Welcome to our June edition.

We are delighted to announce that our Managing Director, Gary Boom has been listed in the very influential Decanter ‘Power List’ for the second time running. We would like to thank all those who voted for their support.

We would also like to congratulate Alex Stansfield, the winner of our recent online competition, who won prize tickets for the Decanter Education ‘Understanding Bordeaux’ Masterclass with one of the world's leading Bordeaux experts, Steven Spurrier.

Articles included in this month’s edition cover various fine wine events and as usual our ‘what we’ve been drinking recently’ column. One of the highlights from last month was our 2010 Bordeaux en primeur tasting held here in our 4th floor tasting room. Take a peek at what we felt showed up best on the night.

Finally, Our ‘Be the First to Taste’ wine tour, where customers were flown to Bordeaux to taste the new vintage straight from the barrel was yet another success and you can view a report on it here.

We hope you enjoy the read.

These are two of the key questions that I have been fielding ever since the 2010 vintage came onto the radar a few months ago. Let me briefly start by giving my take on the first question. There understandably seemed to be quite a lot of trepidation around how to approach the 2010 vintage this year - after all wasn’t 2009 supposedly ‘the finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux’ according to that old sage Robert Parker? Another demi-god in the wine world Steven Spurrier referred to it as ‘The best vintage of my lifetime’ and that should have been it - the single best vintage of any current Bordeaux-lovers lifetime. How can it be then that 12 months on we supposedly have another vintage to be mentioned in the same breath as the 2009?

The idea behind our yearly ‘Be the First to Taste’ tour is to taste a range of wines from the new vintage before they are released, whilst discovering the captivating region. What better way to start our trip than with a tasting of a selection of 15 Bordeaux wines from the Graves to St Emilion to St Estèphe? The stand out wines at the tasting were Lynch Bages and Ormes de Pez, but overall, we were all surprised with just how easily the wines were drinking ‘En Primeur’. The samples, despite having been drawn from barrel just a day or two before and being wines in their infancy, were smooth and amazingly balanced.

Following this tasting we visited eleven top châteaux in three and a half days, and each one offered a new experience. A day by day account of the tour might risk being somewhat lengthy, so I thought I would give my personal highlights of an unforgettable trip....

Decanter’s biennial ‘Power List’ brings together the wine world's 50 most important movers and shakers - the people influencing what's in your glass today. We are proud that this year, Gary Boom made the list for the second time running. Here’s what Decanter said:

“Boom - a wine enthusiast was frustrated by poor merchant service when he set up a wine merchant in 1997.  Today it turns over £150-£175m per year.  Significantly the Hong Kong office generates half of this… BI has a diversified business, selling Krug and Dom Pérignon champagne, and moving into events, education and tastings. There’s also a customer reserve, a wine tour service, an online fine wine trading platform – LiveTrade, with firm bid and offer prices…”

Gary says: This is a business for people who are passionate about fine wine. It is a labour of love and the people I know do it because they love the product. There is still an air of romance to the whole thing, thank God!

Taittinger Prelude NV - “I just love this champagne – it never disappoints and is the perfect apertif on a hot summer’s day. 50/50% Pinot Noir & Chardonnay, this NV is a blend of Grands Crus sites; fine, delicate mousse; brioche and citrus; long, rich finish. Beautifully elegant and fine. 94 points”. Victoria Bournot, Head of Private Sales

Latour 1961 – “Opened and decanted 3 hours before dinner and it is, for me, the finest Bordeaux I have ever drunk.  Dark colour, mulberries and sweet, sweet fruit and lovely ripe tannins - leather, cedar and lovely truffles on the nose with lots of spice and soy.  Perfection 100 points.” Gary Boom, MD of Bordeaux Index

Every now and then you feel blessed to be in this business and a couple of months back was just one of those moments. I was in Bordeaux with a group of wine lovers and we were very kindly invited to lunch at Margaux, and so it was, that we cleared our schedules and headed off to greet our host.

Paul Pontallier, the Managing Director of Château Margaux, first led us down to the cellars for a tour and a tasting. But not any old tasting, we first tried the 09 and then the 00 Margaux. The 09 is just incredible. I have said it before, but the best of 09 are jaw-droppingly good. The signature of Margaux is so often restrained, classy and elegant, but the 09 offers power, seductive velvet waves of fruit and unbelievable depth. It has it all and is underpinned by perfect poise and balance. Amazing. 99+ points

“I am just a poor, humble, farmer from Bordeaux” began Jean-Guillaume Prats, with tongue firmly in cheek, as he gave us an entertaining introduction to Cos d’Estournel to kick off a quite fantastic evening. This was the first leg in back-to-back fixtures for JGP with Bordeaux Index, one in HK and one in Beijing and our host was on great form as he razzle dazzled our clients with insightful and amusing anecdotes regarding one of our favourite estates in Bordeaux.

The line up of vintages on the night served as an extraordinary snap shot of Cos both past and present and left no one in doubt of this estate’s unique and incredible terroir. It was somewhat fitting that with Mr.Boom in town we served the ’85, one of the wines that inspired Gary to set up a wine company. Poured alongside other legendary vintages of Cos; 1995, 2000, 2003 and a specially flown in barrel sample of the 2010 this was an exciting and diverse parade of bottles.