While we all get excited about new wines coming in - well I do anyway, it is essential that we try hard not to ignore fabulous sleepers; wines that sit in our portfolio for years and of which we are in danger of taking for granted. It would be rude.

One such gem is Chateau Maledan Bordeaux Superiore from the Brunot stable of vineyards.

Her indoors and I first met Jean-Baptiste Brunot nearly twenty years ago at an event in Germany - he was sharing a stand with the crazy Alsatian Pierre with whom we used to work and was introduced to us by him.

 

Up to that point I had never really got the Bordeaux thing believing them to be dusty, fruitless nonsense that wealthy Asians bought without tasting based solely on American wine writer scores and then allowed to gather dust in hidden warehouses occasionally selling them sight unseen to other investors who also never drank them.

Upon meeting Jean-Baptiste, the scales quickly dropped from my eyes and the fog lifted for while all of the above is true, there exists a secretive cabal of grape growers who shun en primeur (selling futures), American wine writers and generally just get on with bizarre practice of growing good grapes, making nice wine and pricing and selling it to make a profit. The missus liked him too.

 

The entry wine if only generically and price-wise is Chateau Maledan; being merely Bordeaux Superiore rather than St. Emilion or Pomerol or something else more prestigious means a lower price but as we see here, not necessarily lower quality.

 

This wine has consistently shone through the many many vintages we have shipped - it’s always been good and regularly great and invariably affordable for us and therefore hopefully you.

 

It does that magical thing of delivering terroir, a taste of the region and the soil while still having enough grape character to please palates trained on jam from supermarkets. It also has remarkable complexity for the price and shape-shifts beautifully through the bottle just like a really posh wine.

 

Jean-Baptiste and Mrs. Brunot once entertained me to the longest lunch I think I have ever had which included an excursion between courses to St. Emilion to sample some Crèmant with some of his naughty friends in the caves. He has now retired gracefully and handed the farms over to son Vincent, a real chip off the old block and an all round safe pair of hands.

 

We hope to see this wine in our portfolio for ever