Lille wins Left Bank Bordeaux Cup

The city of Lille has triumphed in the Left Bank Cup, a Bordeaux wine tasting competition sponsored by Decanter.

The finals, held at Chateau Lafite Rothschild last night, were won by EDHEC Lille, one of two participating business schools from the city.

With the other French team, Lille Centrale, finishing fourth, France felt it had laid some ghosts to rest after a poor performance last year, where its teams were placed seventh and eighth.

‘We were determined to redeem France’s reputation,’ Jean-Sebastien Philippe of EDHEC told Decanter.com.

Philippe, 22, has a 500 bottle wine cellar, and is working during his business course for LVMH, while his two teammates, Marianne Fisch and Pauline Paponneau, are also spending part of their business course working in wine and spirits companies.

The winning team was awarded double magnums each of Lafite Rothschild 2001, amongst other prizes.

The final consisted of three rounds of questions – one theory paper about the Left Bank wines of Bordeaux, and two rounds of tasting, one on red wines and one on sweet whites.

In winning order, the eight competing teams were: EDHEC Lille, Chicago Business School, Copenhagen Business School, Centrale Lille, City U Hong Kong, Wharton Business School, Oxford University and Jiao Tong University.

Lafite owner Baron Eric de Rothschild said, ‘It is my great pleasure to gather all these teams together, and to celebrate the pleasure that Bordeaux wine can bring. Everybody has shown an incredibly good knowledge of the wines, and I hope will leave with happy memories of what good wine should be about.’

This year’s cup, now in its 11th edition, was sponsored by Decanter for the first time.

Look through a gallery of pictures from this year’s Left Bank Bordeaux Cup final.