Left Bank Bordeaux

by Maggie Bernat Smith

There’s not a lot of easy lessons about French wine, their labels are confusing and who knows what you are taking home to drink that night. Here’s the “easy button” for French wines.

• Red wine from Burgundy is Pinot Noir, the white is Chardonay



• Red wine from Bordeaux will be a Cabernet or Merlot dominated blend, the white is a Sauvignon Blanc blend



• Red wine from the Rhone valley will be Syrah or Grenache based. Their white wine is Viognier



• Languedoc is no rules, anything goes, but most times they will label which grape type you’re drinking

This is just the basic of the basics of French wine, there’s a multitude more to learn about each village, soil type, where the vineyards are located, who is making the wine, and you can just keep going. We are going to just focus on the left bank of Bordeaux today.

When a red wine is labeled Bordeaux, this means it’s a blend dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and possibly seasoned with some Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot or Malbec. The grapes can come from anywhere in the entire Bordeaux Region and can range from disappointing quaffs to great bargains so unless you know the reputations of the thousands of producers, then you just have to taste your way through them (or go to a small reputable wine shop who knows their wines). If you see Bordeaux Superieur on the bottle this means that the wine needs a minimum of .5% more alcohol which can translate to a fuller bodied style and they generally will use better plots of land with older vines to make a wine with more complexity then just your basic Bordeaux. A traditional basic Bordeaux will have characteristics such as red fruit, black currant, pencil lead and should be a soft easy-drinking wine. Great with warm weather braised dishes. If you are interested in these basic Bordeaux check out a wine shop like The Noble Grape, they have a great selection of these value wines.

Now when you hear about the Bordeaux wines that are the greatest wines created on earth, there are just a handful of producers and communes within Bordeaux that they are talking about. On the northwest part of the Gironde River running through the heart of Bordeaux is the Haut Medoc, within this region are communes (basically small geographical areas) that produce most of the First Growths (the best of Bordeaux wines). Here they are, you may have heard some of these names on Frazier over the years:

Chateau Margaux
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
Chateau Latour
Chateau Haut-Brion
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild

These are the prized, most expensive, rarest wines of the world. If you don’t have several thousand dollars to drop on these wines that don’t reach their full potential for a couple of decades -- the key is to seek out the great second growths that have over the years proved themselves worthy of First Growth status but it’s just too hard to change laws in France so we call them Super Seconds. Although these wines generally start in the low hundreds, they are worth every penny. Some of the names that make this list are:

Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases
Chateau Leoville-Barton
Chateau Pichon-Longueville-Baron
Chateau Cos d'Estournel
Chateau Montrose
Chateau Palmer (although actually a third growth but it is so well respected that it is included on this list)

This is just a basic Bordeaux lesson that covers the Left Bank of the Gironde River. We will do another to provide you with a Right Bank lesson. Too much information can overwhelm when you are trying to learn about French wine. If you want to partake in the splendor of these great wines then go to Binny’s. They have a reserve room under lock and key for these wines. I recommend asking for a manager to really guide you through these at the time of purchase or just email me, I can help you sort through the magnificence in these bottles.