David Hohnen calls it the ‘eyebrow effect’. ‘You watch them shoot up as soon as they put their nose in a glass,’ he says, chuckling.

Back in 1985, the Cloudy Bay founder leveraged that instant reaction to gain a foothold in UK independent retail for his inaugural vintage.

As savvy a storyteller as he is a winemaker, Hohnen also sent samples abroad with a jar of Marlborough green-lipped mussels, telling recipients to get a corkscrew and some fresh, crusty bread.

The UK market took off and soon eyebrows were lifting worldwide.

Scroll down to see notes and scores of six brilliant Cloudy Bay wines

Cloudy Bay’s story began in 1983, when Hohnen, an Australian winemaker at Cape Mentelle in Margaret River, encountered the eyebrow effect himself.

Visiting New Zealand, winemakers left him a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that ‘blew my socks off’. The following year, he sought out its source.

Flying into Marlborough, he recalls looking across the summer-brown hillsides and thinking, ‘Yes, this is the place.’ His initial plan was a fly-in, fly-out winemaking venture but that quickly changed.

A Marlborough legend

Convincing his Cape Mentelle backers – his brother Mark and business partner Simon Fraser – to borrow NZ$1 million at an eyewatering 23.5% interest rate, Hohnen purchased land on Jacksons Road, built a winery and hired a young Australian winemaker named Kevin Judd to oversee production.

The first vintage, in 1985, was made with 40 tonnes of purchased fruit trucked to Selaks’ Gisborne winery, where Judd was working.

From the start, Cloudy Bay set a benchmark for its Sauvignon Blanc, defined by vibrant tropical fruit, racy acidity and a signature pungency.

‘We produced wine without compromising on quality,’ Judd explains. ‘There were never any questions about that. We also delivered consistency across those early years. David had also just won two Jimmy Watson trophies, and the wine world trusted him.’

As demand surged, Champagne house Veuve Clicquot took an interest, investing in Cloudy Bay in 1990 after purchasing a nearby vineyard that became known as the Widow’s Block (a tribute to Madame Clicquot), now a key source of fruit.

This partnership ultimately led to full ownership by the LVMH group in 2003, unlocking investment and global reach while maintaining Cloudy Bay’s hands-off, quality-first approach. In 2014, the winery expanded into Central Otago, home of its flagship Pinot Noir, Te Wāhi.

Cloudy Bay: A timeline

1985: Cloudy Bay established

1990: Veuve Clicquot takes a stake

1992: First Pelorus méthode traditionnelle release

1994: First Marlborough Pinot Noir release

2000: First Te Koko release (1996 vintage)

2003: LVMH purchases Cloudy Bay outright

2009: Cloudy Bay begins to explore Central Otago

2014: Purchase of the Northburn vineyard and leasing of the Calvert vineyard, both in Central Otago

2016: First release of Te Wāhi Pinot Noir (2014 vintage)

‘Change but no change’

Four decades on, much remains as it was.

Sauvignon Blanc is still Cloudy Bay’s cornerstone – both the classic bottling and the wild-fermented Te Koko – alongside Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and the Pelorus sparkling range.

Winemaking director Nikolai St George (pictured, above) leads a passionate, focused team, with technical and sustainable development senior director Jim White observing that ‘the winemaking approach is bigger than one person; any change happens in incremental steps’.

The evolution of Te Koko exemplifies this ethos – once a bold, funky, barrel-driven experiment, it has been slowly refined with the addition of concrete tulip tanks, foudres and shorter ferments, bringing greater precision to its wild-ferment profile.

St George believes that ‘New Zealand is good at understanding something and then making it our own’, echoing Hohnen’s view that Cloudy Bay blends Old and New World influences.

‘I’ve always felt grateful to have the Old World’s knowledge and the New World’s ability to discard traditions that didn’t work,’ he says.

‘At Cloudy Bay, there’s change, but no change. The winemaking remains hands-off, the place still feels right. But LVMH has brought investment that we could never have imagined back then.’

Sustainability is now a key focus, including a winery rooftop solar system, a carbon-reducing autonomous tractor and, thus far, 190ha of vineyards farmed without herbicides.

A social initiative supports Pacific Islander seasonal workers with entrepreneurship mentoring and interest-free loans, reflecting a deeper commitment to the people behind the wine.

Looking forward, Cloudy Bay’s focus is refining its Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, expanding Chardonnay plantings and maintaining the quality-driven ethos that has defined it for 40 years.

Cloudy Bay’s Marlborough vineyards

702ha in the Wairau and Southern valleys: 524ha of Sauvignon Blanc, 102ha of Pinot Noir and 76ha of Chardonnay. There are also about 550ha of Cloudy Bay-owned or directly managed/leased grower blocks and about 150ha of grower blocks managed to Cloudy Bay guidelines.

Style pioneer

Cloudy Bay’s trailblazing success in the UK in the late 1980s undoubtedly helped propel the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc category forward, paving the way for greater investment and increased global recognition.

‘Cloudy Bay benefited from its reputation coming from winemakers, not marketers,’ says Judd. ‘David’s credibility certainly drove international interest.’ Today, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc accounts for more than 70% of New Zealand’s wine exports.

Hohnen, now 75, first revisited Cloudy Bay in 2022 after almost 20 years away. ‘I almost felt a sense of vertigo,’ he admits. ‘I was so surprised by the degree of emotion I felt.’

Reflecting on the early days, he muses: ‘I had a three-year plan, driven by my methodical nature. Never would I have thought to look 40 years ahead.’

Few wines have shaped a country’s global reputation like Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc did for New Zealand.

As the winery celebrates its 40th anniversary, it’s a moment to reflect upon an extraordinary journey, and perhaps to wonder what the next 40 years will bring.

Celebrating 40 years in style 

At the end of February, Cloudy Bay celebrated its 40th anniversary with a three-day event for 40 international guests, who were treated to a series of tastings, vineyard and winery activities, and long lunches and dinners that showcased Cloudy Bay’s current and library releases, alongside a fabulous array of local produce. 

The finale was a 40th birthday celebration for 200 on the winery lawn, at which founder David Hohnen gave a moving and amusing speech before guests danced the night away under the A Pelorus rosé tower Marlborough stars.

The Jenkins pick: Cloudy Bay across the decades

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Historic South African wine estate Klein Constantia is marking its 340th anniversary with a limited, long-aged bottling of its emblematic Vin de Constance sweet wine from the 2010 vintage.

Sourced from a harvest not previously earmarked for release, the 2010 edition was matured in cask for nearly 15 years. Some 4,500 bottles will be released globally, with a UK RRP of £140 per 50cl bottle.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for three vintages of Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance

It’s the latest chapter in the story of one of the world’s most historic wine estates, founded in 1685 by the first Governor of the Cape, Simon van der Stel. He sent soil samples from the area to Europe for analysis before fixing on the Constantia Valley, south of Table Mountain, as the ideal spot to plant vines.

Since then, Constantia’s history has been chequered: lauded by Jane Austen, Charles Baudelaire and Charles Dickens, loved by Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Napoleon Bonaparte, but declining into bankruptcy in the 1870s, before resurrection with the release of the first Vin de Constance in over a century in 1990.

Klein Constantia was acquired by Czech-American investor Zdenĕk Bakala and UK businessman Charles Harman in 2011, with the relatively inexperienced Matt Day installed as head winemaker. Day was given the 2012 vintage to prove his mettle or ‘find the door’, and has been responsible for the estate’s wines ever since.

‘The goal of Vin de Constance is to create a sweet wine that’s not sweet,’ said Day. ‘Sugar forms the flavour, but not sucrosity, so it goes with any part of the meal. It shouldn’t be enjoyed on “occasions”, but a lot more often than that. And it should not be put in a cellar and forgotten about.’

Muscat de Frontignan is crucial to Vin de Constance, because of its resistance to botrytis – this is not a noble rot-focused sweet wine, but one where the fermentation stops naturally, ideally at about 165g/litre residual sugar and 14-14.5% abv, with a pH of 3.65-3.7.

Vin de Constance 2010 was passed over in 2013/14 because it ‘just didn’t tick all the boxes’, said Day – coming from a year when production was cut by about 90% as the vines went into ‘chaos mode’ following a sudden switch to sustainable production. The wine was rediscovered in the Klein Constantia cellars last year and bottled in November.

‘We were forced into a way of making Vin de Constance that wasn’t normal,’ Day said. ‘We fermented on skins [for two weeks] for the first time and did lots of punchdowns, extracting lots of flavour and tannin. It’s very bold, very big… a completely different but exquisite vintage.’

