When is Bordeaux going to break its run of bad vintages that end in the number seven? A decade ago, 1997 was distinctly inferior compared with its predecessor as was the 87 to the 86. Even worse was the 77, while the 67 and 57 had very little to recommend them either. Remarkably, you have to go back to 1940s to find the last great Bordeaux vintage ending in a seven.

Unfortunately, the 2007 is not the vintage to break the sequence. As reported by Jancis Robinson in the Weekend FT last month, the 2007 reds are good (under the circumstances of such a challenging growing season), but by no means great. The wines are soft and precociously attractive, yet lack the guts and gravitas of real vins de garde.