WTN: Budget Bordeaux - Good and Really Bad (2000 vintage)

[David M. Bueker]

Our tasting group met last night with 11 wines served blind. The theme was eventually revealed as "Recession Reds", consisting of mostly inexpensive 2000 Bordeaux bottlings with one 2005 thrown in.

Comments are kept short - many of these wines do not even deserve a eulogy.

2005 Chateau Cheval Brun (St. Emilion) - the interloper & quite good. Lots of ripe (though a bit candied) fruit & a litle bit of structure. Drink now for fun.

2000 Clos De L'Oratoire (St. Emilion) - very nice, evolved fruit, balanced and very drinkable right now - excellent wine

2000 Chateau Cantenac (St. Emilion) - utter garbage, stewed fruit and nasty sewer scents, if I were the owner of one of the good Cantenacs (e.g. Brane Cantenac) I would sue to get this place to change its name

2000 Chateau Marjosse (Entre Deux Mers) - there had been rumblins that this was dead or dying, but this bottle was delicious with a great deal of similarity to the Oratoire if a little more exotic in its aromatics, very good wine for now

2000 Chateau Grand Bois (AOC not noted) - garbage time again, this is less offensive than the Cantenac, but it can still strip paint off of a battleship

2000 Chateau Les Nougueys (St. Emilion) - drinkable, and maybe even pleasant with a simple meal, but much better wine is available for the $14 this cost

2000 Chateau Potensac (Medoc) - orange rim, this is not right - cooked/stewed fruit, leather, not what it should be

2000 Chateau Borie La Mouline (Puisseguin St. Emilion) - unpleasant in a "gosh I hope we can leave this party soon" sort of way, no obvious flaw, but just not a single thing in the wine worth liking

2000 La Dame de Montrose (St. Estephe) - fruity, still tannic, evolving, but not quite there yet. very good, well made wine with a little more upside potential - this would be great with a steak

2000 Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes (Bordeaux Superieur) - fantastic wine, best of the night, tastes like a richer, younger version of the Oratoire. I could smell and drink a lot of this

2000 Chateau Sansonnet (Graves) - this one hte other hand is vinous spawn of satan, utterly horrid wine, in fact to call it wine is to insult horrid wine everywhere. we score on a 20 point scale & one of the guys gave it a 3. The color was good, and it was not cloudy, so there's 3 points.

So all in all an informative evening. I am glad to have the Dame de Montrose in the cellar & may look for the Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes and L'Oratoire in the future. I will be opening & checking the Potensac soon to see if it was a bottle problem. Of course my bottles came from the same importer and retailer, so who knows what I may find.

Yikes. Surprising to see so many really mediocre bottles from what I understand was a really excellent vintage.

[David M. Bueker]

a rising tide does not float all boats

Indeed. Personally, I find unfamiliar St Emilion "Grand Cru" to be the ultimate crapshoot, except the house dice are loaded. I'd far rather try a striving Cotes de Castillon or Fronsac than a St Em I've never heard of. Sure, they can be good (where's Alex?), but lots of leaky boats even in good vintages. The wines I heard of seemed to do ok except the Potensac (hope that's an off bottle).

PS the Sansonnet was a Graves? I've seen a St Emilion by that name (of course, it's pretty common in Bdx to have shared names)

[David M. Bueker]

Indeed it was a Graves.

[Jenise]

My jaw dropped on the floor when I read your description of the Beaulieu. Here's my last comment on it: As for Parker's sleepers...well, not to bash the old feller because I do use his reviews in my buying decisions, but that "sleeper" thing has to be taken with a grain of salt. I've found a number of Parker's low-end reccos rather dicey, like the six bottles of 2000 Beaulieu Comte de Tastes I poured down the drain a few weeks ago--bought a case upon release of that "sleeper of the vintage" and never had a bottle of it (even the first bottle opened from that case shortly after purchase) that didn't taste like swampwater. The last bottle opened had an additional problem--rampant, nasty brett (I like some bretts in moderation, but this wasn't one of the good ones). All the other bottles were affected too. That was posted about a year ago--surely the wine didn't change THAT much.

Separately, I nominate your description of the Borie, "Unpleasant in a 'gosh I hope we can leave this party soon' kind of way" to the Tasting Note Hall of Fame. (Hmmm...that might make a good thread.)

[David M. Bueker]

My jaw dropped on the floor when I read your description of the Beaulieu. Here's my last comment on it: As for Parker's sleepers...well, not to bash the old feller because I do use his reviews in my buying decisions, but that "sleeper" thing has to be taken with a grain of salt. I've found a number of Parker's low-end reccos rather dicey, like the six bottles of 2000 Beaulieu Comte de Tastes I poured down the drain a few weeks ago--bought a case upon release of that "sleeper of the vintage" and never had a bottle of it (even the first bottle opened from that case shortly after purchase) that didn't taste like swampwater. The last bottle opened had an additional problem--rampant, nasty brett (I like some bretts in moderation, but this wasn't one of the good ones). All the other bottles were affected too. That was posted about a year ago--surely the wine didn't change THAT much.

Separately, I nominate your description of the Borie, "Unpleasant in a 'gosh I hope we can leave this party soon' kind of way" to the Tasting Note Hall of Fame. (Hmmm...that might make a good thread.)

Cheap sleepers tend to be highly variable (see Dale's comment above as additional evidence), so I am not shocked. Also cheap sleepers tend to be imported by many and varied organizations with variable handling policies. In other words: your mileage may vary.

As for your other comment: thanks - I'll be here all week.

Differences in brett like that are usually attributable to warmth at some point. Seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence that a mild brett infection can turn rampant if say a bottle sits at room temp in a store for a while.

[Jenise]

Differences in brett like that are usually attributable to warmth at some point. Seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence that a mild brett infection can turn rampant if say a bottle sits at room temp in a store for a while.

I realize, but only the bottles opened later were bretty. Early on, they just seemed 'wrong', nasty in a vinyl kind of way but without the usual vinegar of VA. That was probably brett too, just not one I recognized. Thing is, the bottles didn't sit in a store for awhile--all were purchased from the Wine Ex in Tustin upon release and stored in my cellar ever after.

[David M. Bueker]

Probably happened before the wine got to Tustin.

I was wondering about the Dame de Montrose as I have 2 bottles of it. About how many more years upside do you figure?

[David M. Bueker]

I think the Dame de Montrose will reward another year of cellaring & then drink well for quite a while after that.

... vinous spawn of satan ...

This really made me laugh. David, you made my day.

Also, none of those stinkers are sitting in my collection. Whew!!

-- Clark

[David M. Bueker]

Giggles 'r us!

Who needs numbers? Nice tasting notes David.

Salute

i guess it goes to show you never can tell. We've stocked the Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes for years now, and I cannot remember the last time we had a bottle come back bad. On the other hand, the stuff is not immortal--my understanding is that Beaulieu makes these pretty much for drinking sooner rather than later. Parker's review from 2006 recommends "next 5-6 years."