Like a hot air balloon with too much ballast, the 2011 Bordeaux campaign is struggling to get airborn. The next week will decide whether the wines will fly, with price the determining factor. Today I have published my 12,000 word report on the vintage, complete with my top tens, notes on over 150 wines, a selection of my photos and my views on this trickiest of harvests. Tim Atkin MW
The wine world thrives on novelty: new vintages, new flavours, new producers. In some ways, this is both understandable and necessary. Creating a bit of sizzle around a category that, in the UK at least, is struggling against a combination of high taxes, impoverished and mostly uninterested consumers and an increasingly strident health lobby is no bad thing. And yet sometimes it all feels a little too breathless. For as long as I can remember, the search has been on for “the next Australia”, a country that will do for wine sales what a combination of sunshine in a glass, Crocodile Dundee and the formidable Hazel Murphy did for the land Down Under in...
This youthful, strikingly packaged Garnacha comes from the Ribera del Quielles region of northern Spain. It's made from young vines - hence, in part, its juiciness - and it's a stunner, with lots of sweet bramble and raspberry fruit, hints of pepper and clove spice and a palate-cleansing finish. If you like your Garnacha fresh rather than baked, you'll love this wine.
90 points
2011 Louis Roederer Awards, International Wine Website of the Year
2010 Born Digital Awards, Best Online Editorial Content
2009 Louis Roederer Awards, International Wine Columnist of the Year
2009 London's Best Wine Courses, Time Out
2009 PPA Awards Business Media Columnist of the Year (Highly Commended)
2007 IWSC Communicator of the Year
2007 World Food Media Awards, Best Drink Journalist
2006, 2004, 1993, 1990, 1988 Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the Year
2005 Wines of Portugal Award
2004, 2003, 2002, 1999 Lanson Wine Writer of the Year
1996, 1994, 1992, 1991 Wine Guild of the UK Wine Columnist of the Year
1995 The Bunch Wine Writer of the Year
1994 Wines of France Award