Seattle Wine Blog

This blog is dedicated to commentary on all aspects of wine, especially short entries to help you find the best wines without the usual hype and spin. These are my frank, independent opinions, usually based on tasting wine at a public event, off the shelf or at the winery. "All creative acts must arise out of a specific soil and flicker with a spirit of place" -D.H. Lawrence

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

2005 Bordeaux For Billionaires

The 2005 Bordeaux vintage was hyped to the extreme and new billionaires forked over as much as $750 a bottle for a typical First Growth. Back in the good/bad old days when everything was going up and people were spending like crazy, people would pay any price. After all, like real estate, the price of wine could only go higher, so buy it and flip it or hold it as an investment, but for heavens sake don't drink it. Now that people are jobless, afraid of being jobless, underwater, and trying to be retired on 201ks, the market for "investment" wine is in a slump and virtually everyone across the spectrum is paying half or less per bottle than they used to. Last year, I picked up a bottle of 2005 Chateau Segonzac, a Cru Bourgeois from the Premieres Cotes de Blaye at Trader Joe's for around ten bucks. When I opened it a few days ago, I was so pleased by the deep red color and the bouquet overflowing the bottle. In my glass, it had the smell and look of a very good wine. Ah, a real Bordeaux, I thought as I put my lips to the glass. Beautiful black berry fruit hung from a big dark structured wine with lots of tannic backbone. While clearly a case of infanticide (this one needs at least another 3 years of ageing in the bottle to shed its tannins), the wine was delightfully European in style. I thought of some of my friends who are so used to tasting user- friendly, "gout americain", fruit forward wine who would have turned up their nose at so much structure, so much tannin and acid, but for a moment I felt like a billionaire, somebody who had made a rich discovery.

1 Comments:

  • At 4:59 PM, Anonymous jason said…

    great post. I'm guessing Trader Joe's no longer has this one/this vintage in stock but you have convinced me to revisit the France shelf on my next stop...

     

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