Three vintages of Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance

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Grgich was born the youngest of 11 children to Nicola and Ivka Grgić on 1 April, 1923, in the village of Desne, Croatia. His father made wine, and some of his earliest memories were of stomping grapes at harvest. His mother wanted him to get an education and so he left home aged 10, when his schooling in Desne ended, to go and live with a sister and continue his studies.

Grgich had designs on being a shopkeeper. Yet, after living through harrowing experiences during World War II, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a winemaker. Communism came to eastern Europe, and Croatia became part of Yugoslavia, and Mike went to the University of Zagreb to study oenology and viticulture.

He would flee communist Yugoslavia via an agricultural exchange programme with Germany and, via Canada’s British Columbia, would find his way to Napa Valley in 1958. Having arrived in St. Helena, Grgich would work for Chateau Souverain, and he would eventually meet another immigrant winemaker, André Tchelistcheff. The two would work together at Beaulieu Vineyards in Rutherford.

Eventually, Grgich was hired by a man named Robert Mondavi, who had built the first new wine facility in Napa since Prohibition. In his first vintage, 1969, Grgich crafted a legendary Cabernet Sauvignon at Mondavi. From there, he would go to Chateau Montelena, where he would make history.

The 1976 Judgement of Paris winning white wine, Chateau Montelena’s Chardonnay, was made by Grgich in just his second vintage at Montelena. A moment that lifted American wine to its greatest heights and one that resonates to this day in the vine rows in Napa, as well as every wine region in the country.

His success would allow him to build his own Grgich Hills brand, founded in 1977. The American dream fully realised.

Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, Grgich returned to Croatia, where he finally received his university diploma. He established the Croatian winery Grgić Vina with a focus on indigenous varieties.

Grgich leaves behind a massive legacy, built over a century of rich experiences, relationships and commitments to teaching and learning, always.

His name is synonymous with both Napa Valley and the rebirth of the Croatian wine industry. The suitcase that he fled Yugoslavia with sits in the Smithsonian Institute of American History along with wines from that famed Paris judging, part of an exhibit called 101 Objects that Made America.

Memorial donations may be sent to the Community Health Foundation Napa Valley — formerly Collabria — and to Roots of Peace.

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Universally considered a legendary year in Bordeaux, 1982 also marked a watershed moment for both Cape Mentelle and Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon.

With its 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon, the Wallcliffe-based winery in Western Australia’s premier wine-growing region won The Melbourne Royal Wine Awards’ top gong – the Jimmy Watson Trophy for the best one-year-old Australian red wine. (They did it again with the 1983 vintage the following year.)

On the back of such success, why not pitch Cape Mentelle Cabernet Sauvignon against the best in the world, not just Australia’s finest?

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of the 10 wines at the mini Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Tasting in London

And that’s precisely what they did, the winery holding an international Cabernet Sauvignon blind tasting every year since that landmark 1982 wine show victory put them on the map.

David Hohnen, who founded Cape Mentelle in 1970, might have been influenced by the headline-grabbing Judgment of Paris tasting of 1976, which brought California’s Cabernet Sauvignon to global attention. In 1978, he worked the vintage at Napa Valley’s Clos du Val, a participating winery.

But Hohnen’s idea for the Cabernet Sauvignon tasting was never just about profile. He wanted to learn from international peers. He saw the event as a benchmarking opportunity – a talking shop – for the nascent Margaret River region, whose first commercial vineyard was only planted in 1967. As an example, remarks from the late Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux, a prestigious guest in 1985, encouraged Hohnen to extract less.

London calling

To celebrate the 40th year of the event, Cape Mentelle held an abridged version in London for the first time, featuring a blind tasting of 10 top flight 2017 vintage Cabernet Sauvignons.

It was hosted in November 2022 by Master Sommelier Stefan Neumann and Charlotte Gordon, the UK wine development ambassador at Moët Hennessy (Cape Mentelle’s former owners), both of whom were still buzzing from attending the sell-out tasting in Margaret River the month before of 20 Cabernets from the 2019 vintage.

The London attendees may have only had half the number of wines shown in Australia, and missed out on the Bordeaux first growths but, as Neumann pointed out, the consolation prize for tasting 2017s over 2019s was the added bottle age. Cabernets of this calibre only improve with time – indeed many we tasted might well warrant higher scores in future.

While Cape Mentelle continues to look for inspiration from its annual tasting, the goal is not to replicate but to remain distinctive.

Through the prism of a single vintage, this celebration of 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon from six countries (Australia, France, Italy, USA, South Africa and Chile) showcased the grape variety and explored individual terroir and winemaking philosophy. Correspondingly, the 10 wines were suitably diverse – ‘which is the whole point!’ exclaimed Neumann.

Diverse and distinctive

In both Margaret River and Victoria’s Yarra Valley, where the Australian wines in the London tasting hailed from, the 2017 vintage was a cooler year with beneficially higher rainfall than average, so the long growing season suited late-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon. Similarly, 2017 was a ‘superstar vintage’ in South Africa.

Elsewhere, the vintage did not have the best reputation, said Neumann, though noted that ‘with great winemaking teams, you definitely find great wines’.

Neumann described the ‘earlier-drinking’ 2017 vintage as a challenging one for Bordeaux, which was frost-plagued and very dry, with yields down 40%. Tuscany had a very hot year – 3°C warmer than usual – so the September rains were welcome.

The hot, dry year in Chile produced the earliest harvest in 20 years: ‘altitude is the sacred’ for top wines like Santa Rita’s Casa Real from Alto Jahuel at 565m above sea level, said Neumann. In California, heat spikes resulted in wildfires but for those who picked early, ‘there is a lot of freshness to be found’.

There were some marmite wines in the line-up, such as Ornellaia with its atypically high alcohol (15%), the herbaceousness of Mount Mary and the savoury suggestion of brettanomyces in the Santa Rita.

But there was mass consensus on the Château Pichon-Longueville, Chateau Montelena and competitively priced Boekenhoutskloof with their charm offensive of silky ripe fruit and smooth tannins. Dense and brooding, the Château Léoville-Barton and Cape Mentelle (always one of Margaret River’s sturdier Cabernets) begged to be left alone.

A celebration of Cabernet

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Sauvignon tasting in 2018. Before flying out, I took the opportunity to quiz the late, great Steven Spurrier about the change in perceptions of world-class Cabernet since he organised the 1976 Judgment of Paris.

‘World judgements have changed for all wines of high quality in that they should have a sense of place above the expression of the grape variety,’ he told me. ‘Cabernet Sauvignons from Margaret River are now Margaret River first and Cabernet second.’

That was very much apparent from my experience tasting in Margaret River in 2018 as well as in London in 2022. Cape Mentelle’s International Cabernet Tasting is less a competition and more a celebration of the many shades of this great grape.

Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Tasting in London: 10 wines from 2017

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Lower Long Tom is not the name of some long-forgotten punk band. It is Oregon’s newest American Viticultural Area (AVA).

In December 2021, Lower Long Tom became the 10th AVA nestled within the Willamette Valley AVA. It is also the first AVA established in the valley’s southern portion. Its location, 161km southwest of Portland, places it far away from the northern Willamette Valley’s well-established wine scene.

Scroll down for 10 wines to try from Oregon’s Lower Long Tom AVA

The new AVA, of 233ha in production, contains 24 vineyards (see box below) each averaging just 9.71ha. Its 12 wineries produce between 200 and 25,000 cases annually, with most falling at the lower end of that range. ‘We may be a small AVA, but we’re passionate,’ says Matt Shown of Brigadoon Wine Co.

To be recognised as an AVA by the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, a winegrowing region must prove it is distinct from neighbouring areas based on criteria such as soils, climate and historical record. Dieter Boehm of High Pass Winery had a strong case when he submitted Lower Long Tom’s AVA application.

The Long Tom name is derived from an English interpretation of a Native American word, possibly ‘Lamphtumpif’ or ‘Longtabuff’, used to refer to a group of Kalapuyan people that lived in the area for thousands of years. The Long Tom River serves as the AVA’s eastern boundary.

Unique soils and climate

Bellpine is the Lower Long Tom AVA’s predominant soil type. The marine sedimentary soil is a shallow layer of silty clay loam over sandstone that is nutrient-poor and fast-draining. These conditions force vines to push into the sandstone to pursue food and water. Shown says harder-working vines mean lighter canopies and smaller grapes, which add concentration to Pinot Noir.

Boehm credits the Bellpine soil for the powerful tannins found in Lower Long Tom Pinots. ‘Because of the soil, we get wines that take a really long time to mature and soften, and they can even seem a little astringent at first,’ says Boehm.

Although the Lower Long Tom AVA is just 97km from the Pacific Ocean, tall peaks in the Oregon Coast Range divert cool maritime winds and rains to the north and south. The resulting warmer vineyard temperatures result in earlier harvests and darker, richer Pinot Noirs than other parts of the valley. ‘We pick a week earlier than they do up in the northern part of the Willamette Valley,’ explains Boehm.

