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Back to Basics – Red Bordeaux October 19, 2006
The Bordeaux region surrounds the Gironde, Dordogne, and Garonne rivers on the west coast of France, north of the Pyrenees and south of the Burgundy region. There are multiple sub-regions within Bordeaux, including:
In our house we have had wine tastings with many other styles of wine, but never with French Bordeaux. Recently I invited a few friends over to the house to taste and learn more about this venerable style of wine. Guests were requested to bring a bottle of red French Bordeaux costing less than $30. (Usually we limit the price range to less than $20, but this wine is generally pricier and we wanted to have a greater range from which to choose.) When our guests arrived at the house I took the bottles into the back room, uncorked and decanted them. We like to have blind tastings so that price and label don't affect our judgments. After about half an hour we went to the living room with our wine glasses. Each decanter was marked with a colored marker and each glass had a similarly colored marker. We used the wine score sheet as a basis for tasting and comparing wines, and we were aided by the Wine Aroma Wheel. After tasting and discussing each of the three wines we took a break and I finished preparing the meal. Because wines are such a wonderful complement with food I like to taste them both before and during a meal to see if the results change. The meal was wonderful, beginning with a light salad of bitter greens, shaved fennel, pear, and hunks of Parmigiana cheese. The main course was grilled rib eye steak, marinated in olive oil, sea salt, and sprinkled with rosemary. I also made oven roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts coated in olive oil and rosemary. Because some people don't share my love of Brussels sprouts I also made braised fennel bulbs. It was an easy meal to prepare and made a perfect accompaniment to the wines. One of the reasons I love wine tasting is that I always learn something new. During this tasting we happened by chance to have two bottles of wine from the Saint Emilion region and one from Pomerol. The two Saint Emilion wines could not have been more different. One was our favorite, the other was without question the worst wine we tasted. Both cost the same at local stores. Another interesting fact about these wines is the relatively low alcohol levels. Many modern wines are “big” wines with alcohol levels of 13% to over 14.5%, making it difficult to drink very much without impairment. The traditional levels of these wines seemed somehow more elegant and refined. Here are the results. Chateau Simard, Saint Emilion, 1995. 12%, $28.67. I bought this wine thinking that it would be excellent because it had more chance to age and came from a well regarded region. It was terrible. We all found it to be thin, harsh, and not very interesting. This was the first wine we tasted and we were all politely trying to say something nice about it, but after a bit we decided it wasn't very good. Chateau des Annereaux, Lalande de Pomerol, 2002. 12.5%, $27.99. In stark contrast to the preceding wine, this wine was wonderful and narrowly missed the top score. It was very well balanced, and we tasted raspberries, cherry and a hint of chocolate. This wine evolved over the course of the evening, and later in the evening we tasted new flavors that had been hidden earlier. Chateaux Lyonnat, Lussac Saint Emilion, 2003. 13%, $28. This was the top wine, very close to the Pomerol with with a slightly different taste that we preferred. As with the Pomerol, it was balanced, and the taste seemed to develop and unfold on your tongue. With the rib eye steak it was perfect, but it was also excellent on its own. I love the sensation of having a sip of wine and having the flavors linger on my tongue several minutes later. We thought we tasted vanilla, apple and blackberry. Next month we plan to have a wine dinner to taste California wines in the Bordeaux style - Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends. Sounds like fun!
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