Wine and Spirits - December 2011 - (Page 18)

bordeaux cheap on the Phil Pratt: “There’s Bordeauxiness to the aroma. You smell it and it says, “This is French.” Château Roland de By 2009 Médoc ($20) Joshua Greene: “A sweeter version of a classic claret, gentle and chewy with black cherry, chocolate and herb ﬂavors.” Catch an Aﬀordable Claret You’ve got your Deux Chevaux and your sandwich au jambon, waiting to cross the Pont Aquitaine. Sitting in traﬃc on the Rocade gives you plenty of time to wonder about Bordeaux, by far the largest wine region in France. How did it become one of the smallest ﬁne wine regions in France? Sure, you can wander through Blaye and Bourg, through the Côtes de Francs and the satellites of St-Emilion, where dozens of little châteaux make great aﬀordable wines. But few are imported to the States. So this year we returned our Citroen at the airport and picked up the phone instead, searching on the ground Stateside for the claret we want in our cellar. Forget Laﬁte, Latour and Le Pin. We were looking for wines we could aﬀord to buy by the case. We put out the word to three dozen sommeliers around the country: What’s your favorite aﬀordable Bordeaux right now? Then we collated the list, tracked down the wines (we could ﬁnd 14 of them through importers or winesearcher.com) and gathered a smaller group of sommeliers to taste them with us. Our panel included Lacy Burke (Del Posto), Roger Dagorn (Porter House New York), Pascaline Lepeltier (Rouge Tomate), Michael Madrigale (Bar Boulud) and Phil Pratt (The 21 Club). Here are the wines that impressed us the most. Surprisingly, a majority of the initial recommendations hailed from the Left Bank; those were also the easiest to ﬁnd in the market.—Joshua Greene Roger Dagorn: “I like the pencil shaving scent. It seems like there’s more merlot than cabernet in the wine.” Phil Pratt: “The fruit is dark but not overextracted, not overripe. It just tastes good. If you want someone to taste Bordeaux and not spend an arm and a leg to do it, you can get it here.” Château Lanessan 2005 Haut-Médoc ($18) Michael Madrigale: “High-toned and elegant, with a red cherry proﬁle. Not heavy or heavily oaked.” Roger Dagorn: “Plummy, suave, so tannins— this is approachable, friendly, balanced. It’s a crowd pleaser, but it’s not innocuous. It looks like it has more age to it than a 2005.” W I N E & S P I R I T S D E C E M B E R 2 0 http://www.winesearcher.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine and Spirits - December 2011

Wine and Spirits - December 2011
Editor’s Note
Happenings
Contents
Fined & Filtered Luke Sykora on Napa's Latest Vintages; Wine Manga Hits Our Stores
Spirits: Winter's New Must-Haves from Lou Bustamante
Bordeaux on the Down Low
Post-Modern Barolo
Coombsville Rising
Breaking the Mold
Where’s the Beef?
Extreme Values
Tastings Overview
Champagne
American Cabernet & Blends
Barolo & Barbaresco
Rioja
German Riesling
American Wines
Imported Wines
Champagne’s Warming Trend

Wine and Spirits - December 2011