A location at the edge of the Oregon Coast Range, with its dense forests and icy-cold streams, also gives the Lower Long Tom an alpine feel – similar to Jura or Savoie in France. Armies of cows and sheep grazing the region’s rolling foothills only strengthen that impression.

Tight-knit community

Robin Pfeiffer of Pfeiffer Winery planted the area’s first vines in 1984. Boehm of High Pass and Mike and Merry Fix of RainSong Winery added their estate vineyards the following year. Today they are part of a tight-knit, collegial group of producers filled with pride for their hard work and perseverance.

It is also a group hoping to emerge from the shadow of northern AVAs like Dundee Hills and Ribbon Ridge. ‘It can be frustrating when the media says “Willamette Valley”, and they only mean the northern part,’ says Marcus Hall, RainSong’s winemaker and co-owner.

People willing to explore the Lower Long Tom AVA will find more than just the Willamette Valley’s signature Pinot Noirs. Producers here also make dry and off-dry white wines with everything from Sauvignon Blanc to Muscat.

Boehm, for example, was homesick for familiar grapes when he landed in Oregon after escaping East Germany in the 1970s. He remedied the situation by bringing cuttings of Scheurebe, Huxelrebe, Bacchus, Siegfried and Gutedel from his native land back to Oregon. Boehm uses these to make a frisky white called Crazy 8.

This is also the region where Stephen Hagen of Antiquum Farm started his grazing-based viticulture revolution. Hagen pushes beyond basic organic and biodynamic farming tenets by incorporating carefully selected breeds of pigs, geese, chickens, ducks, sheep and guardian dogs into the vineyard system for 11 months of the year.

Moving the animals every three to 21 days is a practice Hagen describes as ‘rotational intensive grazing’. Lost nutrients are continually replenished as above-ground materials are eaten and redistributed into the soil, where appreciative microbiological organisms put them to good use.

The passion is easy to spot in Oregon’s newest AVA.

Lower Long Tom: wineries and vineyards

Wineries

Antiquum Farm

Bennett Vineyards and Wine Co

Bradshaw Vineyard

Brigadoon Wine Co

Benton Lane Winery

Five Fourteen Vineyard

High Pass Winery

Pfeiffer Winery

Poco Collina

RainSong Vineyard

Territorial Vineyards and Wine Co

Walnut Ridge Vineyard

Vineyards

(Many of the wineries above are located on an estate vineyard)

Bellpine Vineyard

Chardonnay Way

Davis Reid Vineyard

Evans Vineyard

Fitzpatrick Vineyard

Gelardi Vineyard

Grace Hill Vineyard

Hildebrand Ranch

Kliewers Weinberg

Kokkeler Vineyard

Moriah Vineyard

Priddy Vineyard

Stroda Vineyard

Sunny Mountain

Union School

Lower Long Tom: wines from Oregon’s newest AVA

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The Decanter World Wine Awards is pleased to announce Simon Field MW as the newest appointed Regional Chair for the UK at the 2022 competition.

Regional Chairs are vital to the rigorous Decanter World Wine Awards judging process. Experts in their field, Regional Chairs oversee their respective panels of judges, help settle any score discrepancies, and re-taste all Silver and Gold wines for consistency; before the Co-Chairs confirm Gold winners for final endorsement.

In our exclusive interview with Simon Field MW, find out how he got into wine, who his biggest inspirations are, his thoughts on wines from the UK, wine regions to discover in 2022 and more…

Tell us a little about yourself – how did you get into wine?

Along with many others I succumbed to the delights of Chartered Accountancy in the City immediately after university. It wasn’t really my thing, but I was determined to pass the exams, which I have to say I found a good deal more challenging than those for the MW; and with no wine to taste every morning either.

Anyway, pass them I did and then spent a few years working mainly in France (my degree was in French) musing over wine lists when I should have been studying balance sheets. Thence to Oddbins for a couple of years and then two decades at Berry Bros, buying wines from all around Europe with a focus once more… you have guessed it… on France.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while working in the wine industry?

As a buyer, a sense of humility and the ability to listen. The maths bit was quite easy after my accountancy training; the forging and development of relationships less so, but infinitely rewarding. If you understand the vigneron, then you will understand his wine; hardly the most original of aphorisms, but it’s really as simple as that.

Who has been your biggest inspiration during your wine career?

Writing takes up a lot of my time now and, again, it is a skill which also requires humility and a capacity to listen. The two writers who I have really appreciated over the years have been Hugh Johnson, for his magisterial sweep and luminous wisdom, and Andrew Jefford, for the same reasons really, maybe with a little more poetic spice added to season his fare.

As the new Regional Chair for the UK, what do you find most exciting or interesting about wines from the UK?

It is becoming increasingly clear (this is Chair for the UK and not for England alone) that the domestic vison stretches beyond the chalky furrows of the South of England; Scotland less so maybe, but who knows! Wales certainly and also ‘inland’ sites from beyond the Home Counties. And, if it is axiomatic that UK sparkling wine has ‘arrived’, further excitement can surely be garnered from monitoring, with no lack of pride, the strides being made by the still wines of both colours.

There is great potential all around, but also a good number of producers who have got beyond this stage and who have now achieved international recognition. The juxtaposition of those who have arrived and those who are still en route can not fail to galvanise the broader industry and to accelerate progress even more. This, in turn, cannot fail to be exciting!

What advice do you have for new people just starting out in wine?

Look and listen, taste, then taste again; record, enquire, enjoy and then enjoy again.

Which wine-producing areas do you think should be given more attention in 2022?

Well, needless to say, the UK vineyards, most especially those outside the established homestead of Sussex, Hampshire and Kent; but further afield, the lesser known vineyards of Spain, especially those in Galicia and Catalonia. What about greater Austria in both colours and some of the apparently unfashionable enclaves in the Languedoc, Fitou and Faugères for example?

Which wines are you drinking at home at the moment?

UK wines make more frequent appearances on the rostrum; reds and still whites as well as the magnificent sparklers. Lighter reds too; Spätburgunder from Baden for example, or Cabernet Franc from Bourgeuil. It is always a pleasure to unearth unfamiliar Grower Champagnes, and I am usually delighted to be re-introduced to the seemingly bottomless well of excellent less-well-known Italian whites…

Finally, you’ve been a judge at DWWA since 2005 – what are you looking forward to most about being the Regional Chair for the UK at this year’s competition?

Camaraderie is so much purer when unalloyed by the medium of the Zoom call, especially with the meeting of so many like minds; I love the discussion and the debate, that moment of tension when one presents a potential Gold to one of the Co-Chairs…. they swirl, they taste, their facial expressions run a vastly unpredictable gamut, which could just as easily signal appreciation as rejection…. then they adjudicate. Always a dramatic moment as a wine forges its way towards Platinum or Best in Show!

More about Simon Field MW

Simon Field MW joined Berry Brothers & Rudd in 1998 and was with them for 20 years, having spent several misguided but lucrative years working as a chartered accountant in the City.

During his time at BBR Simon was buying the Spanish and fortified ranges, and was also responsible for purchasing wines from Champagne, Languedoc-Roussillon, the Rhône Valley and the Loire Valley.

He gained his Master of Wine qualification in October 2002 and in 2015 was admitted into the Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino.

Simon began judging at the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) in 2005 and most recently judged at DWWA 2021 as Acting Regional Chair for Champagne.

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Sarah Ahmed tastes three mini-verticals from Voyager Estate at their 40th anniversary celebration in London, exclusive to Decanter Premium members..

Voyager Estate: 40th anniversary tasting

Acquiring a vineyard seems an unlikely choice for a teetotaller, but that’s precisely what the late Michael Wright did, buying Freycinet Estate in 1991. First planted in 1978, it’s located in the Stevens Valley in southern Margaret River’s Wallcliffe sub-region, five kilometres from the Indian Ocean’s cooling influence.

Scroll down for Sarah Ahmed’s tasting notes and scores

From farming stock, the iron ore heir – a billionaire – recognised its potential and determined to realise it. Renaming the property Voyager Estate, Wright extended the vineyards with top notch planting material, including cuttings from his neighbour’s oldest, most concentrated Gin Gin clones – Block 20 – the backbone of Leeuwin Estate’s iconic Art Series Chardonnay.

The investment was rewarded when, in 2002, leading Australian wine writer James Halliday declared Voyager Estate, Leeuwin Estate and Cape Mentelle three tips of ‘a golden triangle producing three of the best Margaret River Chardonnays.’

