Pol Roger 1900-2000

Yesterday lunchtime saw 14 of us gather in The Connaught’s sumptuous Coburg Bar for what promised to be an extraordinary lunch featuring 100 years of Champagne Pol Roger. The occasion was a celebration of three exciting new developments for Pol Roger (the launch of the 2000 vintage), The Connaught (a new Champagne list featuring vintage Pol back to 1914) and ourselves at Bid for Wine (our soon-to-launch Singapore site, about which more shortly!).

Proceeding kicked off with a glass of the 1999 Blanc de Blancs – a lovely soft gold with a fine mousse and elegant fresh nose loaded with white fruit, a gentle nuttiness and some minerality. In the mouth this was beautifully elegant and poised – the offer of a second glass was hard to refuse. Charles Hamer commented that in his view this is a long term wine and will probably come around a little later than the 1999 Vintage Brut. Jancis Robinson used the wine as an excuse to give James Simpson of Pol a masterclass on Twitter, much to the amusement of all present – for those minded to do so he can now be followed @pol_roger.

Having emptied our glasses of the 1999 we progressed through to the hotel’s private room for lunch itself. No sooner had we taken our seats when a beautiful Tartar of Scottish scallops, Caviar from Aquitaine and Brittany cauliflower veloute arrived to accompany the 2000, 1999, 1998 & 1996.

The 2000 was hugely mineral on the nose – very tight but showing hints of vanilla, fresh nuts and white fruits with time. The minerality continued on to the palate giving a fine backbone to this very elegant young Champagne (4*, 4.5* with time). Hugh Johnson noted how the cauliflower veloute (an incredibly subtle and beautifully textured component) seemed to help the 2000 to open up.

The 1999 (4.5*) seemed quite reductive at first and had a big toasty palate. My notes for this read ‘dense wine, chewy & vinous’.

Vintage 1998 (NR) possessed a distinct lactic/dairy note on pouring. This eventually blew off leaving some stone fruit and a green, elderflowery character. A poor bottle? Certainly unlike others Pols of this vintage that I’ve tried.

Pol Roger 1996 is a wine I’ve been lucky to drink a lot of and bought with great enthusiasm around 2005. I haven’t however tasted it since Christmas day 2007 so was looking forward to reacquainting myself. The nose was loaded with truffles, hints of apricot and a touch of fresh mushroom – really quite giving. In the mouth though this is still coiled up tight with a massive streak of acidity. I admire the structure of this wine but am wondering where it will go. Certainly it’s not a crime to open a bottle now to decide for yourself whether you will like this in its old age.

Following on from the flight of youngsters we were served 1995, 1990, 1989 and 1988 alongside a Ravioli of wild mushrooms, Aromatic herbs, lardo di Colonnata.

The 1995 was an interesting counterpoint to the acidity and intensity of the 1996 and came across as a more complete wine. The nose showed a touch of honey, some spice and white chocolate and in the mouth this was quite a dense, poised wine with great harmony between all the components. 4.5*

If the 1995 was a lesson in harmony, the 1990 came as a lesson in flamboyance with a very ripe, full and almost sweet nose. Semi-tropical, this wine came across as just a little too obvious, though one had to admire the freshness of the fruit after nearly 20 years. James Simpson noted that this vintage was unusual in not requiring any chapitalisation.

Sadly the 1989 was corked and/or slightly oxidised (some discussion around the table on exactly which) but the 1988 showed well. This possessed a creamy, slightly honied nose with a touch of biscuity oxidation. Very fine, round and satisfying wine – good balance.

Progressing on to a main course of Roasted pigeon “flambé au capuchin” (beautifully cooked – rare and tender), cromesquis of simmered pigeon, citrus confit turnips, spicy jus we were served the 1985 in jeroboam. This was the only format in which this wine could be located and an abject lesson in the benefits of larger formats. Light gold in colour and with wonderfully freshness and complexity. Very concentrated with notes of praline, patissiere and fresh cashew nuts. Continued to evolve in the glass taking on a distinct resemblance to a great white Burgundy. Interestingly this bottle was almost still.

