Bordeaux 2022 Primeurs: Pauillac
I turned my back on Château Cos d’Estournel, leaving behind its fantasy world of pachyderm motifs and their planned revivification of Château Cos Labory (I have never really been a fan of the wines, so I wish Dominique and team luck with this new project), and headed for Château Lafite-Rothschild.
Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?
It is not exactly a taxing drive. I slipped into the driver’s seat of my hire car, a deliriously pretty powder blue Renault Twingo which would not have looked out of place on the set of Clueless 3: From Beverly Hills to Bordeaux, before easing it onto the tarmac in front of the doors of the château, famously acquired (whatever that means) from the Palace of Zanzibar. Knocking it into neutral, Twingo and I then coasted down the hill, crossing the border into Pauillac. On reaching the turning for the Rothschild property it required only a few blips on the accelerator to see us up through the vines and into the courtyard.
What a team. I am thinking of asking for the same car next year.
On making myself known to the doorman, not quite as fierce as the gatekeeper at Château Latour (who is widely regarded as being in training for a position in the Underworld), I was concerned to see that my name absent from the list’s 10h30 appointment slot. This looks like it might be the first organisational blunder of this primeurs trip, but before long we find my name not under 10h30 but listed under the 10h00 appointments, with the addendum “arrives 10h30”. This curious way of recording the time of my appointment seems somehow entirely representative of the mad world of the Bordeaux primeurs.
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