The tasting

Hot on the heels of the 2018 harvest – yet another excellent vintage in this enviably consistent region – Steve James (winemaking and viticulture manager) celebrated Voyager Estate’s 40th anniversary in London with verticals of their Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot and Shiraz.

True to Margaret River’s reputation, the wines showed great varietal definition and intensity without density. Moderating sea breezes account for their ripe but present balancing acid and tannin structure.

The Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot – regional heroes – had aged superbly. Sealed under screwcap, one sensed the older Chardonnay vintages had plateaued and will deliver like pleasure for a few years yet.

Changes

Vintage differences were less tangible than refinements in the vineyard and winery. The introduction of partial wild yeast ferments for the 2009 Chardonnay provided this powerful vintage with savoury, textural nuances, earning it my top score in an impressive flight. Ratcheting up the Burgundy clonal component has similarly tempered the local Gin Gin clone’s fruit; expect future vintages to show more restraint with bottle age.

Remarking on the younger Cabernet blends, James reckons ‘less overt fruit but more layers and complexity’ is an outcome of organic cultivation, better clonal selection and fruit sorting.

In 2014, the sole, strikingly elegant example of 100% estate and 100% southern (cooler) Margaret River fruit well and truly played into the zeitgeist medium-bodied style. That said, the top scoring richer, riper 2001 was in glorious shape.

Margaret River Shiraz rarely outguns Chardonnay and Cabernet. This flight was patchier and less compelling, albeit consistently medium-bodied with juicy plum and blackberry fruit. It took the challenging cool, late 2006 vintage to coax its best performance – perfumed, mineral and highly evocative of the Rhône.

Voyager Estate: Fact file

Vineyards: 110ha under vine (40ha in conversion with Australian Certified Organic)

Production: 480,000 bottles

Climate: temperate maritime (MJT 20.4 degrees), average annual rainfall c. 1000mm (85% of which falls during winter and spring)

Soils: predominantly deep, free-draining red/brown gravelly soils over a stony/clay sub-soil

Sarah’s tasting notes and scores from the three Voyager verticals:

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Five Napa Valley wine estates are marking the 40th anniversary of the Judgement of Paris tasting by offering visitors a ‘passport’ to special tastings over the next three months.

Judgement of Paris wine tour

Chateau Montelena Winery, Clos Du Val, Freemark Abbey, Spring Mountain Vineyard and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars have joined forces to sell the US$200 passes for Judgement of Paris wine tours.

The passes allow holders to participate in one special tasting at each of the wineries.

The official Judgement of Paris 40th anniversary is 24 May.

Reservations are either required or strongly recommended for the tastings, which vary from winery to winery: Chateau Montelena is offering places at its Limited Release tasting, including older vintages of its Napa Valley Chardonnay and Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Meanwhile, Clos du Val invites passport holders to its self-guided Vineyard Cabana Tasting, including four limited release wines; and Freemark Abbey is offering its Collector’s Cabernet Tasting, covering a range of single vineyard and limited release Cabernets.

Spring Mountain Vineyard’s tasting includes five estate-grown wines from current and library vintages, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars showcases a flight of Estate Collection wines, including those from its FAY and SLV estate vineyards.

The passport scheme commemorates the Judgement of Paris tasting, organised by wine merchant Stephen Spurrier on 24 May 1976 at the Paris InterContinental Hotel, when four white Burgundies and four red Bordeaux wines were pitted respectively against six California Chardonnays and four California Cabernets.

Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 SLV Cabernet Sauvignon topped their respective categories, shaking up the wine establishment and putting California on the fine wine map.

The tasting passports are available for $200 from the CellarPass website.

• Read also: 10 top Napa Valley wineries to visit

• Look out for more Judgement of Paris anniversary coverage on Decanter.com over the next couple of months.

Decanter has continued its 40th anniversary celebrations in style with a birthday party attended by top wine writers, masters of wine and senior figures from the UK wine trade.

Guests sipped Champagne Gosset poured from magnums as they caught up with wine world friends and colleagues at the Decanter 40th anniversary party in a private room at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on the Mall.

There was also a choice of two others wines, supplied by Louis Latour Agencies:

• Simonnet-Febvre Chablis Premier Cru Fourchaume 2012

• Craggy Range Te Muna Road Pinot Noir 2012

Gosset’s winemaker, Hermine de Clermont Tonnerre, was among the guests who attended the party, which is part of a month of celebrations to mark Decanter’s 40-year milestone.

• SEE: Decanter 40th anniversary lunch at Le Gavroche

Also in attendance were Patricia and Georgina Parnell, the mother and daughter of the late Colin Parnell, who founded Decanter alongside Tony Lord in 1975.

Trays of canapés circulated as guests mingled in the main room and on the adjacent balcony.

Decanter’s content director, John Stimpfig, thanked all of Decanter’s in-house staff for their contributions across the magazine, Decanter.com, both editorially and commercially, and also including Decanter’s awards, events and panel tastings.

The guest list was also a roll call of the some of the best wine writers, including several masters of wine, such as: Lynne Sherriff MW, Peter Richards MW, Greg Sherwood MW, Stephen Skelton MW, Rosemary George MW, Sebastian Payne MW, Dirceu Vianna Junior MW, Philip Tuck MW, Simon Thorp MW and Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW; as well as master sommeliers Ronan Sayburn MS and Xavier Rousset MS, plus key contributors such as Anthony Rose and Decanter consultant editor Steven Spurrier.

Sarah Kemp, publishing director, said that she was proud of Decanter’s entrepreneurial heritage and that Decanter would continue to push boundaries internationally in the coming years, in digital and in print.

As well as the annual Decanter Fine Wine Encounter in London, next month will see the second Decanter Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter.

Kemp also thanked the wine sponsors for the evening, Champagne Gosset and Louis Latour Agencies, plus regular Decanter sponsors Belu Water and wine glass maker Riedel.

To celebrate 40 years of Decanter, 40 of our staff and contributors have chosen their favourite wine of 2015. Here our contributors give their pick.

The wines below have been chosen as part of Decanter’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

Richard Baudains

Based in Friuli Venezia Giuliam and has written on Italy for Decanter since 1989

Aquila del Torre, Oasi, Friuli Colli Orientali, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy 2013

The Oasi vineyard is stunning – possibly the most beautiful in the whole of Friuli Venezia Giulia. This wine is made from Picolit, an impossible variety. In a good year it might make 10, perhaps 12 berries in a bunch: small round, translucent gold. In this vintage Aquila del Torre made two barriques of a wine which is dry, yet not dry; sweet, delicate but firm with an exquisitely nuanced complexity.

Drink 2015-2025

Alc 12.5%

Price £58.93 (2010) Hedonism

Ch’ng Poh Tiong

Decanter’s Asia correspondent and publisher of Singapore’s The Wine Review

Quinta do Noval, Douro, Portugal 2004

Intensely liquorice, juicy cherries, plums and the perfume of a garrigue shrubland. Rich and full bodied without being heavy. That is the grace and genius of a great terroir. The stubborn freshness keeps stalking the opulent fruit. Produced from specially selected parcels of new and mature vines of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cão and Touriga Franca. About 1,000 cases are made annually and, since that first vintage, only 2006 was not produced. Incredibly, it took Quinta do Noval almost 300 years after its founding in 1715 to realise it was capable of producing such an impressive table wine. Better late than never!

Drink 2015-2035

Alc 14%

Price £30 (2008) Berry Bros & Rudd, Milroys of Soho, TheDrinkShop.com

Clive Coates MW

Author and Burgundy expert and has written for Decanter since its inception

Maison Ponsot, Le Montrachet, Burgundy, France 2010

In 2010 Laurent Ponsot of Domaine Ponsot in Morey-St-Denis managed to buy some Le Montrachet grapes. From this he made 388 bottles and 30 magnums. In June he brought a bottle to a dinner at Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne. The wine is amazing: the best white Burgundy I’ve had in a decade. Ripe but austere, delicate but powerful. Pure and marvellously harmonious. It will only be sold as part of a mixed case of 12 Ponsot grands crus and just 30 of these are destined for the UK.

Drink 2018-2028

Alc 13.5%

Price N/A UK www.domaine-ponsot.com

Huon Hooke

One of Australia’s leading wine critics and has been writing on wine since 1983

Cullen, Chardonnay, Margaret River, Western Australia 2002

I last tasted this four years ago and it hasn’t tired at all since then. It was served at my wine club’s annual Classic Aussie wine dinner and voted by many as wine of the night. The bouquet is a riot of honey, roasted hazelnut, buttered toast and creamy yeast. A complex, voluptuous, mature wine with wonderful flavour and superb texture. Nothing anorexic here: it’s full-throttle yet retains refinement and real energy.

