old chums Max and Alain Graillot. The 2009 vintage was always going to be a tough act to follow, but the naturally low yielding 2010 is a belter with a massive concentration of fruit and rugid tannins, we could have been forgiven for thinking we were back in Cornas.

Maxime Graillot

We adjourned to the celebrated Le Mangevins restaurant in Tain l’Hermitage for a convivial lunch. NB. This is worth booking in advance as it’s first rate, but there are only four tables!

An afternoon spent in the company of Jean-Louis Chave is always illuminating. The cellars were hiving with activity as barrels were being emptied and replenished post vendange. We are happy to report that the 2011 vintage was harvested in bright sunshine, thus completing a triumvirate of cracking back to back vintages.

Jean-Louis Chave

We’re heading home for a cleansing ale and baked beans on toast before starting our diets next week. A fascinating week tasting what is clearly a magnificent 2010 vintage.

Another pre-dawn awakening as we shuttled up a fog-bound Autoroute de Soleil to make our first appointment in Côte Rôtie at 10.00am. We found gregarious patron Joel Champet talking up the merits of the 2010 vintage as well as the prospects of ‘Les Bleues’ in this weekend’s Rugby World Cup Final: “they have nothing to lose”. Down the road in Ampuis, Patrick Jasmin was equally upbeat and an extensive barrel tasting of his 2010 vintage fully justified his bonhomie. We then enjoyed a terrific lunch at his local bistro ‘La Serine’ which boasts a cracking wine list, perhaps unsurprisingly, as it is jointly owned by local winemaking luminaries Villard, Cuilleron, Gaillard and Villa. With a well-executed menu of regional cuisine this is a highly-recommended pit stop for those travelling in the area.

After a morning sampling young Syrah it was somewhat of a relief to head South to Condrieu where tastings at Château Grillet, Francois Merlin and Domaine Georges Vernay reinforced our view that 2010 is a stonking white wine vintage in the Northern Rhône.

Joel Champet

A 3.00am start in London to catch the ‘commuter’ flight to Marseille is never a joy but the blue skies and Provençal sunshine off-set any fatigue. We hit the ground running and were tasting at Domaine de Trévallon by 11.00. Antoine and Ostiane Durrbach gave us a warm welcome and we were treated to a whistle-stop tasting of the 2010 from barrel and preceding vintages from bottle. The vintage run since 2007 has been superb and they were delighted to have harvested good volumes in 2011 in optimum conditions. We were amused when Antoine showed us a tonneau signed by Sir Paul McCartney on a recent visit, having just supplied the wines ourselves for his wedding party (via celebrated events company GLD productions, www.gldproductions.com).

We cracked on North to Vacqueyras for an extensive sampling of Rhodanienne wines chez Pascal Frères. Having explained our pressing agenda to the Chéron family in advance, they kindly provided a working lunch of coarse rabbit paté, pain rustique and a bountiful board of local cheeses. Thus fortified we spent a fruitful afternoon in glorious Châteauenuf-du-Pape visiting Domaine Père Caboche and Le Vieux Donjon, both of whom were proud to produce tub-thumping 2010s and have high hopes for the very recently harvested 2011s.

Emilie Boisson

Onwards and upwards as we head for the North tomorrow.

Claire Michel

There are only two reasons to buy wine futures (or ‘en primeur’ as it is known in the trade). One, because it secures rare wine where demand outstrips supply and two, because the en primeur price should be at a discount to the wine once bottled and physically available. Sure, there are secondary reasons – ensuring sound provenance, investment purposes etc – but these all follow from the first two principles.

The origins of this system date back to the 17th Century when English and Dutch merchants bought wine in barrel from the Châteaux, but it really took off post WWII when estates were in need of considerable investment. I don’t have a problem with the basic principle, (after all I used to work for a Futures Exchange!), that one can part with one’s hard-earned cash to guarantee delivery of a rare product at an advantageous price two years’ hence. Wine-making is very capital intensive (for example, wine presses cost around €100,000, 225L oak barrels are between €300- €500 each), so it is helpful to the winemaker if they can generate income quickly, rather than having cash tied up in stock. The producer gets money for investment, you get a deal and everyone is happy.

So is this still the case? Unfortunately, not. It is now becoming pretty clear that the Bordeaux 2010 en primeur campaign in May & June this year was a turkey. Nearly all the wines can still be obtained at prices close to or below ‘release’ prices. Bordeaux 2010 did not meet either of the two criteria for buying en primeur. This is despite the Châteaux holding back a fair amount to restrict supply and the practice that has crept in over the past 10 years of putting a large chunk of the vineyards’ production into second and third wines. Quite why anyone is prepared to part with over £2,000 for a case of a Château’s second wine is beyond me. Presumably, so they can secure a pipet-full of the first wine? This pattern is repeated if one looks at the current prices for Bordeaux 2009, where again you can currently purchase all the iconic wines at less than their en primeur release price. Go back further and you can see how current pricing isn’t looking too clever. Pre-2000 there are some veritable Bordeaux bargains (two words you don’t see juxtaposed very often), for example ‘potentially immortal’ Cheval Blanc from the great Right Bank vintage of 1998 at £400 / bt (98+ R Parker) compared to twice that for the 2010 en primeur 2010 (RP 96-98)!

To the great relief of wine drinkers, this rampant opportunism hasn’t spread too far and the other (much smaller) en primeur markets of Burgundy and the Rhône continue to support the rationale for buying. Winemakers such as Dujac, Coche Dury, Chave & Clape among others produce small volumes which sell out rapidly and, if you can find the wines on the secondary market, they are sold at a premium. Of course we would say that, but here’s an illustration. Domaine Jean-Louis Chave produced around 2,000 cases of 2009 red Hermitage, roughly 1,000 less than Pétrus. Both are excellent wines and received similar Parker scores 95-100 (Hermitage) and 96-100 (Pétrus). Pétrus was offered at close to £30,000 a dozen. We don’t yet know the release price for the Hermitage, but it won’t be one-tenth of that figure.

It seems clear that the Bordelais are focussed on the growing Chinese market, but the Chinese won’t keep buying en primeur if prices continue to stagnate year after year. I have counted five ‘vintages of a lifetime’ since 2000 from the Bordelais (00, 03, 05, 09 and 10), which suggests worrying mortality rates on the Gironde. Joking aside, one has to believe that such hubris will end in tears. As the Chinese might say: “When you go up to the mountain too often, you will eventually encounter the tiger.”