TN: A bevy of blind, mediocre white Bordeauxs

Last night, our monthly blind group took a look at an oft-ignored set of wines: dry white bordeaux

Going into it, everyone commented that we were tasting more (8) white bordeauxs than most of us had drank in years

Coming out of it, everyone joked that we now understood why we never bought white bordeauxs.

The wines, from a wide range of producers, recent vintages (2009-2013) and price points, were consistently mediocre and poor QPR. Our “winner” (our voting was so scattered as to reflect little more than random chance) was the cheapest bottle, the Chateau Graville Lacoste. It was by fair the palest of the bunch, showed no oak influence, showed no evidence of it’s dose of Semillon and, frankly, was a dead ringer for cheap NZ sauvignon blanc with it’s grassy nose and pineapple / tropical fruit. It stood out from the group, but no one thought it was great QPR. Cheap, middlingly decent SB is a dime a dozen.

My favorite, which the group had “sixth” (really a de facto tie with four or five other wines) was the most expensive bottle, the Domaine de Chevalier. This had oodles and oodles of high quality oak, and a very faintly oxidative character that brought out the honeyed notes from the Semillon. It was reasonably long, but not extraordinarily so. I noted it as “a cheap date”. It was pretty good - I’d buy this wine at $30. It was not $30.

For me, at least, the most interesting wine at the tasting was one I’ve had before and recognized - the Chateau Carbonnieux. This was one of the few wines that didn’t show strongly as sauvignon blanc or semillon (or perhaps more accurately, reductive or oxidative); it had a little bit of funk in the nose but the palate was long, lemony and finished with chalky extraction. Not bad, not super oaky, and $30ish, which isn’t obscene. I wouldn’t seek out but I wouldn’t kick out of bed, either.

But generally, the more expensive bottles were very oaky and sweet, and the cheaper bottles were grassy and anonymous, and this is not a category I will be visiting again, not at these prices. Tons more value in white burgundy. Hell, there is tons more value in muscadet, and I don’t particularly like muscadet.

Even makes Vatan at $90 a bargain, huh?

Really? I didn’t think that was the consensus. At my end of the table, I think they were well received.

I quite liked most of them. A few showed too much sauvignon grassiness for my tastes. (They ranged from 2009 to 2013, so I would expect some of those to settle down with a bit of age.) The ones that showed oak I thought carried it very, very well and I found that element very attractive. And across the board they had terrific acid backbones. There wasn’t a flabby one in the bunch. It’s not a wine category I give much thought to, but I found myself wanting to buy a few.

I’ll post more detailed notes later.

I’m with David. While I don’t mind some oak in white wine (I drink a fair amount of oaky White Burgundy), I’m not a fan of the way the SB grassiness plays against the oak – there was frequently this sweet vanilla/spicy pyrazine mix that for me is an awkward, unpleasant combination. And the oak frequently overwhelmed the fruit on the palate, so you get the grassy acid bite from the SB along with bitter oak tannins. SB seems to be a grape that produces a lighter, thinner wine (than, say, Chardonnay), and it seemed like to me that several of the wines didn’t have enough oomph and body to absorb the oak treatment. The better wines for me were the ones that either showed less/no oak, or that showed more semillon-heavy, which seemed to work better with the oak.

It’s possible, of course, that the wines will integrate with age. I don’t have enough experience with the category to make any judgment about that.

The QPR issue was even more starkly illuminated when a 9th wine was poured blind at the end after we had tallied up the scores. We all managed to figure out that it was clearly pradikat German riesling from a relatively recent ripe vintage, with the consensus guess being a 2009 spatlese, although there was some disagreement as to whether it was from the Mosel or somewhere warmer, like the Nahe or Rheinhessen. It turned out to be a 2011 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Riesling Spätlese. It is widely available for $30-$35 and, at least for my taste, was the best wine we tasted last night by miles and miles.

Yikes! Everything David mentions I agree with. It was as if I were at the tasting. I love high quality white Bordeaux, especially Chevalier (never had HB). Love the mix of mineral, tropical and oakiness. Carbonnieux is lovely young though I don’t buy it at $35.00+. Many of the lower level WBs just don’t have the lightness and taut body that can make it special. I drink maybe 2-4 white Bordeaux a year.

For my palate, there is also good value to be found in California Sauvignon Blanc.