Alongside  the 1985 came the 1982 – quite a delicate creamy, buttery wine with good freshness and finesse and  the 1979 (en Magnum). The latter did not seem entirely right at first but regained its composure after a few minutes to show a well balanced older Champagne with a very gentle mousse and a nose of baked apples and spice.

To round off the Champagne we tasted 1966, 1964 and 1900 – these were poured alongside a stunning dessert of Passionfruit crème brulee, light cream perfumed with green Maccha tea, roasted Chestnuts, chestnut jelly  but most of us chose to focus on our glasses first. The 1966 showed a remarkably youthful colour and had a lovely nose of crème brulee. In the mouth it was still fresh with good acidity and just the faintest hints of petillance. In contrast the 1964 possessed a delicate ‘old gold’ colour, some maderisation and was completely still. Upsettingly the 1900 was in very poor condition and resembled motor oil in both colour and smell – it was declared DOA.

The cheese course came alongside Joseph Drouhin’s Clos des Mouches Rouge 1990. Deep crimson in colour with a ruby rim the nose was utterly intoxicating – loaded with sour red cherries, a touch of gaminess, dried herbs and wonderful lift. Like most Drouhin wines I have tried there was a purity to the wine but also a powerful backbone of fine tannins and acidity to keep things in check.

The final wine of the afternoon was a private joke between myself and my guest and was presented blind to those guests who hadn’t been whisked off to Oddbins’ afternoon press tasting. It arrived looking suspiciously murky in colour and had a nose of fresh mushrooms. In the mouth it was still full and quite rich. It was clear that this had some serious age on it and guesses varied between the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century. Simon Berry bravely declared that he thought it could be a 1945 and had got it smack on. The wine was in fact a 1945 Clos de La Roche bottled by The Wine Society and it seemed very appropriate that Marcel Orford-Williams (their current Burgundy buyer) was there to taste it.

News about upfront listing fees!

A recent examination of the way we run Bid for Wine led to our asking a very important question:

‘Why does Bid for Wine charge an upfront listing fee for each auction?’.

The answer is that there is a direct cost attached to each and every auction created (we have to pay for server space) which is covered by our listing fee. We also charge for setting a reserve price or starting price because both of these put off bidders (wines without a reserve price consistently fetch more than those with a reserve price).

What the point about listing fees misses though is that paying £1.75 before you know whether your lot will sell really isn’t terribly attractive! We are therefore very pleased to announce that, with immediate effect, our listing fee will now only be charged when a lot sells. In short you can now list your wine in a no-reserve auction for free – only once it sells will you be charged anything!

A new User Agreement

Bid for Wine has been running for just over six months now and the business has changed significantly in that time. We’ve been very focussed on improving the site and our service but to date haven’t really backed this up with any written details about how the site deals with issues such as insuring wines in transit, managing the sale of lots consigned to us and what happens if a buyer or seller doesn’t complete a transaction. To that end, we’re today releasing a new user agreement which will take effect immediately for new users and becomes effective on 30th June for all current users. This can be viewed here.

If you don’t wish to accept the new user agreement then please contact us to close your account. If you choose to close your account, it cannot be opened again nor will you be able to use your current User ID or email address on Bid for Wine. After your account has been closed, you may return to the site at any time by registering with a new User ID and email address.

If you are thinking about closing your account please do discuss matters with us before taking this step!

NOTE: 22nd June 2009

Further to the comment below here is a summary of the main changes we’ve made.

The main user agreement is fundementally the same as our original – the major change is that we’ve added terms and conditions specifically relating to wines consigned to us, shipping and where people are buying lots sold via consigment.

In summary:

Consigned lots:
- If we think a wine is fake or there’s a reason why it shouldn’t be sold we’ll withdraw it from sale.
-Sellers need to make sure the wine is eligible for sale in the UK (all taxes paid etc).
-If we think an unrealistic reserve has been set we’ll consult the seller and revise as appropriate.