Drink 2015-2017

Alc 14%

Price £49.75 Exel Wines

Anthony Rose

Regular Decanter contributor, newspaper wine columnist and lecturer

Alheit Vineyards, Cartology, Western Cape, South Africa 2013

Sourced by Chris and Suzaan Alheit, this is a remarkable, youthful Cape blend of rare, dryland bush-vine Chenin Blanc from Skurfberg, Perdeberg, Bottelary Hills and Kasteelberg with 12% very old-vine Semillon from Franschhoek. Subtly herb- and honeysuckle-scented, there’s a honeyed note to its complex, opulent quince, pear and stone-fruit richness which is tempered by a mouthwateringly long, dry finish.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 14%

Price £25-£31 AC Gallie, H2Vin, Handford, Harrogate Fine Wine, Hedonism, Love Wine, SA Wines Online, St Andrews Wine Co, Swig, The Secret Cellar, Woodwinters

Margaret Rand

Regular Decanter contributor and award-winning wine writer

Schloss Gobelsburg, Riesling Ried Heiligenstein Erste Lage, Kamptal, Austria 2013

Heiligenstein is a geological oddity, different to its surroundings and apparently unique in Europe; it’s one of those rare terroirs that unmistakably marks its wines. Riesling grows on the dry, rocky, upper terraces, and Gobelsburg’s winemaking brings out all the austere purity, the saltiness, tension and limpidity of the site. Imagine a filigree laser beam.

Drink 2015-2040

Alc 13.5%

Price POA Clark Foyster

Tyson Stelzer

Awarded Australian wine writer, judge and author of 14 books on wine

Penfolds, Bin 95 Grange, South Australia 2010

The 60th release of Australia’s most famous wine ranks in the highest echelons of the greatest vintages of this illustrious label – the first current-release Australian table wine that I have scored 100 points. It’s testimony not only to an idyllic season but to Penfolds’ vast vineyard resources and exacting attention to every detail. This company is at the top of its game, producing wines the likes of which we have not seen since the heady days of Grange creator Max Schubert himself.

Drink 2030-2060

Alc 14.5%

Price £390-£500 Berry Bros & Rudd, Bordeaux Index, Cadman, Edgmond, Frazier’s, Harrods, Hedonism, Laithwaite’s, Millésima, ND John

Carla Capalbo

Food, wine and travel writer and photographer

Nikoladzeebis Marani, Tsolikouri Nakhshirgele, Imereti, Georgia 2013

I love wines that make you question the status quo. This beautiful, amber-coloured white is made – as many of Georgia’s best wines are – in qvevri (large traditional clay vessels buried in the ground). Ramaz Nicoladze produces it from 100-year-old Tsolikouri vines in the Imereti hills of central Georgia, with three months of stem-free skin contact. The wine’s exotic notes of spice, apricots and tea ride with exciting energy to a finely tannic, elegant finale and go just wonderfully with foo.

Drink 2015-2017

Alc 13%

Price POA Georgian Wine Merchants

Tim Atkin MW

Awarded writer and photographer and a leading critic on South African wine

Mullineux, Olerasay, Swartland, South Africa NV

South Africa’s sweet wines are massively underrated, but this new solera-system straw wine from Chris and Andrea Mullineux may change all that. I was the first journalist to taste this sticky beauty at the winery in May and it is a revelation. It’s a blend of seven vintages of Mullineux Straw Wine, made from Swartland Chenin Blanc. Rich and exotic, with notes of pineapple, burnt toffee and peach, it’s viscous and sweet at 260g/l of residual sugar, yet still supremely refreshing.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 11%

Price £28-£30/375ml Handford, Swig, Vin Cognito

Linda Murphy

Long-time contributor to Decanter based in California

Burn Cottage Vineyard, Pinot Noir, Central Otago, New Zealand 2013

A visit to new Zealand culminated in dinner in Queenstown. There, this wine – a collaboration between Colorado wine retailer Marquis Sauvage and Californian Pinot savant Ted Lemon, hit on all notes: plump black fruit, spice, suave tannins, seamless and with scintillating acidity. I can still taste it.

Drink 2015-2025

Alc 13.6%

Price £40-£64 AG Wines, D&D, Exel Wines, Handford, Harvey Nichols, Hedonism, Noel Young, The New Zealand Cellar, Vin Cognito

See also: Favourite wines of 2015 picked by Decanter staff, Decanter contributing editors and Decanter World Wine Awards judges.

As part of the Back to the Future day fun, here is what Decanter contributors from two decades ago predicted would be happening in major wine regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy by 2015. Were they right? Judge for yourself below.

It’s Back to the Future day – a reference to the second instalment of the Steven Spielberg trilogy that pictured a world of hoverboards and micro meals by 21 October 2015.

In the spirit of predicting the future, here is what Decanter contributors of 1995 thought the wine world would look like in 2015 – published in the November issue of Decanter magazine as part of our 40th anniversary coverage.

This is what our contributors thought would happen in some of the world’s classic wine regions.

Back to the future in wine:

Bordeaux:

Increased planting of Merlot, and vinification to obtain more evident fruit in all wines. The cult of the famous consultant winemaker will continue – ‘it is so well established that it seems likely that the winemaker’s name will appear in large letters on the label well before 2015,’ predicted Bill Bolter.

A reduction in the amount of white wine made, and the planting of red grapes.

• READ: Bordeaux’s phantom white wines

Burgundy:

Vineyard ownership will change, especially in the Côte d’Or, becoming concentrated in fewer hands. The grander négociants will increasingly source their needs as much as possible from their own vineyards, becoming more like an outsize domaine than a négociant.

• READ: LVMH Burgundy buy prompts concern among growers

The next generation of growers may curse their predecessors, who grubbed up Pinot Noir in the 1980s to plant Chardonnay in unsuitable sites, especially in the lesser villages.

South of France:

Vin de Table is certain to become history by 2015. In its place, AC wines based on Mediterranean varieties will increase. The Vin de Pays category will surge.

In terms of surface area and number of growers, the south will decline by a third.

• READ: Five great value Saint-Chinian wines to try

Italy:

The south of Italy will change almost beyond recognition, moving away from bulk wine or industrial production towards a relatively small-producer situation.

Changes in northern Italy will be less marked. Marchese Piero Antinori made the following prediction:

‘At present, super-premium Chianti represents a small part of the total production of the area. Over the next 20 years, this situation is likely to reverse and the quality and style of super-premium Chianti will prevail.’

• READ: Does Chianti wine have an image problem?

Portugal:

The traditional regions in the north – Dão and Bairrada in particular – will be making outstanding wines.

And by then, even the most conservative of Port shippers will have been forced to look closely into the production of table wine. The Port shippers will have also developed new Port styles – or at least new names – to replace the likes of vintage character and LBV.

Vintage Port will be challenged for supremacy by single quintas and we could be on the point of formulating Port ‘classed growths’.

USA:

Slow but steady erosion of middle-class buying power will mean a stable market for California’s luxury wines, an enlarged one for commodity wines, and a loss of share for mid-range producers.

University of California researchers will have produced yeasts giving lower alcohols from fully ripe, flavoursome grapes. Washington State Semillon will have doubled its audience, as will New York State Riesling.

• READ: US tops wine consumption league
• READ: US Finger Lakes could rival Mosel, says Paul Hobbs
• SEE: All Decanter 40th anniversary coverage

See below all of the answers to our magazine covers quiz, as part of celebrations to mark 40 years of Decanter. How many years did you guess correctly? And are you surprised by any of the results?

If you are yet to take the 40 years of Decanter covers quiz, take it here before you see the answers!

Delving through the archives, publishing director Sarah Kemp describes Decanter's early years and portrays how two polar opposites joined forces to launch the magazine in 1975.

A momentous year, 1975: the fall of Saigon; Franco’s death; North Sea oil; the UK votes Yes in the EEC referendum; David Beckham is born.

Of equal significance for wine lovers the world over, it was also the year that saw the very first issue of Decanter.

It was the brainchild of Colin Parnell and Tony Lord, two of the most unlikely magazine entrepreneurs Britain has ever seen.

Parnell was editing the wine trade magazine Wine & Spirit when he and his deputy, Lord – a young Australian journalist and wine enthusiast – spotted a gap in the market for a wine magazine for consumers.

• SEE: The Decanter timeline

As he wrote many years later in Decanter: ‘It soon became clear to the two of us as we wrote about comings and goings in the international wine trade, features on gin, vodka and the new sensation of tequila, that there was no lively magazine for wine lovers.

‘Rather than work for the rest of our lives for someone else… we decided to do our own

thing and launch our own magazine.’ Parnell was bookish; a talented musician who loved jazz and opera, and somewhat at sea in the new world of securing funding.