Cali sauv blanc has never really floated my boat. Even the ones I’ve had modeled on Bordeaux, like Bedrock. OK, but just that.

Now I like that “fresh-mown hay”, grassy smells in some of the lesser White Bordeaux - in Blaye for example, they are bottling a lot of very grassy, 100% Sauvignon Blanc wines that are just marvelous on the palate - more New Zealand-like than you would think - and they are all less than $15 a pop -

But then again, I was raised on old School, Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc from the likes of David Stare, Lou Preston etc that were so aggressively grassy and herbal upon release -

I didn’t care about this category of wine either until a very generous friend opened the 1994 Haut Brion Blanc. Wow, what a wine. But it’s out of my price range, and I haven’t found anything more reasonably priced that compares, so I spend my Sauvignon Blanc funds on Vatan and Cotat instead (not that they taste anything like white Bordeaux, or each other).

Our end was decidedly more negative than yours then. I didn’t find any of the wines bad, but none good, either. All in a narrow 86-89 point range, if I were rating with numbers. At these prices - I think even if you threw out the high and low bottle, the average price was north of $30 - that’s not really acceptable.

Michael, I’ve never had the chance to taste HB blanc, but I’ve heard nothing but rapturous things.

Did you have to source or did your group have these wines in their cellar? I doubt my groups could put this together without sourcing. I know I don’t own a single bottle.

Sort of weird that nobody has included at least a list of what wines you tasted.

I do tend to agree with the crowd. A few times I’ve had an amazing experience with Bordeaux Blanc, but most of the time the wines are either awkward and puzzling or just bad, and then when you factor in the price and the high premox risk, it’s not a category I find myself seeking out. I think my best experiences have been with Smith Haut Laffite, though that’s getting very expensive now.

Paul – These were all purchased at retail this year. But the member who organized this had a hard time finding what he wanted. Hence the wide span of vintages, from 09 to 13.

Chris – I’m at work and didn’t bring my notes. I’ll post later. (It’s funny, but some people last night were talking about how Smith Haut Laffite, which we didn’t have, had become very spoofified. I don’t know as I haven’t had one in years.)

I have the list, in descending order of group preference (although the rankings were very tightly bunched and not very meaningful):

2013 Chateau Graville-Lacoste ($19)
2009 Chateau de Fieuzel ($56)
2010 Chateau Olivier ($52)
2010 Clos Floridene ($31)
2010 Chateau La Louverie ($40)
2009 Domaine de Chevalier ($100)
2012 Chateau Carbonnieux ($44)
2012 Chateau Auney L’Hermitage Cuvee Cana ($44)

Respectfully guys, that is not a comprehensive look at white Bordeaux; it is quite incomplete and a hodgepodge of wines rather than thematic. Additionally, there’s a reason why the the Graville-Lacoste showed the best- it is made to drink upon release. Pick a solid dry white vintage (07) and conduct a horizontal tasting that is indicative of the region at large. Throw in a Pavillon Blanc from Margaux, a St Emilion white like Monbousquet or Clos Nardian and a “Y” Ygrec (D’Yquem) just to experience all of the different styles that are out there.

I think you would be very surprised with the difference in brand new white Bordeaux vs HQ white Bordeaux several years after release. A lot more nuance and balance are there IMHO.

That’s what I figured. I’m always surprised when someone shows up with one as a white starter. Doesn’t happen too often.

Sure, and if we had included top vintages of the Haut Brion and LMHB blancs it would have been better too. Pavillon Blanc and Y are well over $100/bottle, and Monbousquet blanc would easily have been the 2nd most expensive wine in our lineup. Adding three of the most expensive wines of the genre would no doubt have improved our results.

Nobody claimed this tasting was comprehensive. That’s impossible to do with just 8 wines from a relatively large category. But if you’re going to spend an average of $48/bottle and you can’t get even one wine that’s better than merely decent (points-wise, I would not have rated anything above 88ish) … that’s not good.

Expensive wines can be better than cheaper ones. Stay tuned for the full report at 11.

Drinking Olivier Blanc from 2010, Carbonnieux Blanc from 2012 and Dom de Chavalier from 2009 this early isn’t going to give you much of a read on those. Drink the same three wines from 2007 and your results would be much different (great white vintage and enough age to start to be open).

Any comments on the '09 Fieuzel? I’ve found the '05 to be pretty good.