Couple things that the thread seemed to dance around that deserve some summary and editorialization/trolling:
Prices across BDX haven’t risen the way they have in say Burgundy
Global warming is pulling up the quality of lesser appellations
There’s an ocean of Bordeaux and to the extent that hipster palate syndrome has taken afoot (it clearly has struck a chord across restaurants and the youths), Bordeaux seems…boring which will suppress marginal demand
Bordeaux is kinda boring when you expand your wings to hipster regions. Not to say that a classic claret doesn’t have its place, but I think broader specialty merchants have really expanded people’s horizons…I used to think Figeac was so interesting for daring to push their CF ratios (ditto PLL)…then I started drinking Loire Cab Francs. We had a bottle of 05 Baudry Grez smoke a bottle of 79 Haut Brion. Not an isolated event, your tastes may vary, etc…
I still recall that '96 Grezeaux we had years back w/ tooch that was a showstopper alongside a bunch of heavy hitter Bordeaux. But as much as I love Baudry and other Loire CF, it’s a relatively limited number of producers that I get that excited about in that region. I’m definitely finding myself spending more time/$ in Bordeaux these days, especially in the $50-100 range where I’m finding both quality and relative value.
This is where I am at, and I think you guys know that I buy a ton of Loire CF. Loire is more challenging than Bordeaux for the reason you note, and the vintages, though “global warming” does seem to be changing things up for that region.
Just picked up a couple more 2019 Ferrière for £50 each. I can’t imagine much better QPR, although much cheaper in the US. You must have lower shipping costs from Bordeaux
I’m personally not a big fan of the 2015 and 2018 vintages, but grab some of those wines from the 2016 vintage. The Tronquoy Lalande is outstanding in 2016 and readily available. I have yet another 6-pack coming.
Bordeaux is not “kind of boring.” To quote John Dryden, “here is God’s plenty” and Bordeaux offers as much if not more than any other region even Burgundy. It has greater variation whether you are tasting the modern stuff in Saint Emilion or the wonderful traditional wines of the Medoc such as Pichon Lalande.
Across the street is Pichon Baron, another fine wine, but the two taste nothing alike. A footpath, a slight incline can and often does result in a completely different wine.
Sometimes Bordeaux can stop you in your tracks, sometimes it is just something you drink with dinner. Sometimes it is just young and tastes only of grapes, but with twenty years of aging, it becomes complex and you have tastes of spice, earth, smoke, leather etc all mingled with the fruit.
So no, after nearly forty years I have barely scratched the surface, and I can still be surprised by the glass in front of me. I can say with complete certainty that Bordeaux has never bored me.
Cepotts: My first post was a bit of an oversimplification—and I am a firm believer in preconceptions affect how you taste wine and I have likely just convinced myself of this now (which is a good reason to blind taste as you suggest, which I have not done).
That having been said, time and time again, the Bordeaux I find myself enjoying most are cab heavy.
Grand Corbin Despagne…Was interested but, ughhhh …I’m def. not drinking any 14.5-15% alc. Bordeaux… unfortunately nothing in Bordeaux really compares to what u can find in Loire when discussing (qpr) so I pretty much stick to this region.
Bordeaux is huge. In that regard Loire CF will never catch up. But I think that the claim that there is only few interesting domaines has more to do with availability in the US than anything else.
So much available to me that I haven’t tried yet. We have a newish Danish importer who started pulling in a lot of new exciting names from Loire. Exciting times for Loire CF (and other grapes!)
The trick is finding these ones available at good prices. a lot of the wines listed here struggle to make it to SC and maintain the decent price tag. same true of champagne as well.
It’s tricky to give Bordeaux the title of best QPR though. I think the Chianti Classico talk is pretty fair. Not only because CC is a pretty reliable choice across a wide range of producers that can just be silly cheap, but because even the big names in the CC region are still relatively affordable compared to the top names in Bordeaux. Id throw out wines like Vigna del Sorbo (like $70ish?), Percarlo (like $55 at the estate?), Rancia (Can get it for sub $50 here), even more culty stuff like Pergola Torte is still available for sub $200.
The entire country of Spain would have something to say about this conversation as well.
Finally, I’ll admit that Bordeaux doesn’t match my food preferences quite as well as most other wine regions do. makes it hard to be unbiased against it. but if someone can give me some Bordeaux reds that work in this thread and that I can match well with weeknight chicken and veggies, or fish, then I would be happy to give them another consideration!
I can see the support for a lot of regions like the Loire, Piedmont, etc., but some of the comments on Chianti baffle me. While I have had some very good ones, but the region seems to me to be a minefield. There seems to be an ocean of overcropped wine that is harsh and painful to drink and then too many of the serious producers want to make overoaked things with all kind of nonlocal grape varieties that don’t taste like I would expect from a Chianti. When I want the taste of Sangiovese, I tend toward Brunello.
I think Ferriere 2022 futures are around $50 USD and up here. If the wine tracks with what I’ve tried in the '19 and '20, it’s certainly worth that. I don’t know what the other Bordeaux options are in that $80-$90 CAD price range in Canada, but perhaps you are referring to competition from other regions and not just wines in the same region.
My two cents. Yes, BDX has some pretty solid QPR. Is it the best? Hardly. I’m with others here that “best” is definitely debatable, but if I’m hard pressed to make a couple selections I’d put Spain (so many regions) 1 and Chianti 2. BDX probably makes the top five somewhere, but not near the top (for me, anyway).
Honestly, I find it a bit contradictory to blame Chianti for being a minefield where they make overoaked things and say the way to avoid this is the neighboring region known to be a minefield where they make overoaked things that are just higher in alcohol and lower in acidity.
…I’m def. not drinking any 14.5-15% alc. Bordeaux… unfortunately nothing in Bordeaux really compares to what u can find in Loire when discussing (qpr) so I pretty much stick to this region.