‘The banks wouldn’t lend us money, and without funds we could do nothing. But fate stepped in with Luis Gordon, whose family company, Luis Gordon & Sons, had the highly successful Domecq sherry agency for Britain since around World War I.’

Gordon bankrolled the first three issues’ printing bill and Decanter, a name nobody particularly liked, was launched.

If Parnell was an intellectual Bordeaux lover, Lord was his polar opposite. A hard-drinking, talented but tortured Australian, his blunt (to say the least) language and chain-smoking were legendary.

The two managed to work together, but would rarely spend time in each other’s company.

Lord would bash out articles on an old typewriter and then – ashtray full by 11am – head off for lunch (or, as he preferred to call it, ‘product familiarisation’.)

It was Lord’s enthusiasm for the wine world outside France that gave Decanter its international flavour. He was the author of the first guide to Australian wines, which was used by the Masters of Wine on their first trip to the country.

Spain, California, South Africa and ‘Latin America’ were his areas of expertise, while Parnell was happiest interviewing Bordeaux grandees and reporting on the misdemeanours of failing wine companies.

They shared one common fear: each dreaded the thought of the other turning up on his patch.

The first issue of Decanter, for the modest sum of 40p or 12 issues for £6 a year, had the cover line ‘How to buy Bordeaux and keep your bank manager happy’, along with ‘Confessions of a Lady Wine Bar Proprietress’.

In 1977, Michael Broadbent, head of Christie’s wine department, wrote his first column – on vintage Port. His column lasted for more than 35 years, becoming an industry institution.

Other early contributors included Bordeaux experts Edmund Penning-Rowsell and David Peppercorn MW, Serena Sutcliffe MW and Clive Coates MW; the latter still writes for the magazine today.

From the start, readers came from all corners of the globe, including a certain A Hitchcock from Hollywood and Roald Dahl from Great Missenden.

• Look out for the second part of the Decanter story, starting in 1985, on Sunday 11 October.
• Subscribe to Decanter magazine now and own the 40th anniversary issue

To celebrate 40 years of Decanter, 40 of our staff and contributors have chosen their favourite wine of 2015. Here our contributing editors give their pick.

The wines below have been chosen as part of Decanter’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

Brian St Pierre

Decanter contributing editor and restaurant reviewer

Ridge, Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, Santa Cruz, California, USA 2011

A trip to California was bookended by two ‘clash of the titans’ tastings – bold and brawny Zinfandels, and handsome but overbearing Cabernet Sauvignon. In between, and startling, was Ridge’s 2011 Estate Cabernet, the junior sibling to the esteemed Monte Bello. Startling because it was an anomaly – elegant, vibrant and engaging, firm but not obdurate, its modulated oak a grace note, persistently but lightly lingering on the palate then, and still in memory now. Perfect with our dinner, and a reminder of Cabernet’s many charms.

Drink 2015-2021

Alc 13.5%

Price £40-£43 Berry Bros & Rudd, Selfridges, Vin Cognito, Wholefoods

Fiona Beckett

Decanter contributing editor who specialises in food and wine matching

Domaine Lucci, Wildman Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills, South Australia 2010

With its handmade, childish label set at a rakish angle this is probably the bottle classic wine lovers would be least likely to pick up. Its cloudy, unfiltered contents, too, may look alarming but be brave! The delicate sweet fruit and seductively silky texture of this utterly unconventional Australian Pinot is sublime. All the thrill of a great Burgundy without the price-tag. Drink with duck or calves liver and sage.

Drink 2015-2016

Alc 13.8%

Price £25-£32 Les Caves de Pyrène, Ministry of Drinks, Wine Bear

Ian D’Agata 

Decanter contributor, award- winning author, writer and judge

Domaine Weinbach, Sylvaner, Alsace, France 2014

Many great wines require mogul bank accounts; yet a wine that sent shivers down my spine this year will cost you only £15. Domaine Weinbach in Alsace has been making Sylvaner from its walled Clos des Capucins vineyard for almost 50 years: the 2014 is an absolute gem. Taut, mineral and pure, it’s not just everything a great Sylvaner ought to be, but it’s also very faithful to the grape variety. Colette Faller, owner of Domaine Weinbach, passed away this year. One sip of this wine won’t make you forget Poggio di Sotto’s 2010 Brunello di Montalcino or the 2014 Château d’Yquem, but it will bring a smile to your face and keep Faller’s memory alive. Therein lies wine’s magic.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 13%

Price £15 Justerini & Brooks

Stephen Brook

Writer and author and Decanter contributing editor since 1996

Stadlmann, Zierfandler Mandel-Höh Trockenbeerenauslese, Thermenregion, Austria 2009

A true rarity, as only 82ha of Zierfandler remain, almost all in Austria. This TBA concentrates its essence. Aromas of oranges and caramel, and then a magical interplay of sweetness and high acidity, a silky texture, intense, grip and amazing length.

Drink 2015-2030

Alc 9%

Price N/A UK www.stadlmann-wein.at

James Lawther MW

Decanter contributing editor, author, lecturer and tour guide based in Bordeaux

Domaine Louis-Claude Desvignes, Les Impénitents, Morgon, Beaujolais, France 2013

A truly distinctive wine produced from 100-year-old Gamay grown in the Javernières section of the Côte du Py in Morgon (granite, clay and manganese soil). It has astonishing density and clarity of fruit, as well as incredible finesse. Smooth but powerful tannins and great vibrancy make it an extraordinary wine. Only 4,000 bottles were produced.

Drink 2016-2023

Alc 13%

Price £18.95 Berry Bros & Rudd

• SEE: Decanter staff pick their favourite wines of 2015 so far

Inside the 40th Anniversary Special issue: The Decanter story and best writings, heart-stopping wines and an interview with Frederic Rouzaud.

• The Decanter story: Sarah Kemp rccalls the people and events that have shaped the magazine since 1975
• Best Decanter writing: A selection of the finest excerpts, selected from hundreds of our past issues
• Heart-stopping wines: 40 of our resident experts name the single wine that has thrilled them most this year
• Hugh Johnson: 40 years of wine travel: Four decades of gastronomic highlights from the long-standing Decanter columnist
• Best cartoons: A selection of the wittiest cartoons by Robert Thompson
• Impeccable service: Three of the world’s most famous maitre d’s relate the best and worst moments in their careers to Elin McCoy
• Interview: Frederic Rouzaud: Jane Anson meets the seventh-generation head of Champagne Louis Roederer
• Vintage report: Barolo & Barbaresco: Ian D’Agata finds much to recommend in Barolo 2011 and Barbaresco 2012
• Producer Profile: Suertes del Marques: Tom Cannavan discovers wines like no other, grown on the volcanic soils of Tenerife
• Cellaring wisdom: Jane Anson shares expert advice on developing, storing and consuming a well balanced wine collection
• Decanter Retailer of the Year Awards
• New Zealand Syrah and Priorat panel tastings
• Expert’s choice: Pessac-Leognan 2012 reds
• Travel: Ventoux: Mary Dowey takes us on a tour of this Provencal terrain

Coverage, quotes and archive material in the 40th anniversary edition of Decanter magazine.

Delving through the archives, publishing director Sarah Kemp describes Decanter’s early years and portrays how two polar opposites joined forces to launch the magazine in 1975.

To celebrate 40 years of Decanter, 40 of our staff and contributors have chosen their favourite wine of 2015. Here our staff and columnists give their pick.

John Stimpfig

Decanter’s content director and has 20 years’ experience writing about wine.

Achaval Ferrer, Finca Altamira, Malbec, La Consulta, Mendoza, Argentina 2008

Achaval Ferrer’s sumptuously elegant Malbecs are always love at first sip. But the one that completely blows me away is this 2008 Finca Altamira, first tasted at the winery in Mendoza. It has a gloriously intense, thrillingly hedonistic nose. Ditto the vibrant, fruit-soaked palate – think violets, graphite, ink, damsons and just-picked raspberries cosseted in cashmere tannins. And yet so savoury, long, balanced, complex and sophisticated. For me, this really has the ‘phwoar factor’ of pure spellbinding pleasure.

Drink 2015-2025

Alc 14.5%

Price £59-£80 Corney & Barrow, Harvey Nichols, Vin Cognito

• See the full list of recommended wines from 40 Decanter experts in the November issue of Decanter, on sale now. Subscribe to Decanter here.
  

Sarah Kemp

Decanter’s publishing director who joined the magazine in 1985.

Descendientes de J Palacios, La Faraona, Bierzo, Spain 2010

I was looking forward to tasting the famed L’Ermita at Alvaro Palacios’s Decanter Man of the Year celebration dinner in March this year, but the wine which simply astounded me was one I knew little about – La Faraona 2010, made with his nephew Ricardo in Bierzo under the Descendientes de J Palacios label. It was simply the most exciting wine I have tasted for years. With its layers upon layers of swirling dark brooding fruit, it was full-throttled wine drama; the spirit of Spain captured in a bottle. I wanted to get up from the table and drive to the vineyard, such was its power. Sadly, very little is made. Unforgettable.

