Where to Find Affordable Bordeaux in Phoenix AZ

Affordable Bordeaux

Big, fruity, ripe, high-alcohol wines have been popular choices for many wine drinkers during the past decade or so, but I am starting to detect a backlash.  Or is this just wishful thinking?  I know that I cannot drink that style of wine with pleasure, nor can quite a few of my colleagues.  I enjoy subtle, graceful, understated wines-wines that can complement my dinner.  That is the reason that I still drink red Bordeaux.

Even Bordeaux has been somewhat infected by this fruity, ultra-ripe trend which has swept through the wine world, especially in the St. Emilion region, with the influx of the so-called garagistes (new, small producers whose costly, small-lot wines have received high ratings).  But fortunately, you can still find many Bordeaux wines that are made in a subtle, understated style.

Of course, it's easy to find great red Bordeaux in the $75 to $300 range.  These are the Classified Growth wines of the Haut-Médoc-the Lafites, Latours, Léovilles, etc.-and the other renowned, big-name Bordeaux wines.  As good as these wines are, they're too expensive to drink on a regular basis.  Besides, they usually need eight to ten years or more of aging, at the very least, before they are mature enough to enjoy.

Actually, only a very small percentage of Bordeaux wines, both red and white, fall into the "prestigious" category.  Bordeaux is the largest appellation-controlled wine region in France; it has over 10,000 producers, and makes an average of 660 million bottles of wine annually, more than 80 percent of which is red.  Tons of affordable red Bordeaux wines sell in the $7 to $19 price range.  And the currently available vintages at this price are ready to drink.  Since they are Bordeaux wines, these affordable reds won't fall apart quickly, either.  You can generally keep them for at least five years. 

Twenty-five years ago, inexpensive Bordeaux wines could be risky; if you didn't buy a really good vintage, the wine was often too thin, too vegetal, or overly tannic, with not enough fruit character.  Nowadays, winemaking technology has improved so much that poor vintages are a thing of the past-even though some Bordeaux vintages will always be better than others.

These inexpensive Bordeaux are often referred to as petit château wines because they don't come from the large, prestigious estates (chateaux).  In reality, some of these ready-to-drink Bordeaux do come from specific, smaller estates, while others, the so-called generic Bordeaux, such as Mouton-Cadet or Michel Lynch wines, to name two popular brands, use grapes sourced from all over the region, and carry the general "Bordeaux" appellation.  In fact, the most inexpensive Bordeaux, those in the $7 to $13 range, fall into this category.  But even generic Bordeaux from a good vintage-such as 2000, 2001 or 2003-can be quite enjoyable. 

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