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Bordeaux - Always Apropos
I recently returned from a trip to Porto and the Douro Valley in Portugal followed by a quick visit to Bordeaux. Both regions were in the middle of harvest. Portugal is intensely beautiful and the Douro Valley is wonderfully remote. No picture that I have ever seen really does justice to its beauty. In our next newsletter, I will follow up on the Portugal part of my trip.
This week, however, I want to let our readers know about some terrific Bordeaux wines that I tasted on my visit to that extraordinarily civilized part of the world. As you probably know, the food is wonderful (as well as the wine) and I enjoyed a significant amount of foie gras, duck breast, cheese and cepes. One of the food high points was dinner at the home of winemaker/owner Veronique Barthe of Château la Freynelle. She dug up a basketful of those delicious mushrooms not twenty yards from the front door of her house. Food just doesn't get any better than that. I confess to eating more than my fair share.
This was the first time that I had been in Bordeaux at harvest. I had the opportunity to see some of the behind the scenes work that the public doesn't often get to see. I was fortunate to have as a host and guide on this trip Mr. Jean-Christophe Calvet, who is the President of Aquitaine Wine Company. Aquitaine Wine Company is a Bordeaux-based négociant that specializes in "discovery, alternative, value wines" from Bordeaux. In as competitive a region as Bordeaux, with over 12,000 château, more and more winemakers are realizing that in order to stand out they really need to focus on quality.
Jean-Christophe and company co-founder, Margaret Calvet, actively search out exceptional wines throughout the area and establish long-term partnerships with the best producers, estates, and winemakers for exclusive wines and new projects. (And they are two of the nicest, most charming, best-informed people that you would ever hope to meet.)
Every wine that they introduced to me, regardless of price point, was exceptionally well made. Consequently, this was a very productive and enjoyable trip. Each winemaker that I met was open and informative about what he or she does. Of course, not every wine I sampled was exactly to my own taste. (That really isn't the point after all.) But each wine, no matter if it was made in a very modern style or a very traditional one, clearly expressed its terroir and the dedication of the winemaker to making the best wine he or she could make. I find it more and more difficult to hit upon that expression these days, so this visit was a refreshing change. Too often the wines that I taste are the generic tasting centerpiece of a marketing campaign for a wine that really could have been made anywhere.
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