Bordeaux Shipers

Bordeaux Shippers – French Wine Store

Bordeaux Shippers French wine store was established by me, John Baker to provide Australia with a reliable source of Bordeaux wines, in pristine condition. These wines have matured in cold European cellars and have impeccable provenance. My wine is exclusively souced in Europe however I have made my first exception with The Great Bordeaux Sale wine as this wine went from the Chateaux direct to Diageo and then directly to us. I am readily available to discuss Chateaux, vintage, style and details about any of my Bordeaux wines. 

My 25 years experience includes wine retailing, importing and vineyard management. Operating retail stores has been the largest part of my experience and includes building and establishing Quaffers at Double Bay, Sydney prior to the Vintage Cellars acquisition to be the flagship fine wine store of their group. Other stores include The Newport Bottler at Newport Beach, Grapefellas Epping and The Lambton Fridge at Newcastle. 

Condition of French Wine

At these stores I stocked considerable quantities of Bordeaux wines as I believe Bordeaux produces some of the finest and most engaging wines in the world. Through my stores I would conduct dinners and tastings but was often unconvinced of the condition of some of the Bordeaux that I was buying and selling. I felt that some should be brighter and fresher, as was the Bordeaux that I tasted in France which was often in much better condition than the same wines available in Australia.

This motivated me to investigate why. My wine shops were buying Bordeaux from the usual sources in Australia and this was often the problem. The wines were simply not in consistently first class condition and the provenance certainly could not be guaranteed.
The wines that I now source from cold European cellars and ship directly to professional wine storage in Sydney have proved to be of much better condition. They really ‘ping’ with freshness. As Hugh Johnson says in his new book, A Life Uncorked, ‘freshness is the touchstone of any good Bordeaux’.
Normally I purchase whole cases in their original wooden boxes. I focus on the good vintages from Chateaux which are performing well, and avoid wines that I feel are overpriced or where the Chateau is resting on past glories.

Provenance (super important)

"The fact of coming from some particular source or quarter; derivation" The Oxford English Dictionary.

A wine's jouney from the Chateau's cellars to where it is lying now, is the most important factor in the condition of a bottle. To drink a wine that is not close to 100% right, is akin to drinking a wine from a lesser producer. And in many cases a much lesser producer, or it may not taste like Bordeaux at all.

A perfect example was when a friend brought a bottle of 1990 Domaine de Chevalier that he had picked up online, to an options dinner. It was OK, a little tired, dusty, but no one present guessed it was Bordeaux. Only the week before I had tasted the same wine that I had imported from Bordeaux and the difference was staggering. My bottle was bright, fresh, structured with great persistence; a brilliant wine. Actually Domaine de Chevalier is the Chateau that I often give to friends who tell me that they only like Burgundy.

When you buy a fine wine whose provenance is assured you will enjoy it just as its Chateau intended. Without this assurance you may never be certain.

The much used expression ‘there are no great wines and no great vintages, only great bottles’ is of course about condition and provenance. Personally I don’t completely agree with this assertion as there are certainly reliable Chateaux and vintages as long as the source is very good.