The Wall Street Journal-20080111-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Tastings- Looking for Value in a Prized Vintage- 2005 Bordeaux Made Affordable- Avoiding the Traps
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Tastings: Looking for Value in a Prized Vintage; 2005 Bordeaux Made Affordable; Avoiding the Traps
In a few months, you'll have the privilege of paying about $1,000 or so to take home a single bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild or one of the other first growths of Bordeaux from the acclaimed vintage of 2005. But you can go into most wine stores today and spend less than $20 on one of the more-obscure wines of the vintage, many of which are hitting the shelves as you read this. Is this a good idea? We conducted a broad blind tasting to find out.
Bordeaux is known for its expensive, famous wines, but it's a large area with thousands of chateaux, many of them small, that most of us have never heard of. These are often wines with simple appellations such as Bordeaux Superieur or lesser-known appellations such as Cotes de Bourg. Over the years, our advice for wine-drinkers seeking value is to buy the best wines in lesser vintages and the lesser wines in the best vintages.
To test this theory with the 2005 wines, we bought more than 50 Bordeaux reds that cost less than $20 from stores around the country. We cannot emphasize this too strongly: It's impossible to know which of these little-guy Bordeaux you will see. They are generally produced in small quantities and imported in even smaller quantities. Many are imported directly by wine stores that have a relationship with the chateau or the chateau's export representative. You'll find plenty of inexpensive 2005 Bordeaux on shelves, but you might find a totally different selection at two stores down the block from each other.
The average price of our sample was about $12, which would just about constitute a rounding error on the price of a bottle of Lafite. Most had only recently arrived in the States. Like expensive Bordeaux, they are made primarily from Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but, unlike their pricey relatives, they are released sooner and meant to be drunk younger. We tasted them in blind flights over several nights. This is what we found:
These are among the best bargains at the wine store right now. You simply must go out and try one.
Wine after wine was easy to drink, with good fruit, some minerals and a lovely, dry finish. Too many red wines under $20 these days -- a great deal of Merlot and Cabernet from the U.S. and Shiraz from Australia, for example -- are stupid wines. They're thick, simple, sweet, smelly with vanilla and oak and impossible to pair with food. These wines generally avoided those traps. They were light on their feet, dry, a bit grapey and very easy to enjoy. These are not world- class, head-banging, great wines, but pleasant, somewhat classy everyday wines that would make everyday meals a little more special.
They were not all winners, of course. Some tasted watery, as though good wine had been diluted. A few -- but fortunately just a few -- were leaden with oak. But the average quality was quite high. Even many that simply rated Good had an attractive vibrancy about them that made them easy to drink and enjoy. Many of the wines had nice earth, good blackberry fruit, sometimes a hint of chocolate and a little splash of lemon. Some offered far more than that, including some of the structure -- layers of flavors and tastes -- that we associate with fine Bordeaux. Our best of tasting, for instance, Chateau de Lugagnac, impressed us even before we tasted it. The nose alone offered rich fruit, dark earth and juicy acidity. (It is half Cabernet Sauvignon and half Merlot.) But our experience with this wine will give you some idea of the complexities involved in buying these wines.
We first bought it off the shelf, with several other wines, at a store in Chicago. We paid $8.99. After our tasting, we were so impressed with it -- this was a stunning bargain -- that we decided to buy more, so we could retaste it. The store not only was sold out of the wine by then, but knew nothing about it and expressed no interest in getting more when we called as regular consumers. So we looked online and found the same wine at a store in Florida. We ordered the store's last six bottles, so we could retaste and also experiment with aging them. (These cost $16.99 each, which is still a bargain but not quite so stunning.) The importer there, Stacole Co. of Boca Raton, Fla., said it imported just 29 cases and distributed them only in Florida. Other importers brought it into other states. For instance, we noticed with a quick online check that it was also available in Louisiana, Massachusetts and Michigan at prices ranging from $12.36 to $14.99.
