Show Notes
Episode 115: Bordeaux Bargains #1! 00:00
Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair!
Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode we learn about, taste and give our honest review of three wines that are reasonably priced - meaning under $20 each - and should be easy for you to find. And our podcast is made for people who want to learn more about wine, find new wines to enjoy, and just want someone to talk about wine in a fun way that regular people can understand. So, if that sounds like you, you are in the right place! And we are proud to say that we are recommended by the editors of Decanter Magazine who call us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining
Carmela, today we are trying something new, and this is, I will admit, a bit of a stretch for us because today we are talking about Bordeaux wine. But not just any Bordeaux wine - Bordeaux Bargains. And by Bordeaux Bargains, we mean wines from Bordeaux, France that are highly rated and under $20 - hence the name Bordeaux Bargains.
I say this is a stretch for us for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that we tend not to be huge fans of Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, and Bordeaux wines, afterall, are generally blends of one or both of those wines - plus some others. So there’s that. And the second reason it’s a stretch is because I called this episode Bordeaux Bargains #1 - which means I am assuming that there will be more than one of these episodes, which may not happen if this episode is a total disaster. Which could happen.
Worth the risk?!?
This is also the second week in a row that we are tasting and reviewing French wines, which is kind of unusual for us, too. Are you curious as to why?
Well, I am glad you asked. Part of it is because French wines can be confusing to a lot of people, and so I think it is fun to learn more about them, and secondly because, although I don’t love Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, I generally think that’s because we tend to drink American versions of those wines, and I think the American versions of those wines, as opposed to the old world versions in France, are overly oaked and overly tannic and overly bold, versus the more mellow, more refined, more food friendly, and generally, just more enjoyable French versions.
As we have said many times, European wines tend to be wines that we expect to drink with food, while a lot of times California wines and other American wines are more along the lines of what we call cocktail wines - that is wines that are more often meant or expected to be consumed on their own. Which is why they can get away with being overpowering at times.
The other reason why I think this could be really fun is because French wines, especially those from Bordeaux and Burgundy, are among the most expensive wines in the world, and so finding a bargain in those wines - which we already try to do in our High QPR Pinot Noir episodes - because Pinot Noir is the wine that red Burgundy wines are as well - finding bargains in those wine regions is kind of what this podcast is all about.
So, these Bordeaux Bargain episodes, if they survive this first try, are actually the perfect topic for our podcast - because, as we say in every intro, this is an opportunity for us to learn about wines, find great wines at a reasonable price, and discover new wines to enjoy. I mean, what the hell else do you want?!?
So on that note, I think it’s time to learn a bit more about what Bordeaux wines are all about, and then we have three Bordeaux wines that we are going to taste and review . . .
But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.
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And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast. This week, we want you to tell anyone who loves Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot because those are the grapes you find in Bordeaux blends, and you tell them that they need to listen to this episode to learn more about the wine varietals they love.
ARTICLES and LINKS
Topic: WTF is a Bordeaux Wine? 07:22
So let’s spend a little bit of time on just what the F wines from Bordeaux are, and more properly, we should call them Bordeaux blends. We did talk about this in Minisode #7 which is a primer on red wine blends, but it’s worth covering some of that here as well.
First, when you see the term red wine blend, just know that there are generally, and I mean this very generally, two types of blends that a wine generally falls into, both from France. The first is the Bordeaux blend, which is Merlot and Cabernet based, and the other is the GSM blend also known as the Grenache - Syrah - Mourvèdre blend, also known as the Rhône Blend because it comes from the Rhône Valley in France.
Just note, too, that Bordeaux style blends in other countries often go by different names, for example Claret and Meritage.
But those two red wine blends are kind of the classic red wine blends you will find whenever you see red wine blends.
