I just returned from a two week trip with my wife where we visited Lyon, Bordeaux and Paris. All were amazing places to visit (or, in the case of Paris, revisit) but for wine, Bordeaux was a dream come true.
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| The view from our balcony. |
We stayed in a wonderful apartment in Bordeaux - it was spacious, clean, centrally located and, most importantly, had a balcony, This was important because the weather while we were in Bordeaux was unseasonably warm - around 20°C. in the afternoon. We managed to spend a couple of lunches with a baguette, cheese and a bottle of rosé sitting on the balcony, watching life unfold.
How French!
One of the days we spend in Bordeaux was on a wine tour with Bogdan who is the guide for Bordeaux Vertigo. This was not a cheap day - the tour guide alone was €480 plus there were fees for tasting and the cost of lunch - but it was well worth it. It's not easy to get into the Chateaux in Bordeaux. They sell mostly to negociants who sell their wine and have no real desire to have people traipsing through the winery. For that reason, it is good to have a guide who can get you in and knows the ins and outs of getting appointments.
Bogdan also knew his stuff - he was an expert on the region and we talked about many things - wine, schooling, the yellow vests, and politics to name a few.
After picking us up at our apartment, we headed out from the urban centre of Bordeaux, a medium sized city, and watched the scenery change from buildings and pavement to fields and trees. Many of the wine areas are on reclaimed land, diked by the Dutch in the 1600s. The land that is still swampy sits empty of vines, with trees like poplar planted to suck up the moisture.
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| One of the many Bordeaux chateaux - this one is Chateau Brown-Cantenac |
In Bordeaux, there is the left bank and the right bank. We were focusing on the left bank - where wines have a higher concentration of Cabernet Sauvignon than Merlot. The upper part of the left bank is called the Medoc. The better part of Medoc is the Haut Medoc (Upper Medoc). And the best parts of the Haut Medoc are named after the villages.
The four main villages are St. Estephe, Paulliac, St. Julien, and Margaux - the three brothers Steven, Paul, and Jules and their sister Marg.
Our first stop was in Margaux - the soft, velvety sister of the four siblings.
The winery we went to is called Chateau Brane-Cantenac. But first, some history.
Way back in 1855, Napoleon (the third, not the guy with the hand in his jacket) wanted to catalogue all of the wineries in Medoc for a World Exposition - because even then Bordeaux had some of the best wine. The wineries that were part of this classification were given a classification of first, second, third, fourth or fifth growth of the Grand Cru Classé. With a minor exception, this has not changed since then. The first growths were the super famous chateaux like Lafite Rothschild.
Chateau Brane-Cantenac is a second growth.
As with most chateaux in Bordeaux, the double-barrelled name has meaning to it. Brane was the name of a Baron that bought the chateau in 1833. Cantenac is the name of the region.
Our guide for this winery was Claire. We started outside, looking at the vineyards, and talked about the history of the winery and the grapes. The French have a passionate belief in the concept of terroir - that the varietal of the grapes is just one factor when growing grapes. The soil, weather, moisture, climate, slope, topography,. organisms, and sun exposure all affect the taste of the grape.
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| The optical sorter, popular in many chateaux. |
Once the grapes are ready to pick, at Brane-Cantenac they are sorted three times; once in the vineyard during the picking, again in the winery as they move through the sorting table and finally with this fancy machine called an optical sorter. It uses a laser to check the size, colour, weight, etc. and selects just the grapes that are perfect.
The grapes are fermented in a number of different vessels in Bordeaux. At Brane-Cantenac they use either large oak vessels (which introduce some oxygen) or stainless steel tanks. Most of the wineries in the Okanagan use stainless steel for fermenting.
One thing that I noticed in almost every winery that we visited was that there was a concerted effort to try new things and to experiment. I guess I thought that they would just keep doing things the same way because their wines fetch such high prices but apparently not. At this winery, they are experimenting with fermenting in smaller oak barrels.
Once the grapes have finished fermenting, and after a bit more time on the grape skins, the wine goes into barrels - both new and a year or two old - for ageing. Brane-Cantenac uses barrels from seven different producers and each barrel, even if they are the same French Oak, has a different flavour.
A couple of the barrels are very cool as they have a glass 'stave' that you can see the wine. You can see how the density of the red colour changes over time as the wine matures.
Most chateaux have a first label, their wine that is the top wine, which is made from the best and oldest wines, and a second label which is usually wines made from younger vines. Chateau Brane-Cantenac has two second label wines. We tried three different wines in all.
The first was their second label called Chateau Notton. They don't make this wine anymore as they have changed the name. This was a 2011 Chateau Notton. It was made from 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4.5% Cabernet Franc and 0.5% Carmenere. The average age of the vines is 35 years and the wine was aged for 12 months in oak, of which 20% were new barrels.
There were tastes and aromas of jam, black berries, cassis and other rich, black fruit. This was a very enjoyable drinking wine and I quite enjoyed the taste of it at only 8 years old. It could probably stand a couple more years but was good to drink now.
The second was the other second label, a 2008 Baron de Brane. This wine is 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, and just 2% Cabernet Franc. It was aged 12 months in oak, of which 30% were new barrels.
This wine had tastes and aromas of blackberry, black cherry, and cassis as well as some definite oak. It was more complex that the Notton and had some tertiary flavours such as forest floor and leather that weren't as noticeable with the first wine. This had some definite tannins that had rounded somewhat and could probably age for another five years.
The final wine we tasted was the first label, the 2007 Chateau Brane-Cantenac. The year 2007 wasn't a particularly wonderful year because of a lot of rain earlier in the year but the summer ended up being dry and the grapes were actually pretty good by harvest time. Claire wanted to show us how well it had aged and that it had turned out to be a really nice wine - which it was. It was 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, and 8% Cabernet Franc. This wine was aged a bit longer - 18 months in 60% French Oak.
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| Claire, our wonderful chateau guide |
Right from the first whiff, you could tell that this was a different wine. It had a powerful nose that really grabbed your attention. This complex wine had tastes and aromas of cassis, blueberries, raspberries, black cherries and a hint of violet. There were great tannins that made it supple and smooth with tertiary flavours of leather and cedar. This wine was already 12 years old but could probably sit in the bottle for another 5 years. I don't think I can wait that long, though, as I bought a bottle of it and will try to hang on for a couple more years.
It was easy to see how passionate the people from the winery are about their wine. I remember when a tasting in the Okanagan was always preceded by a tour of the winery. Now, it's just a tasting and then onto the next one. In Bordeaux, the chateaux want you to see all the steps of how their grapes are grown and their wine is made so that you will have an appreciation of what goes in the glass.
Not a bad idea.