We contacted the winery, where second-generation owner and winemaker Francois-Thomas Bon said that the chateau produces about 45,000 cases of wine each year and that about 2,000 cases of the wine we tasted were exported to the U.S., where it went through about 40 distributors to stores and restaurants. He said the wine has been distributed in the U.S. for a "very long time" but "it's not very regular because the sales for the U.S. are sensitive to journalists' comments." He added that "the wine market in the U.S. is a real high-quality market and it's closed. By that I mean it's closed because the people who are already selling wine over there are protecting their job. It's hard for us to come down with a case and try to sell like that." In China, he said, winery representatives might travel and take a case with them to sell. One of the chateau's negociants, Bill Blatch of Vintex in Bordeaux, said some of the wine was also sold in several other states, including California, Virginia and the Carolinas.
In the attached index, you will see the 10 favorites from our tasting. It is unlikely you will run across any of those, but you will see plenty of 2005 Bordeaux. Be bold. Try one. Keep this in mind: For the price of that 2005 Lafite, you can try 83 of these.
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Melanie Grayce West contributed to this column. You can contact us at [email protected].
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The Dow Jones Inexpensive 2005 Bordeaux Index
In a broad blind tasting of red Bordeaux from the 2005 vintage that cost
$20 or less, these were our favorites. It is impossible to know which 2005
Bordeaux you will see, but there are many of them out there. These are good
with steak, but, because they are Bordeaux, they make any meal special. We
wouldn't hesitate to open one of these with a good pizza, and we like these
with meatloaf. Overall, these are meant to drink young, but we felt that a
few of them, as noted, would age well for at least a couple of years.
VINEYARD: Chateau de Lugagnac (Bordeaux Superieur)
RATING: Very Good/Delicious
PRICE: $13.98*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Best of tasting. The nose immediately says, "Fine
stuff," with earth, tobacco and juicy fruit. Well balanced and nicely
complex. Even better after an hour. Remarkably complete for such a young,
inexpensive wine.
VINEYARD: Chateau Au Grand Paris (Bordeaux Superieur)
RATING: Very Good
PRICE: $10*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Best value. Lovely, with restrained but abundant fruit,
red-berry tastes and some complexity. Fine wine. Could age some. Perennial
favorite.
VINEYARD: Chateau Les Tours de Peyrat 'Vieilles Vignes' (Premieres Cotes
de Blaye)
RATING: Very Good
PRICE: $14.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Good fruit, lots of minerals and earth. Blackberries. A
touch of licorice, especially at the end, and maybe a little bit bitter on
the finish, but classy and more austere than most. Could age a bit.
VINEYARD: Chateau Bourbon la Chapelle (Medoc)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $13.99*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Pleasant and grapey. Simple, good fruit, without too
much of anything. Easy to drink, with some nice, crisp acidity.
VINEYARD: Chateau Caronne Ste. Gemme (Haut-Medoc)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $17.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: A drinkable fruit bowl of blueberries and blackberries,
with a great deal of life and terrific acidity to give it lift and make it
great with food.
VINEYARD: Chateau Haut Sociondo (Premieres Cotes de Blaye)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $10.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Interesting. Good, tight, somewhat bitter fruit, with
oomph. Clean and focused, with some edge. Finishes a bit weak.
VINEYARD: Chateau la Rose Tour Blanche (Bordeaux)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $9*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Big, blackberry fruit and plenty of minerals and earth.
Give this some time to soften. Serious wine for the price.
VINEYARD: Chateau Marjosse (Bordeaux)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $14.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Pleasant and dry, with raspberry fruit. Smooth, with
plenty of soft, easy fruit. A real crowd-pleaser.
VINEYARD: Chateau Nodeau (Cotes de Bourg)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $9*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Round and particularly ripe, with loads of black fruit.
Really tastes true, like good fruit left to ripen on the vine.
VINEYARD: Chateau Pey La Tour (Bordeaux)
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $14.49
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Tight, dark fruit, with nice depth and a lovely little
bite. At the end, it opens up into a surprisingly voluptuous finish.
NOTE: Wines are rated on a scale that ranges: Yech, OK, Good, Very Good,
Delicious, and Delicious! These are the prices we paid at wine stores in
California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. *We
paid $8.99 and $16.99 for Lugagnac, $8.99 for Grand Paris, $12.99 for
Bourbon la Chapelle, $7.99 for la Rose Tour Blanche and $7.99 for Nodeau,
but these prices appear to be more representative. Prices vary widely.