Drink 2015-2025

Alc 14.5%

Price £550 Fields Morris & Verdin

Tina Gellie

Decanter’s associate editor and has worked in wine for 12 years.

Gábor Kerner, Birtokbor Kekfrankos, Szücsi, Matra, Hungary 2012

Optimistically, I’d like to think that I haven’t yet had my most exciting wine discovery of 2015. Until then, this is a strong contender. From self-taught former drummer Gábor Kerner, this entry-level first vintage of Kekfrankos is a stunner. Beautiful purity of fresh cherry fruit, minerals from the 2ha of volcanic slopes and a violet lift, it is as elegant and complex as many a Pinot Noir for far less money. Only 1,000 bottles were made but the second vintage (available soon) promises to be even better. Try it with Thai barbecue chicken wings and smoked aubergines.

Drink 2015-2018

Alc 12.5%

Price £17 (2013) The Winemakers Club

Christelle Guibert

Decanter’s tastings director and has worked in wine for more than 20 years.

Foradori, Sgarzon, Vigneti delle Dolomiti, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy 2012

While this Italian region was embracing international grape varieties, Elisabetta Foradori re-established the local, undervalued Teroldego grape to its full splendour. From a cool-climate single vineyard, the wine is fermented and aged in amphorae. Essence of violet with pure red fruit expression comes to mind with an unusual freshness and an impeccable balance. The firm structure is supported by polished tannins and a length that goes on forever. Foradori’s wines are a reflection of Elisabetta’s personality: graceful, intellectual and with steely energy.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 12.5%

Price £26.33-£29.25 AG Wines, Bat & Bottle, Exel Wines, Les Caves de Pyrène

Amy Wislocki 

Decanter’s managing editor who joined the magazine as editor in 2000.

Ventisquero, Tara White Wine 1, Huasco, Atacama, Chile 2013

Made from vines planted bravely in Chile’s Atacama desert, this is a Chardonnay like no other, and is the perfect illustration of how wines made in the most marginal climates are often the most thrilling. Unfiltered, and so hazy in the glass, this has an incredible minerality, an almost chalky texture, apple and white fruit flavours and vibrant acidity. Only 2,100 bottles were made in this vintage.

Drink 2015-2022

Alc 12.8%

Price £36.95-£40 Handford, Hedonism, Solent Cellar, The Wine Treasury

Michael Broadbent

Former senior director of Christie’s Wine department and wrote 433 columns for Decanter before retiring in 2011.

Berry Bros & Rudd, William Pickering 20 Year Old Tawny, Douro, Portugal NV

The exquisitely slow movement of Beethoven’s 7th, played by the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, was enhanced by the perfect acoustics of the Anvil, Basingstoke’s concert hall. Back to the cottage in a euphoric haze for a light supper. The cheese, a fully ripe Wigmore – the languid ooze of its sagging belly awaiting to be spooned onto biscuits. And with it, this 20 Year Old Tawny made by Quinta do Noval for London’s oldest wine merchant: rich and gentle with persuasive scent and taste. A truly harmonious combination to end a delightful evening.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 20%

Price £26.95 Berry Bros & Rudd

Andrew Jefford

Contributing editor and awarded columnist for Decanter and Decanter.com.

Quinta do Vale Meão, Monte Meão, Douro Superior, Douro, Portugal 2012

Pure Touriga Nacional, grown not on schist-derived soils, but on granitic soils (Vale Meão has both). It’s a kind of Hermitage of the Douro: fine-grained, perfumed, almost smoky. The wine is concentrated, athletic, lynx-like; graceful yet somehow daring, too. The combination of stoniness and perfume is irresistible.

Drink 2016-2026

Alc 14%

Price £44 D Byrne, Hangingditch, Harvey Nichols, The Vineyard (Ramsbottom)

Hugh Johnson OBE

World-renowned wine writer whose first Decanter column appeared in 1992.

Weingut Dönnhoff, Roxheimer Hollenpfad Riesling Trocken, Nahe, Germany 2013

A model dry Riesling, dense and savoury, animated a dinner party with a crab soufflé. Donnhoff always convinces sceptics.

Drink 2015-2017

Alc 12%

Price £16.67(ib)-£24.20 ABS Wine Agencies, Armit Wines, Berry Bros & Rudd, H2Vin, Hawkshead Wines, Justerini & Brooks, Slurp

Steven Spurrier

Decanter’s consultant editor and chair man of the Decanter World Wine Awards.

Château Margaux, Margaux, Bordeaux, France 1985

On 14 June this year, Corinne Mentzelopoulus received 480 guests to celebrate Margaux’s new cellars and vineyard buildings created by architect Lord Norman Foster exactly 200 years after the completion of the château itself. This wine was served with the cheese, and I noted: ‘Extraordinary fragrance, richness of texture, elegance and class. A great wine, the epitome of Margaux.’ Hard to imagine a finer wine, in a finer setting.

Drink 2015-2035

Alc 12.5%

Price

Jane Anson

Decanter contributing editor, Bordeaux correspondent and columnist.

Château Pibarnon, Bandol, Provence, France 2000

An excellent example of how we can underestimate Bandol’s capacity to age; the gourmet side of older Mourvèdre is beautifully evident here – Havana cigars, liquorice, tar, then after a few minutes soft red fruits and strawberry conserve.

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 13%

Price POA Millésima

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As Decanter celebrates 40 years of fine wine, see the key moments of Decanter's history and expansion over the years...

A brief history of Decanter 1975 – 2015

1975 Decanter is launched by Colin Parnell and Tony Lord

1977 Michael Broadbent writes his first column on vintage Port

1978 Decanter holds the first blind tasting of its type in the media: red wines under £1.50

1984 The first Decanter Man of the Year award is given to Serge Hochar of Chateau Musar in Lebanon

1989 The first Sunday Times/Decanter Wine Show is held

1992 Hugh Johnson pens his first column

1993 Steven Spurrier joins Decanter as consultant editor

1996 Colin Parnell steps down and Sarah Kemp takes over as publishing director

1997 The first Decanter Fine Wine Encounter is held

2000 Decanter.com is launched

2004 The first Decanter World Wine Awards are held (below)

2012 The Decanter Asia Wine Awards and Decanterchina.com are launched

2014 The first Decanter Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter is held

The great and the good from the international fine wine world congregated at Le Gavroche in London yesterday for the first of several celebrations for Decanter's 40th anniversary.

Guests for the first of the Decanter 40th anniversary celebration, included Marchese Piero Antinori of Antinori wines, Frederic Rouzaud of Champagne Louis Roederer, Christophe Salin of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Peter Gago of Penfolds, Philippe Sereys de Rothschild of Mouton Rothschild, Olivier Krug of Champagne Krug, Angelo Gaja of Gaja Winery, Olivier Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier, Nicolas Catena of Argentina’s Catena, Gerard Basset MW MS OBE, Pablo Alvarez Mezquiriz of Vega Sicilia, Paul Symington of Symington Family Estates, Eduardo Chadwick of Errázuriz, Georg Riedel of the Riedel wine glass producer and Mauricio Gonzalez-Gordon of Gonzalez Byass – to name but a few of the 80 attending glitterati, many of whom had flown in specially to be present.

Decanter writers were also out in force, including Michael Broadbent, Hugh Johnson OBE, Andrew Jefford, Steven Spurrier, Sarah Jane Evans MW and Stephen Brook – and many other regular contributors.

• SEE: Photos of the Decanter 40th anniversary lunch Le Gavroche

Chef Michel Roux Jr talked guests through a carefully prepared special menu to go with the celebratory wines.

The wines served included Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2006, Penfolds Yattarna 2008, Isole e Olena’s Cepparello 2006, Chateau Montrose 1975 in magnum, Chateau Coutet 2009 and a special ‘Decanter’ bottling of Taylor’s 40 Year Old Tawny Port.

All producers of the wines were present – including Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, Aline Baly of Chateau Coutet, Herve Berland of Chateau Montrose and Adrian Bridge of Taylor’s. Paolo de Marchi of Isole e Olena was unfortunately unable to fly due to bad weather.

Speaking at the lunch, Decanter’s publishing director, Sarah Kemp told guests, ‘Each of you has played a significant part in Decanter’s history, and we also must thank you for that.’

She added, ‘Decanter, from the beginning, has sought to bring together the most authoritative an entertaining writers on wine.

She paid special tribute to two ‘titans of the wine world’, retired columnist Michael Broadbent and also Hugh Johnson OBE.

