Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Chateau Briot 2007 - My good cheap wine of the week

Chateau Briot 2007 Bordeaux

As a child, a statement that seemed to be forced into my head like a screw, which of course at that age I had couple loose (if you missed that, re-read), was you cannot understand the future without revisiting the past. Well in the case of wine, it's past lies in France and to be specific, the Bordeaux region. Because of all of the new world wines I have been tasting from places such as Chile, Argentina, and of course California, I felt the need to visit France, not physically, because at the moment my bank account will not allow me to do so, but through my well document vice of wine. What I picked up was the Chateau Briot 2007 bordeaux red blend(priced at 12 dollars retail, from Trader Joes). This Briot is a Cabernet based wine at 60 percent, 25 percent Merlot, and 15 percent Cabernet Franc. What I have noticed since beginning this journey in wine is that old world wine for example Italy and France, tend to have different complexities from a place like California. For example with this Chateau Briot, on the nose you get a good amount of vegetal characteristics along with cassis, sour cherry, and hints of mint, which when put together offer up a wonderful bouquet. On the taste you get green vegetation on the front end which stays all the way to the back end of the palate. Also, there is a little amount of black currant on the finish. The mid palate has sour cherry/rasberry and is decent but could be better. In saying that though, this wine does pick up steam on the finish. This wine is definitely still young which can be observed in it's tannins. But all in all, a good wine that can definitely help those just starting in wine to understand that by tasting as much different types of wine from different types of places will allow you to better understand your palate, and ultimately help you to understand what wine really hits your sweet spot. And by the way, I'm sorry I've been away for a while, I'm back now, and ready to get back into the wine and I hope all of you will join me.

No comments:

Post a Comment