Another still, fine day dawned, perfect conditions for tasting, after weather reports had forecast rain all week, which is disastrous for tasting – weather really does matter when trying barrel samples.

Luck in weather for the 2021 vintage also proved pivotal for the châteaux, such as our first visit of the day, Léoville Poyferré, where the massive deluge promised in September never eventuated, meaning they could take advantage of benign sunny days to help achieve perfect ripeness, with the harvest ending well into October.

Driving south we visited some the the leading lights in Margaux. Chris Myers at Palmer talked of 2021 resembling more vintages of last century, with slow ripening and lower alcohol levels. Palmer, Rauzan-Ségla and Château Margaux itself were all wonderful, with the elegance of the vintage perfectly suiting the style of Margaux the appellation.

There were two big successes elsewhere in Margaux. Brane-Cantenac will be a wonderful buy, they were justifiably proud of their ‘21 vintage, and perhaps the discovery of the visit so far was another Second Growth, Durfort-Vivens, which is achieving exciting results with biodynamic practices, and we were amazed to see one of the world’s largest and finest collections of terracotta amphorae.

Back in St Julien we had the opportunity to try the “Bartons” (Langoa and Léoville) with Lilian Barton. Both will be again wines to watch out for, with lovely Langoa bursting with red fruit and floral charm, and Léoville promising something more serious for the longer term.

Any sweeping generalisations about 2021 being exclusively an early-drinking, light vintage only had to be drastically reconsidered in the afternoon with the trio of Ducru-Beaucaillou, Léoville Las Cases and Lafite Rothschild. Many producers spoke of how thrilled they were with their Cabernet Sauvignon, with that grape making up 96% of the blend in Lafite and a whopping 98% in Ducru.

It was an honour to visit such a glittering array of top addresses in the Médoc today. This feeling of privilege and gratitude was keenly felt by both wine merchants and the Bordelais themselves, where after two years of sending bottle samples to offices and conversations held over Zoom, we can now immerse ourselves in the region properly again.

Tomorrow we will complete the picture, heading just south of the city to some of the greats in Pessac-Léognan. What little we’ve tried from here so far has been very promising, so we have very high hopes!