2005 Academy of Culinary Arts' Annual Awards of Excellence winners trip to Graves

The three top scorers in the 2005 Academy of Culinary Arts' Annual Awards of Excellence were rewarded with a trip to Graves to visit some of Bordeaux's finest wine producers. Fiona Sims went along

Oliver Bernard is a happy man. The owner of Domaine de Chevalier in the Graves region of Bordeaux is having a good year - along with everybody else here. Why? Well, the last vintage here was a cracker (you'll have to fork out more than £4,000 for a case of the 2005 from another Graves château, Haut-Brion). And this year is looking good, too.

We're in the Graves visiting its cru classé châteaux with the three highest scorers in the 2005 Academy of Culinary Arts' Annual Awards of Excellence. The visit is part of their prize for coming top of the class, and they are: Armand Sablon, junior sous chef at London's Galvin at Windows; pastry chef Frédéric Gaillard at Bagatelle, also in London; and Arnaud Menoret, front of house at Read's restaurant in Faversham, Kent.

The boys had flown out to Graves earlier and had already visited Château Pape-Clément, Malartic-Lagravière and Latour-Martillac - kept in check (spitting rather than swallowing) by the academy's chairman, John Williams, executive chef of the Ritz, London, and his fellow academy member, John Cousins, director of the Food and Beverage Training Company.

They were showing signs of post-lunch doziness when I met them for dinner at Domaine de Chevalier but Bernard woke them up with an eye-popping vertical tasting which included a 1966, something he started drinking only 10 years ago. "It was undrinkable for 20 years - a good, but difficult year," he shrugs, nonchalantly.

The conversation inevitably came around to the 2005 vintage and its pricing. "The crazy prices are all everyone has talked about this year. But you have to remember we're only talking 30 châteaux here - there were another 400 selling at more sensible prices," reminds Bernard, who believes that it was the best vintage he's ever seen.

Domaine de Chevalier is one of the few top properties in Bordeaux that doesn't call itself a château. It was originally made up of several different parcels of land that Bernard's family took over from Claude Ricard in 1983, and Bernard now has 35 hectares of red grapes and five hectares of white grapes. He is best known for the latter, producing just 1,500 cases.

Topping the 1966 was a difficult feat, but the next morning we checked out Smith Haut Lafitte with high hopes. Florence and Daniel Cathiard bought the run-down château in 1990 and set about renovating the place, opening their revolutionary hotel-spa, Les Sources de Caudalie (it's famous for a red wine barrel bath), in 1999.

The bath wasn't on offer, but their rich, nutty, 2000 vintage was - a Sauvignon Blanc with its "secret weapon" of 5% Sauvignon Gris and 5% Sémillon. "For a long time we thought it was the acidity that made the whites age so well here, but it's not, it's the concentration of fruit," Florence explains.

After another tongue-thrilling visit at the 50-hectare Château de Fieuzal, it was on to Couhins-Lurton to meet the formidable André Lurton, the driving force behind the creation of the Pessac-Léognan appellation (see panel, right) and the rumoured Graves reclassification - "coming soon", Lurton assures us.

He leased the property for many years before buying a part of the estate in 1992 (including the château and the cellars), which he now manages under the name of Couhins-Lurton. It's unique in that its six-hectare vineyard is planted exclusively with Sauvignon Blanc, which the boys gave a universal thumbs-up.

Château Couhins-Lurton is not to be confused with its neighbour, Château Couhins, the next winery that we visited. Owned by the French government-funded INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) since 1998, it produces a white Graves cru classé which comes in at a very reasonable €12 (£8) a bottle (excluding VAT).

Antony Perrin, the owner of Château Carbonnieux, thinks the tide is finally turning in favour of Bordeaux whites - especially for Pessac-Léognan. "Consumers are more aware of their ageing potential," he declares. Château Carbonnieux boasts the oldest continuous history of winemaking (there's a letter from Thomas Jefferson dated 1787 nailed to the cellar wall) and is the largest producer of classified white in the Graves. Carbonnieux's whites particularly impress with their flinty, quincey, orange blossom fruit.

But we've saved the best two visits for last. Château Haut-Bailly's story dates back to 1872 when it was bought by a viticulturist, Bellot des Minières, who coveted its 28-hectare gravelly vineyard situated on one of the highest ridges in the area. Now US-owned, it is managed by one of the original family owners, Veronique Sanders - the first female president of the Graves appellation, who produces some of Bordeaux's greatest red wines.

Working with top wine consultant Denis Dubourdieu, Sanders and her team turn out cracking Cabernet blends. We tasted the 2004 Haut-Bailly, which sold out in 20 minutes, and a barrel sample of the much-lauded 2005, with its intense, velvety, violet and rose petal fruit.

