Wonderful tasting of wines from the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc at Ripple last night. We tasted 2014s from 14 wineries - Chateau Arnauld, Chatea Larose Perganson, Chateau Larose Trintaudon, Chateau Arsac, Chateau Hanteillan, Chateau Patache d’Aux, Chateau La Haye, Chateau Labadie, Cahteau Lalaudey, Chateau Meyre, Chateau Moulin a Vent (and I was expecting it to be made of Gamay ), Chateau Peyredon Lagravette, Chateau Rollan de By and Chateau Tour Seran (the last two have the same owner), and then had the wines from each winery with dinner (some 2014s, some 2012s, some 2010s and one 2009 (Tour Seran). These were really nice wines for drinking. They were well balanced and not blockbuster wines. Beautiful wines. My guess is that the wines will age pretty well, but they are quite nice now. Many of the wines seem to cost in the area of $15 to $30, but I am having trouble finding 2014s of these wines in the US. If the 2014s can be found in the US at this price range, they are really good values. I do not know of comparable California Cabernet of quality at around $20. But, that is if I can find the wines.
I liked the 2014s. They had nice richness and good acidity. This meant that the wines combined both flavor and brightness and made them quite enjoyable. The 2012s had decent richness, but did not seem to have the acidity and were less bright. The 2010s were quite good. We had one 2009, which makes it hard to generalize because it was a wine that was quite good in 2014 also (Tour Seran).
Overall, I liked a lot of the wines that were Cabernet based than the wines that were more Merlot based, which, at least with the 2014s, seemed too soft. I did not notice this distinction as much at dinner. Some of my favorite 2014s were Chateau Arnauld, Chateau D’Arsac, Chateau Patache D’Aux and Chateau La Haye. But then (just to show a total lack of consistency), I really liked Chateau Rollan de By and Chaeau Tour Seran, both of which were mostly Merlot. For the most part, the preferences on wines continued with the dinner wines. Overall, an excellent tasting. Thanks to Panos and Ripple for organizing this and to all the growers and to the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc for coming here. Interesting night.
Thanks for the report, Howard–sounds as though Panos and Ripple served up another excellent and well-thought-out wine event. Hope this helped the growers get some good exposure over here. Did you have a clear WOTN?
Howard, I taste a lot of those wines you mentioned. The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon based Crus Bourgeois wines, of which most are Cab based are pretty good wines. Especially the further north you travel. And they sell for a song too.
I have both Chateaux Larose-Trintaudon and Meyre in my cellar. All bottles were less than $20.
The most recent Larose-Trintaudon I’ve seen and purchased is 2011. I also have '07, '09 and '10. The 2010 is the best of that range IMO, although I’m enjoying the '07 which is fully mature.
I’ve only found 2009 Chateau Meyre, which was one of the first wines I added to my budding collection a couple years ago.
L-T is typically 60/40 Cab/Merlot, and around 13% abv.
I think Chateau Meyre uses more Cabernet, and the style is old school.
I’ve had a bottle of 2014 Chateau Senejac and 2014 Chateau du Retout so far, other Cru Bourgeois wines which are both very good.
Jeff, which Cru Bourgeois wines do you particularly like.
I hope that you are correct about the pricing as I do not see the 2014s that I tasted being sold yet in the US. But, if the prices are around the estimates in a booklet we were given, there will be some tremendous values that will compete well with Cabernet/Merlot produced virtually anywhere in the world at the price.
It was great to see you and other friends at the dinner.
One thing that I took away in particular from the tasting was just how much better many of these wines - even so young* - tasted with the food. Perhaps in part because the chef was so good, as his food was delicious, but I noticed how most participants simply enjoyed the wines with greater gusto once the food came out. I had a few favorites overall, but generally agree about 2014 being a better vintage than 2012, especially in the northern Medoc. Standouts included Brillette (Moulis) 2010 and d’Arsac 2010 (and 2014) from Margaux as well as Tour Seran 2009 (Medoc) and Haut Breton Larigaudiere (Margaux) 2012. I really enjoyed discovering wines like Peyredon Lagravette (Haut Medoc), particularly delicious in 2014. Rolland de By was very good in 2014, as the acidity of the vintage balanced out the more opulent and oak derived style - so I just was rather seduced by it.
But I could not get past the rather more oaky and extracted (“modern”) style as epitomized by Arnauld (Haut Medoc), in fact the Larose Trintaudon 2014 and 2010 were far better to my taste, if not extraordinary.
Some wines like Lalaudey (Moulis) and to a lesser extent Moulin a Vent may have been more fruit forward, but lacked a bit of structure and weight as exemplified by some of the aforementioned preferences.
So they were not all uniformly to my preference, but overall, globally, this tasting (and dinner) yet again illustrated that affordable and enjoyable Bordeaux exists - as the French say - belle et bien!
*To prepare the tasting dinner, we double decanted some of the wines, as they needed much air. For example, Patache d’Aux 2010 was very closed. Four hours before it was served for the final course of the dinner, we double decanted it and then left the bottle open…
Howard, I liked a lot of the wines, some of which you tasted, many that you did not. You can see all the Cru Bourgeois I try to follow here. The chateau with the hyperlinks are the wines I try tasting every year.
I hope that you are correct about the pricing as I do not see the 2014s that I tasted being sold yet in the US. But, if the prices are around the estimates in a booklet we were given, there will be some tremendous values that will compete well with Cabernet/Merlot produced virtually anywhere in the world at the price.
At least to me, Cru Bourgeois are not pricey across the board. There are a few exceptions, for example, Sociando, but they are not a Cru Bourgeois any longer, so that should not count.
K&L will usually have a good spectrum of petit chateaux / cru bourgeois, even if not all those exact names at all times. I’ve also seen some of them at Total Wine at times, in other vintages.
Good to hear. I bought a fair bit of 2014s as the pricing on Classified Growth in futures was silly cheap, plus the vintage is more to my liking than the richer years, think 2015. It was my last year - I keep saying that - purchasing futures in Bordeaux. Looking forward to getting them soon.
It is hard to extrapolate from these wines to the Classified Growths in terms of how long the Classified wines will age, but my guess from this is that the Classified wines will taste kind of like a 2001 type vintage with really nice balance and will be wines that will have a long drinking window. I have not tasted any Classified wines from 2014 yet and so I could be wrong, but I think this will be a vintage you will like. Nice structure and acidity, at least in what I have tasted.
I do note that these to me are very different animals from what you are buying, in all likelihood. Wines I would want to buy in half bottles if I could and drink over the next five years on a casual night at home with my wife. I would think the vintage style would hold up with wines for more aging, but will find out when I drink them.
I bought some Crus has well, not just the CGs. An amazing vintages where many CGs were $50 or less, Cantermerle and Sociando were $25. Senejac at $13, Capbern at $17. Lanessan dirt cheap. Etc.
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), Chateau Peyredon Lagravette, Chateau Rollan de By and Chateau Tour Seran (the last two have the same owner), and then had the wines from each winery with dinner (some 2014s, some 2012s, some 2010s and one 2009 (Tour Seran). These were really nice wines for drinking. They were well balanced and not blockbuster wines. Beautiful wines. My guess is that the wines will age pretty well, but they are quite nice now. Many of the wines seem to cost in the area of $15 to $30, but I am having trouble finding 2014s of these wines in the US. If the 2014s can be found in the US at this price range, they are really good values. I do not know of comparable California Cabernet of quality at around $20. But, that is if I can find the wines.