I am sitting here watching the Eagles game enjoying a 2010 Cambon La Pelouse Bordeaux that I bought by the case for $19/ea. For my tastes, a very nice wine, and a great value that will drink well for a long time.
2009 and 2010 presented a good opportunity to buy very good, inexpensive wines. I picked up Lanessan, Cambon La Pelouse, Senejac, Lillian Ladouys, and a few others for casual, weeknight wines.
I’m still looking for the 14 Lanessan and didn’t like the 15 Lanessan. I bought 16 Lanessan and Lillian Ladouys on futures, as well as some classified growths.
What other $20ish + wines should I look for given the 14, 15, and 16 vintages?
Jeff that 2010 Cambon is a real winner. An excellent vintage for that wine. I think it can go long as well. I recently had the 2000, and it was excellent. Bouard is not involved, so I passed on recent vintages.
Bouard is now involved in Lanessan. Not a fan of 2015. The 2014 is killer, the vintage is killer.
Bolaire Bolaire!!! A bit idiosyncratic with its high percentage of petite Verdot. I love it. And it ages. Just had a 2005 that was sold and had legs to go. Belle-Vue is it’s sister Estate. The Bolaire is $15 and under.
Sociando is king in this $20ish category. It’s over $30 most places now, but I recently grabbed more of the most excellent 2014 for $27.99. This is the QPR of the 2014 vintage.
I have been drinking a lot less Bordeaux (although I just posted on one), but over the decades both La Tour St Bonnet and Cambon La Pelouse have proven very reliable and consistently excellent values.
I like the naturalish/organic Bordeaux wines at the lower end. There’s more of a purity and prettiness to them. No idea if that actually has anything to do with being biodynamic/organic. Chambers stocks a bunch of these.
Cantemerle is a great value in my limited experience. I was lucky/smart (really the former) to buy 2 cases of the 2000 at about $25 per bottle. Still drinking them and loving them. It is now around 30s to 40s depending on vintage. Still a great value in my book.
And I feel the exact opposite. Been drinking both for well over 30 years, and both wines really hit their stride after 10 years. Just drank my last half bottle of the '75 Tour St Bonnet over the holidays, and it was simply beautiful. Nice wines in off vintages as well -
There are so many good CBs that as Julian says, each to their own.
Personally, I prefer 2010 to 2009 and these are my favourites: Caronne Ste Gemme, De Malleret, Larose-Trintaudon, Rollan de By, Citran, Ramafort and Barreyres, so far. De Landiras is a good Graves, but already starting to fade. I got all of them in 2014, 15 and 16. I haven’t tried Cambon 2010 yet, because it’s normally a bit chunkier but I’ve no doubt it’ll be good. My only disappointment has been the usually very reliable Tour du Haut Moulin - either I got a bad batch or they produced a real stinker in 2010.
Others to consider would be Hanteillan, Liversan, Du Glana from St.Julien, then Fonréaud and Lestage, from Listrac.
There are a heck of a lot of chateaux to consider, so I don’t think you can just right off 2009 as being inferior to 2010.
I’d say that you need to be careful in 2009 as some wines are overextracted, high alcohol, oak bombs. But there are some great wines, too.
The generic Bordeaux had the chance of full ripeness in 2009 that the didn’t get in some vintages and could be great bargains if handled in the right way by the winemakers.