Bordeaux red wines are generally always blends as I said - although there are some exceptional exceptions, like Chateau Petrus from Pomerol which is only made from Merlot. But most of the time, Bordeaux red wines are made from what are called the five Noble grapes, which are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. In Bordeaux red wines, they will have at least one of these grapes, and usually several, although the tricky part is that it is very hard to figure out what grapes are in the blend just from the name on the wine bottle.
And that’s because as we have often said, wines from France, Italy, and Spain are often named for the region they are from, rather than from the grapes. So that is what can make those wines, and French wines from Bordeaux in particular, so tricky. Burgundy is pretty easy, because all Burgundy red wines are made from Pinot Noir. However, you can’t be quite sure of what grapes are in a Bordeaux wine unless you know, or you get lucky because they put it on the bottle.
I won’t go into tons of detail here, and there are some links to good and helpful articles in our show notes which you can find if you go to our website and look for the page for this episode. However, the wines I have chosen for today I have selected not just because they have some good ratings and are very reasonably priced, but also because they are mostly Merlot focused or Merlot heavy blends.
For my taste, I like more Merlot focused blends because I find those wines to be a bit smoother and more silky than Cabernet Sauvignon heavy wines which we often call punch-you-in-the-face wines.
In Bordeaux, there is a large river that runs through the area, and wines are often divided between left bank and right bank wines depending on what side of the river they are on. Right bank red wines are more Merlot focused, generally making up more than 60% of the grapes and blended with Cabernet Franc, while Left Bank red wines are more Cabernet Sauvignon heavy, and then have blends of the other Noble Grapes. Unfortunately, you do have to just do some studying and memorizing to figure it out. There is no simple shortcut.
And I do keep making a distinction that we are talking about red wines because Bordeaux also is famous for white wine blends, usually made from Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc.
Today, we are drinking a couple of wines from the Haut-Médoc (Oh - MEH - doke) region of Bordeaux, which should not be confused with the other closeby area with the name Medoc. Haut-Médoc is on the Left Bank and is considered a pretty prestigious region, with famous wines like Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Margaux, and Château Mouton Rothschild. Wines from this region are mostly pretty even blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
We are also drinking a wine from the Graves (Grawv) region of Bordeaux, and the specific wine we are drinking comes from a commune near the city of Langon and relatively close to the city of Bordeaux itself. Graves is also considered part of the Left Bank. This is an area most well known for the pricey sweet wine called Sauternes, and is considered the birthplace of Claret - which again is the name that the British give to Bordeaux blends. It is said that in 1152 wine for Graves was first exported to England, and the English royalty highly prized the wine. And, wines from Graves have a long history - dating back to Roman times.
Like Haut-Médoc, these wines are generally a pretty even blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with other grapes like Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec sometimes blended in as well.
We can talk more about Bordeaux in future episodes on this topic of Bordeaux Bargains because, quite frankly, Bordeaux is a tremendously complex wine region, but I think we should start to talk about the wines we are going to taste and review for this episode.
ARTICLES and LINKS
Bordeaux Bargain Wines We Chose for This Episode 15:41
As usual, all of the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $20, and all of them should be relatively easy to find because I bought them all at wine.com.
Bordeaux wines are not hard to find. Any decent wine shop or store with a good wine section will have Bordeaux wines. The tricky part is finding good Bordeaux wines that are reasonably priced because the Bordeaux wines with the best reputations and 100 point ratings are very expensive. Expect a good Château Lafite Rothschild or a Château Petrus or a Château Latour or a Château Haut-Brion to set you back thousands of dollars.
But we don’t play that game! As we said, all of these wines are under $20, and all of them had ratings in the 90s. And most of them have multiple ratings in the 90s+ which I really don’t see on the wines we drink very often.
The first wine we are going to try is called Chateau Prieure de Beyzac and is from the Haut-Médoc (Oh - MEH - doke) region. This wine has a bit of age on it as it is a 2018, and my recommendation on these wines is that they will do a little better if you give them some time, and if you can’t give them time in the cellar, then give them some time to breathe after you open them up. And I would recommend both! Even the winery says to let it breathe for a few hours. By the way, this wine is 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon.
