I confess that I cut my wine teeth on Almaden from a jug. And that was progessive for the late 1960s because Almaden probably had the nicest jugs.
When I got serious about wine, I was living and working in New York City. Of course, it was my playground as well. It was in the restaurants of Manhattan that my taste buds for wine awakened and I was exposed to the glorious world of Bordeaux.
It was a fine time to become interested in this great wine of the world, for wonderful vintages such as 1966 and 1964 could be found for a pittance. And the exceptional 1970 vintage arrived shortly after I settled in the city.
Even on a journalist’s salary I could afford many of the greatest wines ever made, including first growths such as Latour and Haut Brion and Margaux when I was able to splurge.
The top Bordeaux of today are another matter, They have become cult wines and are priced accordingly, sometimes fetching $1000 and more from a great vintage.
Those of us who have grown to love the complexity and longevity of Bordeaux are often reduced to the purchase of one bottle or two — or sometimes none — from our favorite chateaux. Yet there is more to Bordeaux than the tres expensive classified growths of the Medoc.
I have just spent the past week in Bordeaux, exploring the less well-known regions of the right bank. Investment and energy have poured into the regions of Fronsac, Montagne-St. Emilion, Lalande-Pomerol and other satellite regions of Pomerol and St. Emilion in recent years.
In my Creators Syndicate column this week I focus on Fronsac, where I discovered exceptional wines at Chateau Richelieu and Chateau Riviere, the latter the largest estate of Fronsac at about 200 acres (a plot of land that dwarfs most estates in either of the two more famous neighboring appellations of Pomerol and St. Emilion).
These wines are two things: beautifully crafted from well tended vineyards with good terroir, and they are affordable. The best of them should top out at $35 retail in the U.S., and many can be had for $20 to $25 per bottle.
The downside is availability. Shelf space for French wines in retail shops has been shrinking in the U.S., and what’s allocated is often reserved for only the most famous wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhone Valley.
Less exposed areas such as the Loire Valley, Alsace, Languedoc AOC and the more obscure appellations of Bordeaux are given little if any room at the table, and most producers from these regions are too small to mount a marketing effort in the U.S.
They are the underground wines of France. But well worth giving a look when you actually see one on a wine list or in a savvy wine shop. For those of you who love Bordeaux and miss the time when drinking Bordeaux didn’t mean extreme financial sacrifice, they are wines you may come to love every bit as much as the familiar chateaux of the Medoc.
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