We have today learnt that one of France's most famous white wines will be changing its name from the 2009 vintage. Laville Haut Brion is possibly the world's finest and most famous dry white wine that is made primarily from the Semillon grape variety (the blend in 2008 was 79% Semillon, 21% Sauvignon Blanc). It's certainly the world's most expensive dry Semillon with a release price en primeur last year of £2600 per dozen. Haut Brion Blanc is, by the way, a 50:50 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.
Last week, it was a privilege to have James Suckling spend some time here at Farr Vintners in London to taste the 2007 vintage ports in our tasting room. We managed to persuade him to give us a tutored tasting on the entire range of these wonderful but very young vintage ports and James helped us to understand what he was looking for when tasting them at such an early stage.
With the Chinese New Year approaching, the hugely successful Farr Vintners Asia office in Hong Kong currently has strong demand from mainland China for all vintages of Château Lafite. With prices having risen dramatically in the past couple of years, now may well prove to be a very good time to sell any stocks of Lafite that you might be holding. What is for sure is that current Lafite prices are now too heady for almost all European and US buyers and it would appear that nearly every case of Lafite on the world market is heading for China.
