Bang For Your Buck — Finding The Value Sweet Spot — White Bordeaux

3 minutes readAug 28, 2023VinoVoss Publication

Greetings VinoVossers! Life is expensive and in the current climate it is only becoming more so. The challenge of finding enjoyable wine at affordable prices becomes harder and harder. To combat this the VinoVoss team has decided to make some suggestions about where value can still be found.

The Limits Of Recall

The human mind has infinite storage but limited recall capacity. Eight items is about the limit of what we can actively store and recall. When it comes to choosing a wine it is all too easy to forget about a certain grape variety or one of the many regions that makes wine from it. One style of wine that is too often overlooked are these made from Sauvignon Blanc in Bordeaux.

Our limited ability to recall wines make it easy to overlook wines that offer great value from lesser used grapes or different regions

(Photo by Matt Twyman on Unsplash)

What Makes Them Different

The Sauvignon Blanc based wines of Bordeaux are different for two reasons, climate and blending. Bordeaux lies further south than the Loire Valley, the other French home of Sauvignon Blanc. The warmer southerly location results in the development of riper fruit flavors with stone fruit flavors joining the usual citrus Sauvignon Blanc is also blended with Semillon in Bordeaux adding notes of cut grass in youth and a toasty complexity in maturity.

The warmer climate in Bordeaux produces a riper style of Sauvignon Blanc with nectarine flavors

(Photo by Dmitriy Koryas on Unsplash)

What Makes Them Great

It is the level of complexity offered by Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc based blends that make them stand out. Blending Sauvignon Blanc with Semillon adds a layer of complexity. Winemaking style, and the practice of aging the wine in barrels made of French oak add another layer of complexity in the form of toasty oak flavors..

Aging in French oak barrels adds moreish notes of vanilla and toast to White Bordeaux wines

(Photo by Arnold Dogelis on Unsplash)

The Upside

This wine gives you a complete, but finite, expression of the region of Pessac-Leognan. The palate is a melange of juicy nectarine fruit and cut grass with a tangy acidity that brings the fruit to life along with a toasty oak influence that make it irresistibly moreish.

Some White Bordeaux wines offer impressive complexity but cost less than wines more associated with white wine like Burgundy

(Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash)

The Downside

This wine does not have the intensity of aromas on the nose, nor the density of fruit on the mid-palate that the best examples from the region, including the white Grand Vin from this estate, will have.However, this wine will cost significantly less and still has adobe average concentration for its price point.

Matthew Cocks