With all the hype about the Bordeaux campaign to pre-selling their 2010 wines, it made me think: surely there are more affordable, just as age-worthy alternatives out there. Isole e Olena, Ceparello 2006 , about $60: I had the chance to try this wine at a tasting last year and thought it was terrific. American wine Bordeaux wine pick MORE >>

Jancis Robinson floated a novel idea on her website last week: what if critics, who descend on Bordeaux shortly to taste 2010 barrel samples, withheld their scores until the Bordeaux trade had finished their pre-sale campaign (known as en primeur )? Bordeaux wine writing MORE >>

Or if it will elicit as much of a yawn from buyers has it does from the online commentariat–after all, 20 wines had received scores as possible 100 pointers based on barrel tastings. The problem is that 2009 is the greatest vintage I have ever tasted in Bordeaux. BordeauxThe top scores are mind-numbing. Clinet. MORE >>

Over the past month, critics and wine trade buyers have been on the ground in Bordeaux, tasting the 2009 vintage before they go on pre-sale (as “futures&# ) in the coming months. In it, she expresses how difficult it is to taste unfinished wines, calling them “raw, hard, closed, astringent and achingly tannic.&# MORE >>

Hardy Wallace (above) dropped in on the en primeurs tastings and handed out his scores ranging from 101.00 Jancis Robinson provides a primer in the various ways that samples at the en primeurs tastings can be manipulated to show their best. Bordeaux tasting sized poursSIPPED: the zany. to 102.36 points in.17 Eater ]. MORE >>