Jul 23, 2024

Château Senejac

Good morning Gus,

Recent Bordeaux vintages have left us merchants and consumers scratching their heads. It’s not been an easy set of vintages to decipher, and it’s easy to tar wines across both vintages with the same brush.

Bordeaux 2023: Quality at the top end was patchy but occasionally outstanding and stylistically right up my street. As the market demanded, prices were heavily discounted versus 2022. Quality was far patchier at the more affordable end, and prices were far closer to 2022.

Bordeaux 2022: At the top end, quality was excellent but, for my tastes, occasionally overripe and quite homogenous, and prices were often utterly daft. At the lower end, quality and consistency were far higher than in 2023, given the relative simplicity of the growing season, and prices were not inflated in the same way as at the top end of the market.

I think Bordeaux 2022 really shines at the sub £300 a case mark, where quality is excellent, but prices are not as volatile as the 30-40% swings in prices we’ve seen at the top end. I regularly advised caution buying Bordeaux 2023 at the modest end, more often than not favouring 2022s and today’s feature of Château Sénéjac is a perfect illustration of why. It’s the highest scoring vintage from Neal Martin with a blistering 92-94 points and James Suckling, William Kelley and Jane Anson all score it higher than any other vintage they’ve reviewed. Yet, the price remains comparable with other, weaker vintages.

“This is a wonderful Haut-Médoc, one of the best wines that I have tasted from the estate."”
Neal Martin, Vinous.com on Ch. Sénéjac 2022 (92-94 Points)

Château Sénéjac is based just south of Margaux, but in the Haut-Médoc. It's owned by the Cordier family who own Château Talbot, made by Talbot's technical director Jean-Michel Laporte (previously from La Conseillante) and with input from the team at Château Pontet-Canet, it's no wonder quality here is so high and in 2022 it comes highly recommended.

All wines are offered in bond, excluding duty and VAT. To order, please visit our website or simply reply to this email.

Kind regards

Gus McLean
Director
0203 5762719