Shipping:
-We will repack wines in to specialist packaging to ensure they arrive safely.
-We now insure all UK shipments against loss and breakage but will pass on the excess if applicable.
-We now ask that people check their wines on receipt and tell us of any problems within 7 days. Longer than this and it’s hard to get a clear picture of what’s happened

Buying via Consignment:
-We now ask that people settle all invoices for consigned lots within 7 days and don’t bid if this isn’t possible as we aim to pay sellers within 7-14 days from the close of an auction.
-We have reserved the right to pass on the extra costs we incur where people pay for lots using a credit card. This isn’t going to happen at the moment but may change if we introduce a new payment system later in the year. We will of course make sure people can pay by other methods if this goes ahead.

Packing your wine for transit

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the challenges faced by us (and anyone else in the UK who is involved in the wine trade but doesn’t have their own distribution network) is the unfortunate way that most mainstream couriers manage to break bottles in transit from time to time. The ideal solution is to use a specialist courier and/or expensive polystyrene packaging. Unfortunately this isn’t always an option so I’ve decided to put together some guidelines for anyone sending bottles to us for sale, or indeed to other people who’ve bought wine from you.

1. Ensure your bottles can’t move in transit:
Wine bottles have 3 main weak points you need to be aware of – these are the seam around their bottom, the bottom edge and the neck. If the bottle can move around in transit then one of these points will probably be where the damage happens. This can be overcome by wrapping your bottles in bubble wrap, placing the bottles in to a compartmentalised wine box (easily acquired from supermarkets or companies such as PacknMove ) and then putting packing material on top of the bottles. The pictures below show this.



2. Pack your wine in a box and then box that box
However well your wine is protected within the box it’s in there’s still the issue that a single cardboard box isn’t very strong – especially if you’re sending 6 or 12 bottles. When I pack wine up for distribution I pack it in to a standard wine box (see picture below details) and then ensure this box is securely packed within a second, much larger box. This large box should then be filled with polychips, fine shredded paper or similar. The trick is to make sure the inner box is well padded from all directions and is held in place by the padding material so it doesn’t move in transit. See the graphic below for an example.

3. Other Points

-Bubble wrap alone doesn’t protect bottles – it doesn’t fill gaps between bottles to stop them moving around.
-Mark your package to show which way is up. This can avoid corks working loose when bottles are shipped upside down. This is a rare problem which occasionally affects old bottles. If it happens though, the results aren’t pretty.

Wiltshire Feature Auction

After weeks of talking about it, we’re just about to launch our feature auction of wines from a Wiltshire Cellar (mentioned here). I thought some authoritative notes might be of interest to potential bidders and Jancis Robinson has kindly agreed to let me quote hers.

Ch Kirwan 1970 Margaux 17.5 Drink 1995-2015
Wilts cellar. Lovely mellow, glowing colour. Much drier and tighter than the 1975. Intense, dry and sturdy – less obviously Margaux than the 1975. Much more marked by 1970’s firm, not to say rather uncompromising, backbone than the mellower 1975.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Ch Gruaud Larose 1982 St- Julien 18.5 Drink 1995-2018
Wilts cellar. Just starting to stray out of Broadbent into Parker territory here… This was rich, round and velvety with the most sumptuous texture yet was not remotely lacking in freshness. Round, complete and utterly satisfying. Chock full of pleasure and a delight with the 24- hour lamb with truffle creamed potato
and buttered celery.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Ch Palmer 1961 Margaux 19 Drink 1975-2015
Wilts cellar – five bottles left! I feel so privileged to have tasted this wine on so many occasions, and especially to have been given a chance to enjoy this bottle so late in its incredibly extended lifespan. What a miracle wine. (Humorist Miles Kington was sent by his brewer father to pick grapes in Bordeaux and ended up at Palmer in 1961, but the wine virus didn’t take.) Still wonderfully sweet on the nose and sinewy, positively willowy, on the palate. Quite extraordinarily persistent. Not big. Such a different animal from so many red bordeaux made today. Now taking on some slightly gamey notes with a little dustiness but lots of life and energy. It faded a little in the glass after 10 minutes or so with the acidity becoming more prominent, and I would therefore not decant this wine ahead of time if I were in the enviable position of serving it, but if the Gruaud was a wine of pleasure, this is a wine to marvel at.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Couriers, shipping and other conundrums

