A barrel of Haut-Brion, and 86 wine estates with MICHELIN Keys

Keys to the cellar

On September 18, MICHELIN gave out its 2026 Keys, its hotel equivalent of the Star. The list runs to 2,832 hotels, 155 of them with three Keys. We went through all of them looking for wine and found 86 wine estates in 19 countries, each with vines of their own, wine of their own or a winemaker close at hand.

Delaire Graff in Stellenbosch went from two Keys to three, the only wine estate among the nine three-Key hotels in the Middle East, Africa and India. Ketschauer Hof in the Pfalz lost a Key in the same year its restaurant, L.A. Jordan, won a third Star. And for all the Keys in Napa and Sonoma, only two American estate hotels make wine of their own: Montage Healdsburg and Four Seasons Napa.

Our guide to all 86, region by region, is on the site.

Ho Bryan, by the barrel

On October 1 in Paris, Sotheby's will sell 676 lots straight from Château Haut-Brion's own cellar, vintages from 1935 to 2025, to mark the Dillon family's tenth decade at the château. The estimate for the whole sale is €2.5 million to €3.5 million. Then there is lot 227: a barrel of the 2025, the equivalent of 300 bottles, bottled in whatever sizes you like with your name on the back label, plus a private cellar visit, lunch and a night at La Mission Haut-Brion, the family's neighboring estate. Estimate: €100,000 to €200,000.

That estimate is less mad than it sounds. At the low end, it comes to about €333 a bottle before the auction house takes its fees.

The name Haut-Brion has been a part of wine history for a long time. On April 10, 1663, the Château became the first Bordeaux named in English writing when Samuel Pepys wrote: "drank a sort of French wine, called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with."

In May of 1787, Thomas Jefferson sent six dozen bottles of the 1784 to his brother-in-law in Virginia. It was, he wrote, "one of the four established as the very best." The 1855 classification named the same four, 68 years later, and Haut-Brion was the only red in the whole list from outside the Médoc.

In May of 1935, a New York banker named Clarence Dillon bought it for about 2.3 million francs. The story goes that his party had meant to see Cheval Blanc and Ausone as well, and got lost in the fog.

His great-grandson, Prince Robert of Luxembourg, runs it today. It remains the best wrong turn in Bordeaux.

A million bottles lighter

Emirates unveiled its 2026 wine list earlier this month with two big numbers: more than $1 billion spent on wine since 2006, and a cellar in France of around five million bottles. In December 2023 it quoted the same billion and a cellar of around six million. A million bottles have gone somewhere, and we have a fair idea where.

The one to book for is Mouton Rothschild 2003, poured in First on UK routes from October. Until this summer, 2003 was the heatwave France measured every other one against.

Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild bought the estate in 1853. Two years later, the 1855 classification named its four First Growths, and Mouton was not one of them. The house motto took it personally: "First I cannot be, second I do not deign to be, Mouton I am." In 1973 a decree made Mouton the fifth, the only promotion in the classification's history.

Mouton waited 118 years for its upgrade to First. Passengers in Business will know the feeling.

Hot, early, small, and possibly, very good

By the numbers, 2026 was a year to dread. France recorded its hottest day ever on June 24. Bordeaux, by the reckoning of the vineyard consultants Sovivins, had its hottest vintage since 1893. Champagne began picking on August 6, the earliest start it has recorded, and Wine-Searcher reports Burgundy's earliest in 500 years. France will make about 34 million hectoliters of wine, its smallest crop since 1957.

And yet the people in the vines are not in total mourning. Sovivins' David Pernet found Cabernet Sauvignon berries weighing 0.75 grams, about half the usual: less juice per bunch, more intensity per liter. Water decided the rest. Late-August rain, up to 60mm in places, reached some vineyards in time and missed others, and Pernet expects the gap between the best wines and the rest to be among the widest in decades. The agriculture ministry's statisticians say young vines suffered most. Growers speaking to Wine-Searcher describe everything ripening at once, picking crews stretched thin and cellars short of space.

That has happened before. In 1893, the last summer this hot, Château Margaux started picking on August 17 and had to stop for six days because it ran out of vats. The difference is that 1893 was a monster crop and 2026 is a small one. The early excitement about the 1893s faded, but a few estates made wines that lasted into the next century.

So this year the address will matter more than the label. The first honest verdicts come at the en primeur tastings next spring. We'll report back.

Champagne, marked down (by Champagne standards)

The top end of Champagne is having a quiet year. Liv-ex's Champagne 50 index is up 2.6% over twelve months, and the merchants Decanter spoke to this week call it a buyer's market. Salon 2012 shows the shape of it: released at £5,800 a case in 2021, it peaked at £13,300 and now trades at £7,000 to £8,000.

Meanwhile the region is making less. Shipments fell for a third straight year in 2025, to 266 million bottles, and this year's permitted yield is the lowest of the modern era bar 2020, about 250 million bottles' worth. And the Comité Champagne, never short of an adjective, is comparing this year's grapes to 1921, 1947 and 1959.

Plenty of stock in the market is why prices are flat. The next great vintages are being made in smaller quantities. We'd drink the old ones while they're merely expensive.

Until Thursday.