Our Vintage 2000 March wine auction saw huge excitement as bidders competed to acquire bottles from a year where the growing conditions in the vineyards of Europe were every bit as auspicious as the magical new millennium numbers themselves. The core of our sale was Classed Growth Bordeaux and stellar Pomerols and St.Emilions from the temperature-controlled cellar of media businessman and wine enthusiast Lord Evgeny Lebedev, where all lots had been kept since purchase direct from UK importers, alongside fascinating lots from further afield.
Here are some of our favourites:
Full cases of ‘Super Second’ Chateaux Pichon Longueville Baron and Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, secured the highest bids, running virtually neck and neck, appropriately in a consistently excellent vintage where there was only a single ‘Parker point’ between them.
From the ‘right bank’ Chateaux, full case lots of St.Emilion’s Figeac and Pomerol’s Trotanoy vied for bidder interest, but it was perhaps a six pack of the Merlot-dominated Chateau L’Evangile, one of the great wines of the vintage that had us hooked.
Also on a Merlot-rich note, Italy’s top lot was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a three bottle lot of Ornellaia: always a decadent treat for connoisseurs and one of the original ‘Super Tuscans’.
Last but not least, we were delighted to have no fewer than five lots, three white and two red, to compare and contrast from the Cotes de Beaune’s Grand Cru Corton hillside: one of the world’s most celebrated and unique viticultural sites. Patrick Javillier’s Cuvee Speciale Corton Charlemagne was a definite highlight.