Where to start with our last visit? Château Haut-Brion was classified as a First Growth in the 1855 classification, its fame dating back to 1529. The turreted château itself was built in the 16th century, making it the oldest of the great châteaux in Bordeaux.

There's a collective dropping of jaws as we troop around the cellar where they are racking the wines - it takes them one month to do 800 barrels. "Jesus," chorus the boys when they clock a bottle of priceless 1848 among the cobwebs.

We content ourselves with the 1999 - about €180 (£120) in a Bordeaux wine shop - revelling in the raspberry and blackcurrant fruit with notes of mint, chocolate and leather. And we swallow this one - after all, it's the last visit, and we're off to Bordeaux's biggest, glitziest wine event, the Fête de la Fleur, later. Worth filling in that 2007 AAE entry form, don't you think?

What they thought

• John Cousins: "For starters, it has changed my mind about Bordeaux whites. And, overall, it has increased my knowledge and interest in the region. But most importantly, it has been exciting for me to see three young people so fascinated by wine. Magic."
• John Williams: "I was a typical Brit before I came here - I drank red from Bordeaux and whites from Burgundy, but I've really enjoyed the Sauvignon-Sémillon blends that we've tasted here. My high points? Probably Domaine de Chevalier - it was quite an experience doing that vertical tasting. At the very least, chefs need to know about food-and-wine matching - when you get a perfect harmony going on in a meal that's the difference between a good restaurant and a mediocre one. I do a food-and-wine matching dinner once a month - it makes you grow as a cook."
• Frédéric Gaillard: "It has opened my mind to wine. I used to live not far from here but I've never done a visit like this before. Best bit? Domaine de Chevalier - Olivier Bernard is a big character, and I loved that. And Haut-Bailly, because the wine was fantastic - every vintage we tried was beautifully balanced and consistent. And it has made me want to learn more about which wines go with pastry."
• Arnaud Menoret: "I knew a little bit about the Graves before I came - we have a few on our list - but I was completely unaware of how much there is here. I need to come back. I loved meeting the châteaux owners and seeing their passion. And I loved the Fête de la Fleur - what a party. I think Haut-Bailly was my favourite because I tried a vintage from my birth date, 1982. I'll never forget that."
• Armand Sablon: "The most important part for me was seeing how the wines were made, and how they have evolved over the years. It was interesting to learn about the different classifications. My wine knowledge was pretty basic before I came on this trip - not enough chefs know about wine. I think my favourite wines were from Château Malartic-Lagravière - they just suited my taste-buds best. Though my overall favourite was the 1966 Domaine de Chevalier - because I've never tasted a wine that's older than me!"

Annual Awards of Excellence

If you fancy having a tilt at the Academy of Culinary Arts' Annual Awards of Excellence, now's the time to get form-filling for 2007.

The awards are open to chefs, pastry chefs and waiters working in Great Britain aged between 20 and 26. Applicants are judged first on paper (on essays and recipes) with the successful ones going through to practical semi-finals and, eventually, a grand final in the spring of 2007.

The deadline for entries is 17 November. For more information ring the Academy of Culinary Arts on 020 8673 6300 or visit www.academyofculinaryarts.org.uk.

All you need to know about the Graves crus classes

Graves means "gravel" - it's a soil thing. The region begins in the city of Bordeaux - or, rather, it did. Growers in this part of the Graves, spearheaded by André Lurton, campaigned for - and won - a new appellation called Pessac-Léognan. Why? They argued that the soil type and microclimate were different here from the rest of the region - and it also just happens to include all the properties named in the 1959 classification.

A classification of the Graves châteaux was first drawn up in 1953 but not made official until 1959. Previously the only château that had been classified was Haut-Brion, which was included in the 1855 Médoc classification. And here's the thing: all but two of the 16 Graves crus classés make white wine as well as red wine. And there is one property, Château Couhins, which produces only white wine.

Grapes? The reds are made mostly with Cabernet Sauvignon, with some Merlot and Cabernet Franc blended in, and are planted on the gravel terraces. What do they taste like? Fragrant - swinging from smoky bacon to warm brick, with a wonderfully concentrated finesse.

The white wines are made from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon and are planted on the lighter, sandier parts of the vineyard. Their USP? They are capable of developing in the bottle for decades.

Where is it, exactly? Most of Pessac-Léognan now sprawls in and around the Bordeaux suburbs, set among the forest that takes over at the southern end of the city. The woods have a purpose, too, suffusing the brilliant light found out on the exposed gravels of the Médoc, and increasing humidity levels.