The Wine Program

08/30/2026

08/30/2026

Château Margaux is one of the original First Growths of the 1855 Classification, and just arriving at the property is pretty incredible.
We tasted through the 2025 En Primeur vintage, including Château Margaux, Pavillon Rouge, Margaux du Château Margaux, and their white, Pavillon Blanc.
Château Margaux has its own cooperage.
They still employ a cooper at the château who actually builds a portion of the barrels used to age their wines.
Bordeaux2025 PavillonRouge PavillonBlanc FirstGrowth GrandCruClasse Sommelier SommLife WineTravel FrenchWine

08/23/2026

BORDEAUX — DAY TWO
Up at 6:00 a.m. on the bus by 7:00 and off to the first stop : Château La Mission Haut-Brion

The grounds were beautiful and dramatic.

We spent an hour tasting through the new 2025 vintage, including barrel samples of the reds and some awesome white wines from the Haut-Brion estates. Really rare and really expensive stuff.

I got a photo with the winemaker for both Mission and Château Haut-Brion. He popped in to say hello to our group and gave a pretty haunting speech about how important the vintage is and how important the weather is and how it's his mission and their mission is to kind of take what God gives them and make the best wine possible. Every year. He was kind of saying that God is the wine maker. It was very cool. Very very cool. It gave me Goosebumps You'd never hear that in America I don't think.

La Mission Haut-Brion sits directly across the road from Château Haut-Brion and, while La Mission isn't technically one of the original 1855 First Growths, it's unquestionably one of the great wines and historic properties of Bordeaux.

HautBrion PessacLeognan Graves Sommelier SommLife WineTravel FrenchWine

08/21/2026

First night we went to a big tasting on the Gironde River. The Palais de la Bourse is one of Bordeaux's major historic event venues, right at the Place de la Bourse, and it has long been used for important Primeurs tastings, opening events, and wine-industry events. Etc.

08/21/2026

My super trip to Bordeaux

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to travel to Bordeaux with Aquitaine Wine Company for En Primeur.

En Primeur is a Bordeaux tradition where wine buyers writers collectors and imported from around the world gather to taste the new vintage while the wines are still aging in barrel — often more than a year before they’re bottled and released. It’s a first look at the vintage and a chance to meet the people behind the wines, and experience Bordeaux at a really cool time of the year.

And the city of Bordeaux itself was beautiful. I guess I didn't know what to expect, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Great town.

Over the next several posts, I’m going to share some photos and a few highlights from the week.

A huge "thank you!" to Aquitaine Wine Company for bringing me along And likewise to all the really cool people I got to travel with. Big laughs were had all around.

The first series of photos are from my hotel room overlooking the square and a tasting of Aquitaine wines at their HQ in the city.

07/31/2026

05/19/2026

This guy is the next Michael Jordan. Wow! Anybody watch that game just now?