Bordeaux Bargains
These two Bordeaux are great reminders that:
1. You don’t need to spend a lot to drink fantastic wine.
2. You don’t need to stock your cellar with expensive wines, if you want great wine for years to come.
I tried both of these reds last January at the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux in NYC, an outrageous tasting of more than 100 wines from the top Châteaux in Bordeaux.
Sound fancy?
These two wines cost just $14.97 and $28.97 a bottle.
They’re both from Haut-Médoc in Bordeaux, which means they’re Cabernet Sauvignon dominant blends.
The 2020 Château Beaumont was the best bargain of the bunch.
I paid $14.97 when I bought it last January. Right now it’s $19.99 on wine.com and I think it’s still a steal. It’s soft and smooth with some slightly grippy, but velvety tannins. I tasted dark fruits like blackberry, tobacco, dried leaves, and some pepper. It’s still young, but totally drinkable. I can’t wait to see what it tastes like in 5-10 years. James Suckling and Wine Enthusiast both gave it 92/100 points.
The 2020 Château Cantemerle was roughly twice the price ($28.97) when I bought it in January, but it’s still an exceptional value. You can find it for as little as $26 on wine-searcher.com today, depending on where you’d like it shipped. I got lots of tart dark cherry and some raspberry from this wine, more dry leaves (if that sounds like a weird thing to say, think about the smell of fall leaves on the ground when you’re tasting this one and you’ll see what I mean), some cedar (which is common with Cabernet and Merlot), and more gravelly tannins than the Beaumont. Gravelly tannins may sound rough, but that just means that you’ll feel the tannins a bit on your tongue and the roof of your mouth when you taste the wine. They’ll soften with time and are just what you need for a wine to age long term. I’m hanging on to the Cantemerle for at least a decade and trying more bottles of it along the way. James Suckling gave it 94/100 points, Wine Enthusiast gave it 95/100.
Not bad for two wines under $30.
