Wine of the week: a totally sublime claret

2004 Chteau La Haye, Cru Bourgeois, St-Estphe, Bordeaux, France (£13.95, Wine Society, 01438-741177).

I have been buying this wine for years, enjoying it at home and also listing it at Bibendum Restaurant in the strategic and well-priced', St-Estphe slot. It's pretty difficult to find claret these days with age, breeding, some sort of authenticity (ie, it tastes of where the property is situated) and value (often the missing link), and this pretty property always ticks the boxes.

The wondrous French term qualit-prix, literally quality price', means so much more than our clumsy word value, as it is at a high in this wine. I practically fell over at a Wine Society tasting last week when I revisited this beautiful 2004. I wondered whether this wine was discounted to welcome new wine buying supremo Tim Sykes (a terrific signing if ever there was one) into the company, but no. He told me, sotto voce, that it was bought en primeur', years ago, and presumably didn't sell at the time and we are now all winners, because it is ludicrously cheap and totally sublime.

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