Amongst other day to day tasks, I spend much of my time organising collections from and deliveries to the warehouse we use for consigned lots. This of course comes with the territory and is good news as it mean we’re selling wine. However, a disproportionate amount of time is taken up with couriers who lose or break things – this isn’t a regular occurrence but each time it happens I probably spend 8 hours picking up the pieces (investigating what has occurred, communicating with sellers or buyers, contacting insurance companies etc).

Broken bottles are bad news for everyone. In some cases bottles are irreplaceable which means a rightly upset and irritated customer. In the best case scenario it means an insurance claim which takes time and results in higher premiums in future (couriers recognise their own fallability and refuse to insure anything breakable so we foot the bill).

The real challenge is finding a solution which ensures adequate insurance and minimal breakages whilst keeping the cost as low as possible. I’ve been looking at possible solutions for some while now and have finally come up with a proposal. I should be very interested in what people think about it (you can leave comments via the ‘comments’ box below.

Royal Mail special delivery will cover glass in transit and cover ranges from £500 to £2500. This would allow us to dispatch single bottles packed in dedicated wine boxes at a cost of £14.95 including VAT.

By insuring shipments directly we can now offer shipping for up to 12 bottles at a cost of £17.00 compared to our old rate of £18.50+VAT when shipping via our warehouse.

Lots of over 12 bottles often involve wooden cases or wine in original boxes and where possible we try to keep these intact. This makes it tough to repack into sensible boxes to prevent breakages. In addition, most couriers charge a significant premium for consignments over 25kg (less than the typical weight of a case of 18 bottles plus packaging). We have therefore decided to offer shipping via a dedicated wine courier and this will be charged as follows:

• 2 Cases £27.60
• 3 Cases £29.90
• 4 Cases £32.20
• 5 Cases £34.50
• 6 Cases £36.80

Some news and comments

As mentioned on our homepage and elsewhere on this blog, we’ve a great sale coming up in early March which will feature some top Bordeaux and Port. For those who’d like a truly authoritative view on the wines for sale, Jancis Robinson released some notes on her site yesterday. These can be found on her website under the title ‘Assorted mature clarets’. I should add that we have another excellent private cellar which will shortly be auctioned in 3 portions with the first coming up for sale in the next week or so – so if you’re in the market for some Ridge, Angelus, Trimbach, Noon etc then do keep checking the site!

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve recently received a few questions about auction deadlines which keep changing in the closing minutes. Rest assured, this is a deliberate feature though we’ve been very bad at publicising it (there’s just a brief mention in the help section here). When we first looked at other auction sites out there a recurring theme was the help available for those who don’t want to play fair in the bidding process (just google ‘bidding ebay’ and look at the ads on the right hand side). We therefore decided that any bids entered within the last 2 minutes of an auction should extend the deadline by another 2 minutes which means that only genuine, manual bidders (or anyone with a maximum bid above the current price) can win the auction. I should add that we’ll shortly be making the function explicit with a message saying ‘new bids will extend the auction deadline by 2 minutes’ or something similar.

A pre-sale lunch with Palmer ‘61

I spent a very pleasant afternoon yesterday in the company of Jancis Robinson, John Stimpfig and Stuart George plus a client and Spenser Hilliard, also of Bid for Wine. We had gathered for lunch at The Ledbury in Notting Hill to taste a range of older clarets selected from two cellars we will be offering for auction on the site in March. All the wines were purchased en primeur and have been in the cellars either since shipping from France or from the cellars of The Wine Society or Berry Brothers and Rudd.

