Bordeaux Wine
Is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France, centered on the city of Bordeux and covering the whole area of the Gironde department, with a total vineyard area of over 120,000 hectares, making it the largest wine growing area in France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world.
Some Bordeaux Wine
Chateau Canon 2000Very dark red, a rich bouquet of very ripe, plummy orange fruit, an intense palate, great density, full of extract, rather compact body. Intense flavor but tight and brooding, very complex, very pro-found. Power with grace, with the capacity to become even more complex and rich. Quintessential Can-on, not just back to its former heights but scaling higher heights.
Chateau Pichon Lalande 2000
Very dark red, hardly any brown tints. A slow starter, it took some time for aroma and palate to develop. It took 20 minutes in the glass for the characteristic cedar and blackcurrant bouquet to show, albeit a trifle light, not at all lush, just a gentle and soft bouquet.The palate was somewhat modest in volume and density, well balanced though with good freshness, not quite as complex and concentrated as befits a 2000 wine. A gentle version of Pichon, already drinking well, but not quite the Pichon of old.
Gevrey-Chambertin "Coeur du Roy" 1999, Dugat-Py
Bernard Dugat-Py is one of Burgundy's finest growers, quiet, soft-spoken, speaking little English. The winery and home are on the edge of the town of Gevrey-Chambertin, the cellar with its high vaulted ceiling being previously the crypt of a church. Makes very dense powerful wines.
Medium dark red, slightly browning; medium intensity bouquet of crushed cherries and straw-berries. Good ripe pinot fruit character on the palate, good freshness and ripeness, medium-bodied, not lush but lightly firm as befits a Gevrey-Chambertin wine.
Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru 1999, Faiveley
A significant step up in density, concentration, intensity and ripeness. More pronounced and riper fruit bouquet. Much more dense and concentrated palate, crisp freshness, clearly a bigger, more complex and intense wine, still some way from ready. Very good potential, a great burgundy.
Egon Muller-Scharzhof Riesling Kabinett 1996Very light yellow in colour, with the classic "kerosene" bouquet typical of mature high quality Riesling. Lightly sweet on the pal-ate, with that limpid minerality and attenuated fruity acidity which denotes a mature Riesling, delicate in texture, finishing lingering and clean.
Perfect foil to an Alaskan king crab dish. A lovely wine, exemplifying the oft-repeated injunction that great German Riesling,.Kabinetts are best drunk when at least six years old, preferably at least 10 years!
Champagne Pol Roger "Winston Churchill" 1996
A long-time favourite cuvee, one of the finest of the deluxe cuvees. The first vintage was the 1975, bottled only in magnums, sold only in the United Kingdom, with an etiquette which carried a black border in mourning for the great wartime leader whose favourite champagne this was.
1996 was a great vintage for champagne
Tom Stevenson, a leading writer on champagne, wrote "... an extraordinary Champagne vintage. ... has been compared to 1928... with average 10.3 per cent potential alcohol with 10g/litre total acidity". It was a winner all the way from the first sip to the reluctant end. Very bubbly, pale yellow, light citrusy, light bouquet of freshly baked bread, a little yeasty. Very fresh on the palate, intense and concentrated, great precision, perfect ripeness and very complex. Very good minerality
Enjoy them this Christmas!
Bordeaux Wine
