Overall quality of the vintage: good. Wines now past their best.

Overall quality of the vintage: good.

Syrupy Bordeaux - 1933

So cloudy, it resembles the colour of cider; not many lines of bubbles, but fine and straight. Sipped aboard a pretty canal barge on a fine summer's day,  the Edmond Barnaut 100% Pinot Noir still had plenty of charm in 1999.

A suitable year, especially in the northern part, which gives very structured and long-lasting wines.

An acceptable year, especially in the northern sector, producing very structured and long-lasting wines.

Fairly successful.

Loire Wine - 1933

A great success throughout the region, with a special mention for Touraine and the Côteaux de Layon. From this last appellation, Château Montbenault in Faye-d'Anjou still offers a very complex nose even in 2001: grapes, prunes, vanilla, a touch of orange... In the mouth, this is supplemented by candied apricot and fairly strong alcohol. What balance for a wine that is almost seventy years old! "That year, we were the first to activate fermentation using braziers filled with coke," recalls Gaston Huet, whose first harvest in Vouvray dates back to 1929.