We started off in an unusual direction with 2 older halves, namely Pichon Lalande 1966 (4****) and Ducru Beaucaillou 1970(3***1/2). Surprisingly given the format, both were in good condition though despite a superb claretty nose the Ducru will want drinking reasonably soon as it was showing a touch of astringency. The Pichon Lalande was as elegant and fine as this property’s reputation suggests and was loaded with cedar, plums, perfume and tea notes.

An amuse bouche of Beetroot meringues with goats cheese followed. Very clever and absolutely delicious.

The food proper was, as always, top notch – a spectacular starter of raw marinated shellfish accompanied by a horseradish icecream and dill. This was paired well with a pair of 1996 and 1989 Von Schubert Abtsberg Kabinetts. Regrettably the 1989 was corked.

Crisp Pressed Suckling Pig with Trompettes and Pumpkin were up next. This was paired with 1970 & 1975 Chateau Kirwan. The 1970 (3***1/2) was textbook claret with some tannic grip, a nice minerality and time in hand if one wished to hold. The 1975 (2**1/2)) was a fat wine with a touch of something lactic on the nose alongside some cherry fruit . The creaminess carried through on the palate too and there wasn’t a huge amount of definition or structure. One to drink up relatively soon.

We followed with shoulder of Pyrenean Milk fed Lamb cooked for 24 hours with Truffle Creamed Potato and Buttered Celery. Beautifully succulent meat laced with herbs and swept up in a heady perfume of truffles. Alongside this we drank Leoville Las Cases 1970, Leoville Las Cases 1978 (a half of the latter), Gruaud Larose 1982 and Palmer 1961. The 1970 Las Cases (2**1/2) was backwards and burly with a slightly cheesy, sweaty nose – interesting but not loveable. The 1978 (4****) was however divine with a lovely nose of bitter chocolate, pine and smoke over more classic claret characters. More elegant that the ‘70 too. Both wines were in challenging company those given the presence of the highly regarded Gruaud (4****1/2) and legendary Palmer. The former was a dark, quite austere wine – notes of pencil lead, blackcurrant leaf and beef stock – quite tannic too. The Palmer (6******) possessed an incredibly rich, figgy and dense nose. Almost some molasses! Very powerful, rich, elegant and long. Still quite tannic. Very fine. Seems almost Rhone-esque from its build and structure. One of those wines which has a huge reputation to contend with but this was clearly something very special.

Pud was a Brown Sugar Tart with Muscat grapes, white Raisin ice cream and Vin Cotto accompanied by a Quarts de Chaume 1990 from Baumard. As I was deep in conversation I didn’t note this but recall an intensely sweet wine with great minerality and a touch of lime.
The clarets mentioned above will be going up for auction in March along with a selection of Port and other oddments. Details of all the wines from one of the cellars can be found here.

Bid for Wine on Twitter

If you’re too busy to regularly check what’s happening on the site or read our blog but still want to keep up to date with what’s happening then join the Bid for Wine Twitter feed. This will allow you to receive short updates whenever anything important occurs.

New Listings Notifications

I recently received the following email from one of our regular users

‘It would be great to have an automatic email every time a particular, favourite type of wine was listed. I find this particularly useful with other auction sites – as it saves me having to log in randomly in the hope that something might have been listed. It also means that I don’t miss things when I’m busy and don’t get a chance to surf the web every couple of days.’

We’re always keen to hear your ideas about how to improve the site and try to bring in the features that people ask for so we’ve gone ahead and added this capability.

If you want to receive daily email notifications about new listings from a particular region, then:

• Log in
• Select ‘My Account’ on the top right hand side of the screen
• Go to ‘Change your registered interests and email preferences’ (you can also click here)
• Once you’re in simply tick the box next to ‘Please notify me about new listings from the regions selected below’
• Tick the box next to any regions you’re interested in

We hope you find this new tool useful!