Tonight's meeting featured the wines of Bordeaux

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France.

Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world.

89% of wine produced in Bordeaux is red (called "claret" in Britain), with notable sweet white wines such as Chateau d'Yquem, dry whites, rosé and sparkling wines (Crémant de Bordeaux) all making up the remainder. Bordeaux wine is made by more than 8,500 producers or châteaux.

There are 60 appellations of Bordeaux wine.

We had this wonderful selection to sample:

Chateau Laroche Joubert

This blend of 70% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon received a gold medal at the 2007 Concours de Paris. From 60 hectares of vines cultivated at the Chateau, 15 have been selected for this cuvee. My note: Classic Cabernet; cassis and blackcurrant. Tannic so decant 2 hours. Food matches: veal stew, mushroom tart.

_________________________________________

Château Tour de Bonnet Rouge. Bordeaux Appellation.

Cabernet Sauvignon 50%, Merlot 50% a deep, intense red, with purple highlights. The fruity nose of redcurrant, black cherry, blackberry and cassis is charmingly seductive, underpinned by a delicate oaky, licorice note. Smooth and opulent upfront, the balance is perfect. Succulent, the finish is all fruit. Drinking well now, this is the perfect accompaniment to roasts and delicatessen. Andre' Luton website LINK

_________________________________________

Château Greysac 2005

Usually almost equal parts Cabernet and Merlot, Greysac is the benchmark Bordeaux for many U.S. consumers. Under its ample fruit and fragrance lies the classic tannic structure that imparts both balance and great longevity. Classic complement to grilled red meats, roast or braised beef, and lamb prepared in any style. With age, it is a fine partner for ripe cheeses.

Mouton-Cadet Bordeaux Rouge 2008

Mouton Cadet Rouge is made from a blend of classic varieties: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc. Merlot displays roundness and ripe red fruit flavors, Cabernet Sauvignon adds a tannic structure and touches of black berry fruit, while the Cabernet Franc provides elegance and freshness.

Color: A scintillating, deep garnet red.

Nose: Highly expressive black fruit at first, with touches of toast and fine spice followed by complex fresh fruit aromas that burst from the glass.

Palate: Particularly supple and round on the entry, displaying an attractive harmony between silky tannins and the freshness of the fruit on the nose. A hedonistic wine, succulent and richly flavored, that ends with a generous and pleasant, fruit-filled finish.

_________________________________________

Chateau Greysac Medoc 1995

This wine is a blend of roughly 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot and 5% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The vines are an average of 30 years old, and the wine spends about 12 months in 20% new French oak barrels.

_________________________________________

The major reason for the success of winemaking in the Bordeaux region is the excellent environment for growing vines. The geological foundation of the region is limestone, leading to a soil structure that is heavy in calcium.

The Gironde estuary dominates the regions along with its tributaries, the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers, and together irrigate the land and provide an Atlantic Climate, also known as an oceanic climate, for the region.

These rivers define the main geographical subdivisions of the region:

"The right bank", situated on the right bank of Dordogne, in the northern parts of the region, around the city of Libourne.

Entre-deux-mers, French for "between two waters", the area between the rivers Dordogne and Garonne, in the centre of the region.

"The left bank", situated on the left bank of Garonne, in the west and south of the region, around the city of Bordeaux itself.

The left bank is further subdivided into:

Graves, the area upstream of the city Bordeaux.

Médoc, the area downstream of the city Bordeaux, situated on a peninsula between Gironde and the Atlantic.

In Bordeaux the concept of terroir plays a pivotal role in wine production with the top estates aiming to make terroir driven wines that reflect the place they are from, often from grapes collected from a single vineyard. The soil of Bordeaux is composed of gravel, sandy stone, and clay. The region's best vineyards are located on the well drained gravel soils that are frequently found near the Gironde river.

An old adage in Bordeaux is the best estates can "see the river" from their vineyard and majority of land that face riverside are occupied by classified estates.

Red Bordeaux, which is traditionally known as claret in the United Kingdom, is generally made from a blend of grapes. Permitted grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carménère.[15] Today Malbec and Carmenere are rarely used, with Château Clerc Milon, a fifth growth Bordeaux, being one of the few to still retain Carménère vines.

