Great values from prestigious Bordeaux
carrying prestigious Bordeaux appellations on their labels (Medoc, HautMedoc, Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Estephe and others), but not the prices.
One difference between the rarified, highly celebrated reds of Bordeaux and the more accessible Crus Bourgeois du Medoc is the vast price disparity. Of course that is not the only difference — no more than price is the only difference between an apartment on Ile Saint-Louis in Paris and one in a middleclass suburb on the outskirts of the city.
Many Crus Bourgeois du Medoc wines stand firmly in the $20 to $30 range. Savor that tasty fact while you consider recent First Growth Bordeaux vintages fetch anywhere from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000. And then consider that one of the bottles in the tasting below retails for about $15.
These are red wines made mostly of the stalwart Bordeaux grape varieties cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot. They are expressive wines with evolving layers of aromas and flavors even when they lack the overt fruit character of some New World wines. Bright and jammy New World wines are not everyone’s cup of tea, anyway. These Bordeaux reds often have expressions of freshness, due to their bright acidity, and what some may lack in ripe fruit they make up for in savory depth. They are meant to accompany hearty beef, game, lamb or pork dishes — braised, roasted or grilled.
They are often a good value to begin with, but if you age them for a few years, suddenly they can be even better. It’s fun to announce how much (i.e., how relatively little) you paid for a wine years earlier after you open it and discover that it is good. You have put in the time and waited it out, and now it is ready to be shared.
No matter how cheap — or expensive — a wine is, one thing you cannot buy is time. But pulling out a bottle that you have aged on your own is a joy in itself and often worth much more than whatever you paid for it in the first place. There’s no reason that you couldn’t drink these wines right away, either. Open one at 6 p.m., and drink it an hour or two later with dinner.
Close to 200 Crus Bourgeois du Medoc are available in the United States, so you should be able to find at least some of the wines in fine wine shops. Below are notes from a recent tasting of Crus Bourgeois du Medoc wines. They are listed in ascending order according to price.
From Saint-Estephe, this wine offers plum, blackberry, forest floor, and nutmeg plus mocha and roasted nuts on the finish. $15
Funky, earthy and full of plum, herbs, pine needles, cedar, black cherry and ripe dark berries, this one offered mocha on the finish. $20
This 60/40 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot from Haut-Medoc is full of plum, tangy pomegranate, mouth-coating milk chocolate and black tea leaves on the finish. $25
From the Moulisen-Medoc commune, this wine tastes of plum and other dark fruits mingled with herbs, dried leaves, leather and fig, with 14 percent alcohol. $25
Full of plum, and notes of candied fruit, anise, herbs and white pepper, this Haut-Medoc wine is silky with bright acidity. $25
Blackberry, ripe blue fruit, leather, espresso, dark chocolate and orange zest commingle in this rich lip-smacker made of majority cabernet sauvignon with some merlot. $25
A 50 percent-merlot-based blend, this wine offers smoke, dark cherry, herbs, a whiff of cranberry and savory notes, plus pine needles, spice and black olive. $29
Plum mingles with licorice in this rich and luscious merlot-dominant wine, with its supple mouthfeel and its touch of sweet black fruit. $35