I have seen this wine referred to as a Cru Bourgeois which is a term I had never heard before. Most of you out there probably know that Cru literally means growth, but in wine it refers to a really good growing area. In Burgundy, Grand Cru is the best wine, and just below it is Premier Cru, sometimes referred to as 1er Cru, because you will see it sometimes with the number 1 and then the letters “er” after it. In Bordeaux, the top classifications are a bit more complicated. The top wines are Grand cru classé, although in Medoc and Graves (Grawv) Premier cru classé is the top, and in Saint-Émilion the highest level is Premier grand cru classé. Whatever.
Cru Bourgeois refers to some wines areas in the Médoc region of Bordeaux that were not originally classified when the French defined the Crus Classés in 1855. So Cru Bourgeois are considered to be high quality, but a step below Cru Classés.
Again, whatever. It just is another indication of how f-ing complicated French wines are. And, I needed to do a bit of that distraction because I couldn’t find out much else about this wine, so let’s move on.
The next wine we are going to drink and review is called Château des Mille Anges which translates to “castle of a thousand angels.” This wine is from the 2016 vintage, so it has come good age on it. This wine is 60% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 15% Cabernet Franc, and that is basically the composition of their vineyards in terms of the percentage of grapes they grow.
The name of this wine is based on the location in Graves (Grawv) which at one time held the convent of the Sisters of the Assumption, and the nuns there actually grew the grapes which were used to make the wine for both eating and for Mass. They also taught children there until WWII. In 1994, the Château was purchased by the current owners, but they have been making wine there for over 300 years.
I again can’t find out too much about this wine, but I do understand that 2016 was supposed to be a good year in Bordeaux, and in our show notes is a link to the Wine Spectator vintage charts which listed the 2016 Left Bank year as a 97, which is very high. For reference, 2018 got a 96 rating, and 2019, which our last wine is from, got a 93 rating for that vintage.
So, onto our last wine from 2019 called Château Beaumont, also from Haut-Médoc. The pictures of the Château on their website, which I have a link to in our show notes, are stunning, and they say they have been making wines there for about 200 years.
These folks have a tech sheet, which made me super happy and I have a link to that as well. They say the summer of 2019 was one of the hottest and driest in a century, and there was some rainfall right before harvest which they said was a good thing. This wine is a blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot. They don’t talk much about the production, but on the website it is really interesting to see how each year the blend is different. For instance in 2018 it was 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 47% Merlot, and 8% Petit Verdot, while the 2020 blend was 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 41% Merlot, and 8% Petit Verdot.
Which is one of the reasons again why red blends and Bordeaux wines can be so tricky because even the same wine from the same producer will have a different wine blend each year.
Ok, well I think it is time to find out if these reasonably priced and highly rated wines really are bargains - because, afterall, we are the ultimate judges, am I right?!? So, we’ll take a super quick break and taste our first Bordeaux!
ARTICLES and LINKS
Bordeaux Bargains Wine Pairing Tasting and Reviews 25:45
Wine: Château Prieure de Beyzac (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: France, Haut-Médoc
Year: 2018
Price: $14.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 14%
Grapes: 60% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Rating: V 92 D 92 JS 91
What we tasted and smelled in this Chateau Prieure de Beyzac:
- On the nose: Smoke, a classic red wine smell, plum, dark cherry, pencil, rose, tar, deep and rich
- In the mouth: Plum, lots of tannin, smooth, nice round mouthfeel, supple, tobacco, grapey, elegant, warm, round, well-balanced
Food to pair with this Chateau Prieure de Beyzac: Steak, a meat and potatoes wine, stew, roast, big meaty dishes, a bit of a fall wine, a food wine
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it.
