A Bordeaux from St Emilion - Ch. La Fleur Cravignac

Having been in Italy, I thought I'd head north west and pay a visit to Bordeaux, more precisely St Emilion and have a look at Chateau La Fleur Cravignac.

St Emilion is situated on Bordeaux's right bank and has been for many years far less significant then the wines from the left bank. These wines tend be Merlot dominated which means they don't have the same tannic structure of the wines from the left bank which are Cabernet dominated, this results in wines that are much softer and mature much quicker.

This wine is as with all right bank wines predominantly Merlot, with some Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon blended in, this makes it much more approachable earlier in its life. It had a deep purple/red colour in the glass with a slightly garnet edge, you got aromas of dark fruit, Blackcurrant and Blackberries with some smoke and spice coming through from the background. These all came through on the palate beautifully with the fruit showing some maturity and fine, smooth tannins and a tiny amount of acidity but everything was all in balance with one another.

I have to say I was rather impressed with this wine, I'm not a huge fan of Bordeaux as they usually take so long before they become approachable and they command a high price, even more so with the interest from the Chinese market and the reputation they carry. However the wines from St Emilion mature quicker and are no where near the price of the wines from the left bank, such as those from the Medoc, Margaux, Pauillac, etc and this is one I would definitely say is worth giving a go.

A Secret Wine

A French PR agency, Clair de Lune, recently organised a competition for wine bloggers, called the Secret Wine, which I have to say was a fantastic piece of publicity. It was open to the first 85 to register and the winner was the first blogger to correctly name the wines we’d been sent. It attracted bloggers from all over Europe and even as far away as New Zealand and Canada.

We all received a package of three wines that had been rebottled, sealed with synthetic green stoppers and labelled with the Secret Wine logo and a random number, so as not to give us any clue as to what the wines were.

After tasting the wines, and getting myself quite confused as to what I thought they were, I went through all my notes from previous tastings to try and give me an idea. Rightly or wrongly I presumed that as the agency was French, so were the wines!

Wine No. 079, had a deep ruby colour with dark fruit/cherry and forest fruit flavours, with a good level of acidity and tannin, reminded me very much of a Bordeaux blend more from the left bank than the right though. My guess was a St Emillion.

Wine No. 390, had a deep ruby/purple colour again with flavours of dark fruit and cedar, giving away the fact that it had been oaked, again a good level of acidity and tannin and a reasonable length of flavour. This time I went for the right bank in Bordeaux and guessed it was a Haut Medoc.

Wine No. 714, had a much lighter ruby colour, very light flavours of red berries and a low level of acidity and tannin, which led me believe it was a Beaujolais, as it was quite a simplistic wine so I went for standard Beaujolais and not a Beaujolais Village.

Having posted my answers on the website, it became very obvious very quickly that I wasn’t right. The interesting thing has been seeing everyone else’s guesses, and the wide ranging answers that everyone has given. Four days in still no one has won, and I dying to find out what they were, can someone please hurry up and guess them correctly!