Dear wine enthusiast,

As you probably know, Winemega's Contributors are at Bordeaux these days, all very busy tasting the 2005 wines. We are patiently waiting for their scores to be forwarded to us by the end of this month. Given the huge interest from an increasing number of our readers to receive Winemega's ratings summaries before ordering Bordeaux 2005 wine futures, we will ensure that the results of our calculations will be accessible to you from our search engine as soon as we have enough relevant results coming in. 

Our database will be continuously updated as we receive new scores of what is already largely considered as a new "vintage of the century". Our TOP 50, TOP Region and TOP Price/Quality will be will be brought up to date as soon as all our Contributor's scores are on line. Unfortunatly it is quite likely that the prices this year will increase significantly. However, to our knowledge, wineries from all areas of Bordeaux are presenting very successful wines this year and the good news is that there will be more great wines than usual hitting the market at fairly reasonable prices. We are sure that Winemega's TOP Price/Quality heading will be an extremely useful tool to our visitors this year as many wine lovers will be looking to purchase excellent and still affordable Bordeaux 2005 as the top growths will probably be out of reach of most budgets. To give you a better idea if it is worth ordering wine futures "en primeur", or not, Winemega.com informs you of the best buying strategies. While patiently waiting for the latest assessments on Bordeaux 2005, one can access to relevant information on this new vintage by reading the 2005 harvest reports by the most famous estates (Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, d'Yquem among others). 

Another breaking news this month is about our partnership with belmaati.com. Belmaati.com is a community of wine enthusiasts who provide tasting notes on the wines they drink. It's one of the most comprehensive and interesting databases of tasting notes on the internet. At more than 20,000 tasting notes on wines from all over the world, chances are you will easily find what you're looking for! You can search the tasting notes right here from the right hand side template. If you want to provide your own tasting notes to the database, don't hesitate to sign up at belmaati.com. It's totally free to use and free from advertisements. 

And because good news are never come alone, we are pleased to present a great review reported by Joe Belmaati about of a phenomenal 66 years vertical tasting of Chateau d'Yquem from 1847 to 2000!

 
We have issued a new heading about the growing phenomenon of wine blogs around the world. Our unique tool  keeps you constantly aware of any update within our selected group of wine blogs. If you spot other interesting wine blogs that may be worth entering our list, please do not hesitate to contact us! 

With our February update, as we hope to temper - even if it is only temporarily - your frantic fever for the coming Bordeaux 2005, we have published our News' page with all the rumours and gossips running recently around the vines at Bordeaux. 

In a few weeks, Alain will review a number of interesting Bordeaux 2003 after release. 2003 is quite atypical in the sense that the region experienced a serious heat wave and many vines suffered from hydric stress during that summer. Only 248 millimetres of rain were recorded between April and September. Therefore a selection of the soils that have suffered the less from the critical weather conditions are crucial before any purchase. To give you a better idea, please read the different 2003 harvest reports published by many key wineries at Bordeaux. 

Winemega also participates to several samplings. Therefore our reviews on Medoc 1994, Bordeaux 1999 (Mission Haut-Brion is a real beauty right now), Bordeaux 2000, Bordeaux 2001, Bordeaux 2002 or the stunning Sauternes-Barsac 1997 are very representative of our views. Panos Kakaviatos, a wine journalist (Decanter..), has written for us a very interesting review on a grand tasting at Saint Emilion. A portrait of Stephane Derenoncourt - the famous wine consultant (la Mondotte, von Neipperg estate..) or vertical tastings on Lynch-Bages or the giant event on Léoville las Cases will give you a precise picture of these famous estates.

Learn all the tips on becoming an excellent wine taster. We asked a pro, Lauriann Greene-Sollin, graduate of the prestigious University of Wine of Suze-la-Rousse in France and former Sommelier to explain the different steps to better approach and evaluate a wine. 

Lastly, we want to increase the interactivity between you and us! If you have interesting things to say on any subject related to Bordeaux wines or if you recently took part to a wine tasting (at least 10 wines), please don't hesitate to submit your article to us on our contact form. Of course we count on you that your text is well written. However, for copyright reasons, we will ask you to mention your sources, if any. We always reserve ourselves the right or not to publish your article. 

I wish you a pleasant stay on Winemega.com and don't hesitate to visit us frequently.

Evelyne Bringolf for Winemega.com

 The Letter of Mrs Winemega. Fev. 2006