As a very broad generalization, Cabernet Sauvignon (Bordeaux's second-most planted grape variety) dominates the blend in red wines produced in the Médoc and the rest of the left bank of the Gironde estuary. Typical top-quality Chateaux blends are 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc & 15% Merlot. This is typically referred to as the "Bordeaux Blend." Merlot (Bordeaux's most-planted grape variety) and to a lesser extent Cabernet Franc (Third most planted variety) tend to predominate in Saint-Émilion, Pomerol and the other right bank appellations. These Right Bank blends from top-quality Chateaux are typically 70% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc & 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.[16]

White Bordeaux is predominantly, and exclusively in the case of the sweet Sauternes, made from Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle - Typical blends are usually 80% Sémillon, 20% Sauvignon Blanc. As with the reds, white Bordeaux wines are usually blends, most commonly of Sémillon and a smaller proportion of Sauvignon Blanc. Other permitted grape varieties are Ugni Blanc, Colombard, Merlot Blanc, Ondenc and Mauzac.

In the late 1960s Sémillon was the most planted grape in Bordeaux. Since then it has been in constant decline although it still is the most common of Bordeaux's white grapes. Sauvignon Blanc's popularity on the other hand has been rising, overtaking Ugni Blanc as the second most planted white Bordeaux grape in the late 1980s and now being grown in an area more than half the size of that of the lower yielding Sémillon.

In 1725, the spread of vineyards throughout Bordeaux was so vast that it was divided into specific areas so that the consumer could tell exactly where each wine was from. The collection of districts was known as the Vignoble de Bordeaux, and bottles were labeled with both the region and the area from which they originated.

From 1875-1892 almost all Bordeaux vineyards were ruined by Phylloxera infestations. The region's wine industry was rescued by grafting native vines on to pest-resistant American rootstock and all Bordeaux vines that survive to this day are a product of this action. This is not to say that all contemporary Bordeaux wines are truly American wines, as rootstock does not affect the production of grapes.

Bordeaux is a relatively humid region. Thus it is a place rife with diseases and other problems that afflict vines, compared with many of the world's other wine regions, such as dry Chile or Australia. Oïdium, mildew, coulure (failure of the flowers), millerandage (irregular ripening of the grapes), Eutypiose, Esca, Vers de la grappe and Botrytis (can be beneficial – see Sauternes) are the most common diseases or problems that occur.

In Bordeaux, the pruning of the vine happens almost always as cane-pruning (as opposed to spur-pruning). There are two types of cane-pruning: guyot simple and guyot double. The simple way is seen on the right bank, double most often on the left. Related to pruning is the trellising, where vines are dispersed along wires. It has become increasingly popular to raise the height of the trellis to the benefit of the grapes but to the discomfort for the vigneron.

The use of chemicals and fertilizers has dropped in the recent decades in Bordeaux. 40 years ago, using fertilizers and different herbicides and fungicides were common, and made work easier for the manager. It also lowered the quality of the grapes, however. This use is still taking place in Bordeaux - but less and less so. Fertilizers, if used at all, are now more commonly supplied by compost, rather than chemicals. Ploughing has replaced many pesticides and de-leafing has replaced fungicide use. While a healthier approach to agriculture has certainly come to Bordeaux, the châteaux have not adopted the biodynamic trend so popular in other wine regions (though Bordeaux is not entirely unfamiliar with the concept). Instead, the lutte raisonnée method is gaining ground.

Bordeaux has seen a rise in the use of green harvesting, where unripe bunches are cut off in the summer in order to channel more of the plant's strength to the remaining bunches. While it is a popular process, it also has its opponents, such as Jean Gautreau of Château Sociando-Mallet, Gonzague Lurton of Château Durfort-Vivens and Olivier Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier, who claim that the remaining berries simply grow bigger, not better. Green harvesting requires cheap labor, often ignorant of properly cutting vines. Opponents point to vintages 1929 and 1947, which were high-yield and of great quality—and made entirely without green harvest techniques.