2006 Bordeaux Release

Saturday, October 3, 2009
While Supplies Last
Special Events at 39th & Cambie

The latest collection of Bordeaux wines is now available. Don't miss your opportunity to stock up on these limited-edition, cellar-worthy wines.

While 2006 is not as good as 2005 (we took a large group of students to the Bordeaux release event last year, spending overnight in the rain, with a couple of them making news on television), today's release is nevertheless a good opportunity for everyone to learn more about wines from Bordeaux.

Here are the Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator ratings of the 2006 Bordeaux bottles below $50.

Winery	Area		AVG	WA	WS
Château Malescasse	Haut-Médoc	$25	87	86	87
Château Marsau	Côtes de Francs	$25	88	88	87
Château Puy-Blanquet	Saint-Émilion	$25	82	-	82
Château Baret	Pessac-Léognan	$29	88	88	88
Château La Bernadotte	Haut-Médoc	$29	86	87	85
Château d’Escurac	Médoc	$29	87	87	-
Château Faizeau Vieilles Vignes	Montagne Saint-Émilion	$29	88	-	88
Château de Fonbel	Saint-Émilion	$29	88	89	86
Château La Prade	Côtes de Francs	$29	87	87	87
Château Rolland-Maillet	Saint-Émilion	$29	90	-	90
Château d’Agassac	Haut-Médoc	$35	85	-	85
Château Le Boscq	Saint-Éstephe	$35	87	-	87
Château Côte de Baleau	Saint-Émilion	$35	87	83	90
Château La Garde	Pessac-Léognan	$35	86	-	86
Château La Gurgue	Margaux	$35	89	-	89
Château Grand Corbin-Despagne	Saint-Émilion	$39	88	90	86
Château Labegorce	Margaux	$39	89	87	89-91
Château Moulin Haut-Laroque	Fronsac	$39	90	90	-
Château Moulinet	Pomerol	$39	45		89
Château Potensac	Médoc	$39	87	88	86
Château Puygueraud Cuvée George	Côtes de Francs	$39	87	83	90
Château la Serre	Saint-Émilion	$39	86	84	87
Château Soutard	Saint-Émilion	$39	83	84	80-84
Château Chasse-Spleen	Haut-Médoc	$45	89	-	89
Château Ferrière	Margaux	$45	87	-	87
Château de Fieuzal	Pessac-Léognan	$45	88	87	88
Château Fontenil	Fronsac	$45	89	88	90
Château La Grave	Pomerol	$45	84	80	88
Château Lafleur-Gazin	Pomerol	$45	86	86	86
Château Plince	Pomerol	$45	89	-	89
Château Poujeaux	Moulis	$45	89	89	89
Château La Vieille Cure	Fronsac	$45	90	90	-
Château Batailley	Pauillac	$49	89	91	87
Château Bourgneuf	Pomerol	$49	89	-	89
Château Cantemerle	Haut-Médoc	$49	89	90	88
Château Carbonnieux	Pessac-Léognan	$49	89	89	88
Château Gloria	Saint-Julien	$49	90	90	90
Château Grand Destieu	Saint-Émilion	$49	90	91-93	88
Château Haut-Bergey	Pessac-Léognan	$49	90	91	89
Haut-Carles	Fronsac	$49	90	91	88
Château Lynch-Moussas	Pauillac	$49	89	89	88
Château Pibran	Pauillac	$49	90	-	90
Château du Tertre	Margaux	$49	84	86	82
Château Carbonnieux Blanc	Pessac-Léognan	$49	90	91	88
Château Haut-Bergey Blanc	Pessac-Léognan	$49	91	90-92	91

Article from the BC Liquor Store web page:

CAN ANY WINE BE WORTH $210,000?
The price of a small house?

If it’s a great Bordeaux under hammer at Christie’s Auction House in London, the answer is yes. A 1787 Château Lafite became the most expensive wine ever in 1985 and here’s why Bordeaux fetches top dollar.

Bordeaux totally gets the concept of terroir: the idea that wines taste of their place. Grapevines steal minerals – essentially flavour particles – from the earth’s subsoil and hoard them in grapes. Plant the toughest vines on the most suitable turf in the right climate and you eventually get the ultimate grapes. Crush and ferment them, blend for more complexity and finesse and you’re on your way to making wine people will line up to buy. Are they crazy? Nope. Spending $100… $300… $500 and up on a Bordeaux can be a sweet deal even to us mortals because these wines deliver.

The Bordelaise has spent eons – nearly 2,000 years – learning what vines suit which pieces of land best and why. They marked out Pauillac, Margaux, St. Julien, St-Estèphe, Pessac-Léognan, Sauternes, Pomerol and St. Emilion as the optimal sites; harnessed terroir with laws controlling winemaking practices and ranked the greatest châteaux. You taste that history in every bottle.

The thunderclap wines of Pauillac are perfect desert island wines. Tightfisted when young, they unfold slowly over the years revealing layers of flavour starting with cassis, earth, spice and cedar. Margaux wines are the goddesses of the wine world. They’re feminine, polished and exquisitely elegant, exuding aromas of flowers, white truffle, coffee, toast and red berries.

Wines from St. Julien brim with blackcurrant and cocoa powder. The elixirs from St-Estèphe taste like velvety, opulent dark fruit with a mineral core and the sweeties of Sauternes and Barsac are all about honey and marmalade, gleaming golden in the glass.

Skipping across the Dordogne river to the right bank, Pomerol and St. Emilion churn out Merlot-based wine that tastes like the best Black Forest cake you’ve ever eaten – all dark chocolate, ripe cherries and cream. Pomerol wines are more commanding than those of St. Emilion but both share an incredibly rich, soft texture.

Since these wines echo their place, weather matters. Each year, Bordeaux prays for serious sunshine, a little rain, no hail and a dry harvest but some years are better than others. Then, in autumn, they pick, sort and ferment; vinifying grape varieties and plots separately and blending so the whole is greater than its parts. Power balances finesse, tannins offset acid and muscle tones flesh so the wines not only taste beautiful young but improve with age. That’s the fascinating thing about Bordeaux. Terroir, vintage variation and blending sculpt the wine into more than a drink for hedonists. And these wines are actually improving lately.

In the 1990s, right bank mavericks started making wine in their garages from concentrated, ultra ripe grapes. These “garage wines” made by garagistes took off when American critic Robert Parker rated the 1995 garage wine Château Valandraud above the 1995 Pétrus. The movement has since faded but it rocked the world at the time.

Competition from the garagistes as well as New World producers making Bordeaux look-alikes forced top châteaux to hire winemaking specialists to keep one step ahead. Whether it’s famous consultant Michel Rolland working toward that ripe style with smooth tannins and serious concentration, Stéphane Derenoncourt questing after a velvety feel and pure terroir expression or any other big name expert, one thing is for sure – big name consultants improve wines. And impress critics.

So the top estates are broadening the gap between the good stuff and average Bordeaux. The divide shrinks in great years since all the fruit is good but expands in lesser vintages as only bigger houses can seriously improve wine in the winery. So, if you reach for ordinary Bordeaux these days, make sure the bottle says 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 or 2005. In fact, 2005 was the finest vintage in 50 years. Thank the weather gods for that, it was flawless weather-wise. Vintage quality is all about weather.

This is the year to buy better estates’ “second wines” – made from fruit not selected for the château’s grand vin – because all the fruit was so good. It’s also a year to buy from less prestigious properties because, frankly, it’s hard to make bad wine with great grapes. If you do buy a top wine, pass it on to your future grandchildren so they can enjoy their inheritance by selling it at Christie’s one day.

By Carolyn Evans-Hammond