‘From them we learnt that it is the pleasure that wine gives that is the most important thing.’

Decanter’s commemorative 40th anniversary issue will be on sale on 7 October.

See the highlights from the Decanter 40th anniversary lunch at Le Gavroche, the first of the anniversary celebrations.

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• READ: Wine world stars join Decanter 40th anniversary celebrations

There is real charm in re-tasting what was arguably the last good vintage made in the old style, and Bordeaux 1975 is not as difficult as you would think to get hold of, says Jane Anson.

This Bordeaux 1975 tasting, done to coincide with Decanter’s 40th anniversary, is a look at how classic old school Bordeaux can age. I suggest opening the bottles just a short time before drinking to preserve the delicate aromas.

Château Gloria AOC Saint Julien 1975 – 88 points, Drink now.

Founded by Jean-Louis Triaud’s father-in-law Henri Martin in 1943, making it a relative newcomer for Bordeaux. In 1975, Triaud had just married Martin’s daughter and just finished a year of learning the winemaking ropes at Château Latour, where Martin was co-director. Unlike Latour, the Gloria wines were vinified in large oak vats, with no new oak (although Martin came from a family of coopers). At 40 years old, this has kept its colour remarkably well; there are still rich deep reds on display and a muted but clear fruit character on the nose. Cabernet sauvignon makes up just over half of the blend, with merlot, petit verdot and cabernet franc rounding things out. The tannins dry out towards the end of the palate, but this has retained the generous, smooth character typical of Gloria. 12.5% abv.

Château Ormes de Pez, AOC Saint Estephe 1975 – 89 points. Drink now.

This Jean-Michel Cazes owned property is a real surprise. Rich deep red in colour, fragrant and soft on the nose. On the palate things are not hugely intense or persistent, but still full of pleasure. The estate was using 10 year old oak barrels to age the wine in 1975. Small yields help concentrate flavours – Ormes de Pez had 44% less merlot than 1974 and 38% less cabernet sauvignon, giving 69% of the overall production of the year before. But significantly better quality, and a true pleasure to taste today. 12% abv.

Les Forts de Latour, AOC Pauillac 1975 – 90 points. Drink now.

The wines at Latour were being made by Jean-Paul Gardère and Henri Martin in 1975. This is hugely impressive for a second wine (the label made its first appearance in the 1960s but was only made every year from 1990). At 40 years old, this is beautifully rich, with deep black pepper spice and liquroice on display, excellent complexity and grip, with a surprisingly youthful lift on the finish. The financial means of the First Growths have an impact – they would have among the rare estates to be using new oak at the time according to Triaud. Very impressive, far more contemporary in flavor than the others here. 13% abv.

Chateau Lynch Bages AOC Pauillac 1975 (5th Growth) – 91 points. Drink 2015 – 2020 (in magnum).

Jean-Michel Cazes’ third vintage, and his records of the harvest note excellent weather conditions almost every day up in Pauillac. Harvest of merlot began at Lynch Bages on September 25 (it had been expected to start on the 29th until the rains fell) and lasted until October 12th ( a Sunday when Cazes described the fermentations as going ‘very very well’). Only one or two vats needed chaptilisation because natural sugar levels were so high. On the nose, a touch of band aid suggests brett, but this soon clears and the wine is full of life. Tomato leaf on the attack, the mid palate has a seam of cassis and there is lovely menthol on the finish. This tasting was in bottle, and I followed it with a tasting from magnum a week later. The magnum had held up far better, with rich dark fruit flavours still abundant. 12.5% abv.

 Château Beychevelle AOC Saint Julien 1975 (4th Growth) – 88 points. Drink now.

The wine was aged in cement tanks in the 1970s, again with no new oak. This has maintained an excellent depth of colour, and has aged gracefully. There is a touch of menthol on the finish, and overall this is one of the most delicate of this lineup. A lovely, classic claret, very much of its age and appellation. It will have benefited from greater selection in 1975, as the second wine Amiral de Beychevelle was created in 1974. As an aside, owner Archille-Fould gave another interesting gift to the Médoc besides this delicious wine – he was the French Postmaster General and in the mid 1970s moved the phone book printing facility from Paris to Saint-Laurent-Médoc, creating 300 jobs. 12% abv.

Château Ducru Beaucaillou AOC Saint Julien (2nd Growth) – 90 points. Drink now.

Good nose, lovely clean fruit; an excellent wine that is holding up extremely well, although as with all of these it is fully in its drinking window, and should be enjoyed soon. This was aged in both cement vats and oak barrels. Ducru was owned by the Borie family in 1975, as it is today, but as they had not yet bought Grand Puy Lacoste (1978), both Jean-Eugène Borie and his son François Xavier were making the wine here in Saint Julien (although François-Xavier would not join full time until 1978). An estate that often takes a long time to soften, even in more celebrated vintages, this really showcases its potential to hold steady and reward long ageing. 12.5% abv.

Château Latour AOC Pauillac (1st Growth) – 93 points. Drink 2015 – 2025.

Excellent, the standout wine of this lineup; hugely soft tannins and evident purity and integrity in the soft autumnal fruits, given extra complexity by notes of pencil lead and soft leather with crème de cassis on the finish. As with Les Forts de Latour, the wine would have been aged in new oak barrels, at least in part, and that has had an impact on how well it has aged. Henri Martin commented on September 26, as harvest was beginning, that the health of the grapes was superb, but that he felt the colour in the skins was a little lacking. He might have been pleasantly surprised by how well the colour has stood up to four decades of ageing, as this is one of the darkest and most complete on display. In the perfect window for drinking now, but honestly there is still no rush to consume. 12.5% abv.

Château Haut-Brion AOC Graves (1st Growth) – 92 points. Drink 2015 – 2023.

Note that this was Graves in 1975, as Pessac Léognan appellation was not created until 1987. I tasted this separately from the others in this lineup at Haut-Brion with Jean-Bernard Delmas, who was making the wine at the time. This has walnut-edged tones to the colour, and is surprisingly dark. The nose is fragrant, violet-laced, full of classic Haut-Brion markers of leather, tobacco, woodsmoke, saffron, with a subtle smoky edge of grilled fig jam. A fascinating wine to look at in comparison to the Médocs also. Money may have been tight for most of the other estates, but at Haut-Brion the American Dillon family was continuing to inves, meaning new oak and stainless steel vats. And where malolactic was just getting started at many Médoc estates, Haut-Brion had been regularly practicing this secondary fermentation since 1962. The estate’s proximity and close relations with the school of oenology – and Emile Peynaud – will have played its part here. Delmas said this was tasting ‘infinitely better than 10 years ago’. A silky, caressing and terribly charming wine. 12.5% abv.

Château d’Yquem AOC Sauternes 1975 (1st Growth) – 96 points. Drink 2015 – 2030.

Noted as a standout at the time of harvest, and still holding up incredibly well. This beautiful wine remains rich, luscious and truly of excellent quality. Tiny yields of perhaps 8hl/h, it is displaying notes of orange peel, orange rind, caramel, white truffle, with a dry finish. This is silky smooth and utterly gorgeous, with clear spiciness underpinning the fruit, and a wonderful lift of acidity. This can easily last another few decades, and offers huge pleasure (and has done on several occasions when I have tasted it, suggested consistency). Run by Alexandre de Lur Saluces at the time. 13% abv.

One of South Africa's foremost wine producers, Kanonkop, came close to remembering a 40th anniversary for all the wrong reasons after a fire ripped through the estate's offices and tasting room.

The fire broke out last Saturday and came as the Simonsberg, Stellenbosch-based estate prepared to mark the 40th anniversary of its first commercial bottling with a new limited edition wine.

An electrical fault in one of the offices is believed to have started the blaze. Flames destroyed the winery’s tasting room and several offices, but did not reach the estate’s wine before the alarm was raised.

‘Fortunately, we were on site,’ said Johan Krige, co-owner of the fourth-generation Kanonkop Wine Estate, inbetween helping clear debris.

‘It’s business as usual,’ he told decanter.com. But, he added it could take up to three months to get ‘everything up and running again’. The group has a makeshift tasting room in its Paul Sauer Cellar. There is no damage cost estimate as yet.

This week, Kanonkop released its Paul Sauer 40 wine, a Bordeaux blend from the 2007 vintage and priced at ZAR730 (US$72) per bottle, ex-estate and including value added tax. Only 500 bottles have been produced to mark 40 years since Paul Sauer oversaw the estate’s first commercial bottling in 1973.

That bottling was a Cabernet Sauvignon, but Kanonkop has become known as a pioneer of Pinotage in South Africa. Prior to 1973, Kanonkop’s entire stock was sold in bulk to Stellenbosch Farmers Winery.

Written by Chris Mercer