Bordeaux || St. Emilion || Decants with D

Welcome to the next episode of Decans with Dee. I am Dietmar Ostermann. I'm your host this afternoon and I'm the regular guy from Long Island. This show brings you back to the top wine country in the world, France. And in France, the number one wine region in France and arguably the number one wine region in the world, Bordeaux. And as you know in Bordeaux easily, you divide between the left bank that's more Cabernet blend based and the right bank that's more Merlot blend based. Both sides of the Bordeaux region are producing blended wines for the most part, but the left bank more Cabernet focused and the right bank more Merlot focused. I did two earlier videos on the left bank side and Cabernet focused wines and therefore today I want to focus on the right bank and the right bank has two very very important sub-regions, Pomerol and Saint-Emilion. And I want to deep dive today Saint-Emilion. So Saint-Emilion has its own classification, not to be confused with the 1855 classification of the Bordeaux wines which mostly covers left bank wines. And the classification that exists for Saint-Emilion actually is dynamic and gets refreshed every 10 years. They just did a revision last year in 2022 and so at the highest level you have the Premier Cru Classé A and there's two of them that were rated in that classification and then right below that you have the Classé B. There's 12 vineyards in that classification. Now these are just like the first growth or second growth of Bordeaux on the left bank side in the 1855 classification, very expensive. So if you go one level lower in Saint-Emilion, much more digestible for the normal wine drinker, you have the wines that are called Grand Cru Classé. So not Premier Cru Classé A or B but Grand Cru Classé. There's 71 of them, 71 and I have three of them here in front of me. Among the 71 is a significant difference in quality and you can argue until the cows come home who is really better and there's differences of opinion. So you need to be selective and careful and knowledgeable and that is why today I want to introduce to you three Grand Cru Classé from Saint-Emilion that I can highly recommend and I will taste them here with you today. Below the Grand Cru Classé is the Grand Cru classification and below that you just call a wine simply Saint-Emilion. Those are the wines in the lesser territories. Overall there's about 200 producers in Saint-Emilion. The classification, whether or not they are participating, is left to the wine producing vineyard. For instance, there are some like the Chateau Tertre Rodboff and Chateau Ledon that decided not to participate at all. So they are not rated Premier Cru, even though these are fantastic wines and very, very expensive. Some of the brand names that you have heard for sure is a Chateau Orson or Chateau Pavie. Those are classical great wines from the Bordeaux area in Saint-Emilion. So on the lower level, before I get to the Grand Cru Classé, I have two wines here. One is the Chateau Condat that is just a Grand Cru, not a Grand Cru Classé and I also have here the Tour Saint-Christophe. Those wines, the first one, the Condat, is about $30 a bottle and the second one is about $45 a bottle, the Tour Saint-Christophe. These are outstanding value wines. In fact, James Suckling, as you can see here, gave this wine 94 points. I drink these regularly. These are good wines but they will be covered in a different video where I'm focusing on the bargain wines that are very good from Bordeaux. One step up are these three wines. The first one here, a house wine for me, Chateau Fombrage. I discovered this wine maybe 20, 25 years ago and have been drinking it ever since. What I like about this wine really is the black cherry, black currant, raspberry, a little bit of red plum, black plum combination, some cacao from secondary tertiary notes in here in addition to the cacao, some tobacco. It's well integrated. 18 was a good year, 19 even a better year. Highly recommend Chateau Fombrage but I will not taste this right now. I want to taste these two because I've never covered them in a video before. The first one is Chateau Fleur Cardinal, Grand Cru Classé, 2018 and 2018 no doubt was an excellent, excellent, excellent year in Saint-Emilion. This wine retails for about $55 in total wine. It has a Wine Spectator score of 93, Vivino score of 4.2. Pops right out, color-wise deep ruby, not see-through, can't see the stem from the top, fine good lines in the glass indicating medium to high alcohol content and in the 14.5% alcohol that's on the high side. The Mombusque is very heavily merlot concentrated and that would mean the wine has less tannins, more easily early drinkable. Let's give it a try. Let's give it a sniffy sniff. Beautiful raspberry, a little bit with blackberry intermingled. I have a plum in here as well, tobacco, chocolate, a plethora of different aromas comes out there, some violet in more floral notes, beautiful. Let's give it a whirl. On the palate, medium plus to high acidity, tannins is medium minus. It's a full-body wine, high alcohol, black cherry is a dominating fruit flavor but a little bit mixed in is the raspberry. Tobacco notes come out, cacao notes come out. Overall for $55 a great wine. I give the 2018 4.5. That brings us to candidate number two, the Chateau Mombusque 2018. This is the wine that is 60% merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine sells for about $65 so $10 more than the Fleur Cardinal at Total Wine. It got scored 95 points for Wine Spectator and a 4.3 on Vivino. Four cups right now. Color-wise, ladies and gentlemen, even deeper, darker than the previous wine. This is a deep, deep ruby red, thick lines in the glass, high alcohol content and yes, indeed, we are talking again 14.5% alcohol. That's high alcohol. Let's give it a sippy snip. Much more subdued initial aromas, a little bit of dust on the nose, a little bit of heavy on the blackberry. Let's shake it around a little bit. I have a black clump in here as well, some raspberry notes, tobacco in the back. Let's give it a whirl. High acidity. The tannins are again medium to medium minus. It's a full-body wine as well. Very dry. This wine with the higher content of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon in here, is probably better in a few years down the road. Not as readily, easily drinkable as the Fleur Cardinal was, but very good, very complex. I give this wine a 4.3. With that, ladies and gentlemen, the win out of this little competition is the Fleur Cardinal. That wine also sells for $10 less, so you're getting it for about $55. The weight value, immediately drinkable, and for that, you get a nice first impression of the Saint-Emilion right-hand side of Bordeaux. That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you enjoyed the show, please like the video, subscribe to my channel, and I see you next Sunday.