TN: Budget 2000 Bordeaux - some good & some really bad

[Rieslingfan]

Our tasting group met last night with 11 wines served blind. The theme was eventually revealed as "Recession Reds", consisting of mostly inexpensive 2000 Bordeaux bottlings with one 2005 thrown in.

Comments are kept short - many of these wines do not even deserve a eulogy.

2005 Chateau Cheval Brun (St. Emilion) - the interloper & quite good. Lots of ripe (though a bit candied) fruit & a litle bit of structure. Drink now for fun.

2000 Clos De L'Oratoire (St. Emilion) - very nice, evolved fruit, balanced and very drinkable right now - excellent wine

2000 Chateau Cantenac (St. Emilion) - utter garbage, stewed fruit and nasty sewer scents, if I were the owner of one of the good Cantenacs (e.g. Brane Cantenac) I would sue to get this place to change its name

2000 Chateau Marjosse (Entre Deux Mers) - there had been rumblins that this was dead or dying, but this bottle was delicious with a great deal of similarity to the Oratoire if a little more exotic in its aromatics, very good wine for now

2000 Chateau Grand Bois (AOC not noted) - garbage time again, this is less offensive than the Cantenac, but it can still strip paint off of a battleship

2000 Chateau Les Nougueys (St. Emilion) - drinkable, and maybe even pleasant with a simple meal, but much better wine is available for the $14 this cost

2000 Chateau Potensac (Medoc) - orange rim, this is not right - cooked/stewed fruit, leather, not what it should be

2000 Chateau Borie La Mouline (Puisseguin St. Emilion) - unpleasant in a "gosh I hope we can leave this party soon" sort of way, no obvious flaw, but just not a single thing in the wine worth liking

2000 La Dame de Montrose (St. Estephe) - fruity, still tannic, evolving, but not quite there yet. very good, well made wine with a little more upside potential - this would be great with a steak

2000 Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes (Bordeaux Superieur) - fantastic wine, best of the night, tastes like a richer, younger version of the Oratoire. I could smell and drink a lot of this

2000 Chateau Sansonnet (Graves) - this one hte other hand is vinous spawn of satan, utterly horrid wine, in fact to call it wine is to insult horrid wine everywhere. we score on a 20 point scale & one of the guys gave it a 3. The color was good, and it was not cloudy, so there's 3 points.

So all in all an informative evening. I am glad to have the Dame de Montrose in the cellar & may look for the Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes and L'Oratoire in the future. I will be opening & checking the Potensac soon to see if it was a bottle problem. Of course my bottles came from the same importer and retailer, so who knows what I may find.

[Houndsong]

The Potensac has been shut up tightly and unpleasant to drink since I acquired it a few years ago. Not sure whether it showed much promise early although it was not poorly-rated. I would also think with few exceptions that anything worth buying in the budget category from that vintage would be long gone from the shelves.

The Clos l'Oratoire would be the upper limit for a recession wine, at least for my budget.

[Rieslingfan]

The 2000 Clos l'Oratoire was $15.99 locally back when it was purchased. All except the 2005 were bought on release.

[Houndsong]

The 2000 Clos l'Oratoire was $15.99 locally back when it was purchased.

Wow. Nice haul. I remember looking at it in Calvert Woodley in about the 2004 time frame. They were asking $60. I've actually got a MacArthur's futures offer from March 2002 pricing Clos l'Oratoire at $599/case. We are talking about von Nieppburg's, property right?

[Nicklasss]

I had the 2000 Potensac in 2007, and it was still closed I think. Up to now, I have preffered the 1996 Potensac, but the 2000 will turn into something similar I think.

And yes, we need more TN about these cheap wines, as in those low economy days, we never know when we'll lose our jobs .

Nic

[Jay Winton]

try the 05 prignac-medoc. $9 in DC. Who says inexpensive Bordeaux doesn't drink well? not moi Better with food though

[stefan]

Well, you have to drink swill occasionally in order to appreciate the good stuff. Was everyone fighting for the l'Oratoire and Beaulieu and La Dame?

stefan

[Rieslingfan]

The top 3 wines were gone within 5 minutes after they were revealed. I got seconds of all 3.

[rjsussex]

I've had some bottle variation with Potensac 2000. Even the best bottle was rather less focussed than the Potensacs I recall from the past - for instance the lovely 78...

Richard