Wine X Staff
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Bordeaux is in a bad place. No, I don’t mean it’s like, geographically in a bad place. It’s just lost its appeal. The region has become kind of an old English gentleman’s wine. Kind of like Port, which is also deliciously and underappreciated and I’ll write a different article about that some other time (focus Michael!). But right now we’re talking about Bordeaux. So grab a glass of Saint-Émilion and learn why you, too, should care about this region.
Bordeaux’s lack of cool kid-ness cracks me up, because red blends are all the rage these days. There are entire shelves in most grocery and liquor stores devoted to red blends now, and yet I usually don’t see more than a few Bordeaux’s lying around collecting dust and priced to sell. Most of the time, the red blends are overpriced, with colorful labels and fun whimsical names. Yet people drink them up, without realizing that for half the price you can get double the quality and all you have to do is pick the slightly more boring-sounding wine down in the France section that also happens to be a red blend.
Bordeaux as a region has a very long history, one I won’t get into in this article. Just know that it’s old. And most importantly, Bordeaux is f***ing huge. Like, triple the size of Napa and Sonoma COMBINED. They’re also damn good at making wine. The highest-end Bordeaux sells for many thousands of dollars, straight from the winery. However, the size of the region means that you can get Bordeaux from many different areas in many different price ranges. Think $5/Liter Cartons of Bordeaux all the way up to mortgage-on-a-house-sell-your-kidney pricing. And practically all of the red blends. They make white wine and dessert wine too (even some bubbly) but we’re going to focus on the reds because that makes up the vast majority of their production.
As mentioned before, Bordeaux is a red blend. The six red grapes that are allowed to be used in red Bordeaux are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Carmenere. The first three are far more heavily planted than the last three, but you will see the latter grapes in blends every now and then. Merlot, that oft-vilified grape that “Sideways” killed, makes up a large percentage of most of the entry-level Bordeaux that you might see for $20 or less per bottle.
Why does it matter what the grapes are that make up Bordeaux? Because they use the same damn grapes in practically every red blend. Throw in a little Petit Sirah, Zinfandel, and Syrah, and you’ve named almost every grape that is used in red blends all over the world.
So why don’t you go try a Bordeaux? Expand your horizons, get over the boring labels, and give one a shot. You might be surprised at how similar it tastes to your favorite red blend, but without all the garbage they put into most mass-produced versions. And it might cost less too. Trust me, I’m a doctor I’m a wine professional.