Chateau Prieure de Beyzac Wine Rating:
Wine: Château des Mille Anges (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: France, Saint-Germain-de-Graves
Year: 2016
Price: $14.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 14.3%
Grapes: 60% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc
Professional Rating: JS 91 D 90
What we tasted and smelled in this: Château des Mille Anges:
- On the nose: Sweet, jammy, stewed cherries, blueberry, currant, dried fruit, dried blueberry or cranberry, cherry cordial, a bit of smoke, wood barrel
- In the mouth: Balsamic vinegar, syrupy, berry, tart, dried cranberry, baking spices, dried fruit, candied fruit, blueberry
Food to pair with this Château des Mille Anges: Steak, tomato-based pasta, pizza, bolognese, lasagna
Château des Mille Anges Wine Rating:
Wine: Château Beaumont (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: France, Haut-Médoc
Year: 2019
Price: $16.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 13.5%
Grapes: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Rating: JS 92 WE 92 D 90 JD 90 RP 90
What we tasted and smelled in this Château Beaumont :
- On the nose: Wood, oaky, cranberry, astringent, plum, cherry, sharp, smoke, pencil, leather, grapey, grassy
- In the mouth: Tart, salty, black licorice, red fruit, raspberry, bramble, earthy, vegetable, very tannic, you can tell it is Cabernet Sauvignon forward, punchy, stone tobacco and tar on the finish, flowers, pencil and metal
Food to pair with this Château Beaumont: Needs food, burger, red meat, grilled foods, beef stroganoff
Château Beaumont Wine Rating:
Which one of these are you finishing tonight?
- Carmela: Chateau Prieure de Beyzac
- Joe: Chateau Prieure de Beyzac
Taste profiles expected from Bordeaux 43:34
- General
- Wine Tourism - Haut-Médoc: blackberry, currant, licorice, spices, mint
- Chateau Prieure de Beyzac
- V: A really lovely bouquet of perfumed red cherries and wild strawberry and well integrated oak. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, pinpoint acidity and great precision toward the finish.
- D: Sweet red cherry and vanilla nose. It's forward and has energy, tannic weight, freshness and very glossy fruit and oak on the palate.
- JS: Aromas of stewed blackberries, dried violets, walnuts and dark chocolate. It’s medium-to full-bodied with firm, chalky tannins. Chewy and structured.
- Château des Mille Anges
- Winery: On the nose this wine reveals red fruit aromas with notes of mocha and cashews. Round, full and well balanced on the palate with silky tannins and spicy notes. The finish is long, well balanced with fruity flavors, spicy and light oak.
- JS: There’s a pretty fruit tension to this wine with hints of tannins and acidity. Shows freshness and depth.
- D: Fresh blackberry fruit lifted by a charming leafy edge, then dark cherries coming forward on an admirably long palate.
- Château Beaumont
- JS: This is full and plush for an Haut-Medoc with medium to full body. Lots of blackberries and fresh herbs with redcurrants, too. Chewy, but polished.
- WE: This estate has produced a fine, elegant wine. Black fruits and a hint of chocolate do not detract from the firm structure that is a fine passport for the future. Dense, dry but never excessive, this is a wine for medium-term.
- D: Carefully extracted and well-balanced cassis fruits with attractive dark pepper and rosemary spices running through the palate. This has tons of Médoc signature, controlled tannins and fresh acidities, earthy touches stop it feeling overly polished.
- JD: Black cherries, plums, Asian spices, and sandalwood notes all emerge from the 2019 Château Beaumont , a nicely concentrated, medium to full-bodied Haut-Médoc with good depth of fruit and juicy acidity.
- RP: subtle notes of baked plums, blackcurrant pastilles and fruit cake with suggestions of damp soil, cardamom and fried herbs. The medium-bodied palate has a solid backbone of firm, chewy tannins and lively acidity supporting the black fruit preserves flavors, finishing with an herbal lift.
Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 47:19
Ok, so, Carmela, it is just about time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - and if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast and also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast service - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.
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Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.
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