Graham Reid: Noses trained on Bordeaux

All you can hope for is maybe 20 or 30 good vintages - and then you die," said Thibault with a laugh and a Gallic shrug.

It was sunset and we were standing on the patio of La Tour des Cigares, the leathery cigar bar at the top of the hotel, watching the beautiful vineyard before us being embraced by the night.

Thibault was one of a dozen young winemakers from the region who came for dinner and presented some of his wine at the luxurious and impossibly picturesque spa hotel-cum-winery Les Sources de Caudalie, some 15 minutes south of Bordeaux.

Just six years ago the new owners, who bought the place in 1990, opened the spa hotel made from old salvaged timber which made it complement the adjacent chateau built in 1739. Already the place - which has two restaurants and is consistently acclaimed by the likes of Conde Nast Traveller as one of the best spa hotels in the world - looked 100 years old, but of course was luxurious to the point of heavenly.

It was here the young winemakers came for dinner - an extraordinary meal which included superb and barely cooked veal, a gratin of truffles, icecream made from champignon mushrooms - and wines.

Plenty of wines. Bottle after bottle, as the winemakers presented the best of their cellars for the discerning palates.

"There is no money in wine," laughed Thibault, noting that the owners of Les Source de Caudalie probably made more from their spa, hotel and beauty products than they did from the labour-intensive vineyard where grapes were picked and sorted by hand.

"There are too many vineyards here maybe, and the laws in Bordeaux are very strict."

He outlined regulations against irrigation and other such things, then went off to find more wine.

Like everyone, he did the customary nose and palate test, but having satisfied himself as to the wine's characteristics, he happily knocked back glass after glass.

Much beautiful wine was drunk this night, but there was also an agenda: to launch an initiative to counter the prevailing opinion about Bordeaux, that it was all old men lording it over the region.

These winemakers, vineyard owners and managers were mostly in their 30s, and a third of them were women.

They were educated and well-travelled - Thibault had worked in vineyards in California and New Zealand - and they had common problems and a few common complaints: for example, that wine writers were usually in their 50s and 60s, and that all the best sommeliers were in their 30s, if not younger.

The difference between their palates was a big problem, but what to do?

Over dinner and drinks it was apparent that no matter how glamorous it looked, owning a vineyard was hard work and no one was going to get rich, especially in much-maligned Bordeaux, where there was a glut of wines. Death duty and taxes made sure of that, said Thibault.

"But then again, you get to see things grow - and you make something nice for people ... and," he said raising a glass of deep red liquor to his lips, "you get to drink excellent wine and have a good lifestyle."