Bordeaux Primer

For my palate the best wines in the world are aged Bordeaux wines (followed closely by the much cheaper Walla Walla, Red Mountain, and Yakima reds of Washington). The "Bordeaux Blend" varieties are usually Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, sometimes with Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and/ or Carmenere. Chateau Petrus, one of the most expensive wines in the world is almost all Merlot!, so don't diss Merlot--it is a great and noble grape.

Bordeaux's best red wine area is the Haut Medoc (upper Medoc). Haut Medoc contains many villages, or communes, and each of those contains many chateaus, most of whom grow their own fruit and make their own wine ("mis en bouteille au chateau" (bottled at the chateau), and that will always be on the label--the Pacific Northwest equivalent of that is "Estate" fruit).

Some of those communes are more famous than others (Pauillac, Margaux, St. Julien, St. Estephe, Graves, Pomerol, and St. Emilion are the best ones). (Not all of those are in Haut Medoc, however.)

In 1855 the 155 or so greatest Bordeaux were classified into five "Growths" or quality categories. The First Growths are at the top, and these chateau names are all individual chateaus, not communes, though there are sometimes communes of the same names, so it's confusing: The five First Growths are Lafite, Mouton, Margaux, Latour, and Haut Brion. Ch. Lafite is in Pauillac, but Ch. Margaux is in Margaux.

Together with the 1st Growths, the 2nd-5th Growths are also "Grand Cru" wines. The next step down is "Cru," and below that are the table wines.

I believe there is more variety in smells and flavors, among the First and Second Growths, than in any other wine region on the planet. The smokiness in the 1957 Ch. Haut Brion I had was so powerful, and so different from the pencil lead, cedar, and leather in the 1957 Ch. Lafite that it was amazing, and yet the wines were made in the same year, from vineyards only 40 miles apart.

To complicate it further, most of the First and Second Growths have second labels. Those second labels are for wines made from the same fruit, but the best barrels are put into the primary wines and the second labels get the rest. But often the second labels are pretty good, and of course they're cheaper. Ch. Lafite's second label costs hundreds per bottle, however.

To shock you into the Bordeaux prices, here are current retail prices for some Bordeaux:

2008 Pichon-Lalande (2nd Growth, from Pauillac): $110 (and this is perhaps my very favorite Chateau in Bordeaux, among all the 2nd-5th Growths) (and "Pichon Lalande" is common parlance for the full name, which is Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande"), and just check out the architecture of that place!:

2008 Reserve de la Comtesse (the above wine's second label): $40 at K&L Wines; scored 89 by Wine Spectator

2004 Haut Bages Liberal (5th Growth, from Pauillac): $45 (and 90 points Robert Parker; available at K&L)

1998 Ch. Lafite: $925 (98 points, Robert Parker)

2008 Ch. Lafite (1st Growth, Pauillac): $1200 (that is for ONE bottle!)

If you are younger, and you have some money, and if this "Chinese Bordeaux bubble" continues to dissipate, and if you have a good place to cellar your wines, then you should seriously consider buying some Grand Cru Bordeaux, as futures. That's beyond the scope of this piece, but email me if you want to learn more.