foray into france

[stevebody]

God Help Me but I'm gonna says this anyway: Don't waste your time, not to mention money, on Bordeaux. I've been a wine steward and buyer for ten years and have tasted thousands of wines and am told I have a major-league palate and I can tell you that, if you like the wines you mentioned, Bordeaux will leave you cold and poorer. This oft-stated "subtlety" of Bordeaux is certainly there but the great, profound subtlety lies in wines that are so dear and so pricey that us mere working joes will never even get to taste them, let alone own a bunch for comparison. They're very nice wines, to a fault, but the "subtlety" is composed of part French tastes, part their slavish devotion to the concept of terroir above all else, part of a habit of early harvesting, a big part of their desire to leave the rough edges to be worked out by cellaring (knowing full well that wines that score badly in initial tastings can always be cast as "needing time" and therefore maintain their market value), and mainly to our genuflection to their every bottling. If you enjoy bigger, more assertive wines, try the Rhone Village wines: Gigondas, Valreas, Tavel, CdP, etc. Gigondas, especially, has a great group of producers who don't believe in strangling the life out of those wonderful Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre grapes for the sake of French pride. Domaine Les Palliers, owner by the Bruniers of Vieux Telegraphe and American wine importer Kermit Lynch, will knock you flat. Ditto the Perrin, Sainte Cosme, and Brusset's Le Haut and Le Grade Montmirail wines. GREAT stuff, a little on the wild side, but exciting and alive in a way the stodgy billionaires in Bordeaux never were. The South, in general, has a lot of great, obscure wineries now. Chateau Lavabre, Domaine des Armouriers, and a ton of others are emerging. Try a few. They're inexpensive and fun and different. They are not, however, like your Cal favorites. They're still French and still somewhat austere by comparison with the same varietals grown anywhere else. Example: try the 100% Grenache Domaine de la Janasse "Le Chaupin" CdP in an A-B tasting with Australia's Yalumba Bush Vine Grenache. I'm betting you'll choose the Yalumba.

The world of wine is too freakin' big and interesting right now to get hung up on France just because you always heard they make the best wine. I'd debate that with anyone, anytime. Try Spain, home of major obscure gems. Try Italy, the largest wine-producing country in the world. Try Australia, where truly great wines are literally bursting onto the market. Try California and Washington, Carefully. France ain't going anywhere. Tackle it at your leisure, when your tastes change.

One more thing: Watch how many people get pissed off at this response. That'll give you some idea of how shaky Bordeaux lovers are about their jones for these things. I'll probably be called uneducated, unsophisticated, and worse by the Bordeaux weenies who read this. I wear that as a badge of honor, these days. As Edward Bennet Williams said, when told he'd made Nixon's Enemies List: "A man can expect no higher honor".