With spring slowly emerging and summer just around the corner, we’re only weeks away from what many consider to be peak white wine season. With that in mind, we felt it was our duty to get you better acquainted with one of the wine world’s best kept secrets: White Bordeaux. Here are our five reasons why if you aren’t drinking White Bordeaux yet, you should add it to your list of go-to wines ASAP.
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Can you say luxury product on a Target budget?
Bordeaux has spent its history letting oenophiles opine about its celebrated red wine blends, with fortunes being spent to chase after the wines of places such as Chateau Petrus, Chateau Lafite and Chateau Latour. All the while, the equally incredible White Bordeauxs of the region have flown under the radar. Because the red wines are the region’s cash cow, they can sell their white whites for less. Think of White Bordeaux as Missoni for Target. You are getting a quality luxury product for less than half the cost! Incredible White Bordeauxs can be found under $25 with many costing less than $15, you can’t beat that!
Bordeaux is where one of the most crowd-pleasing white wine grapes in the world was born!
Fancy yourself a fan of Sauvignon Blanc? Well guess what, it was born in Bordeaux and is a primary ingredient of the White Bordeaux blend. Because of this, the majority of affordable White Bordeauxs tend to be light and fruity with citrus flavors and aromas of flowers and grass. We love drinking it with shellfish.
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This region practically invented the wine blend — they know what they’re doing.
Wine blends are awesome because they often more easily please a majority of wine drinkers’ tastes than a single varietal wine such as Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. And the winemakers of Bordeaux take their blends extremely seriously. Don’t believe us? If you ever have the chance to meet a Bordeaux winemaker, ask him or her the percentage of each grape that is in their wine, they will be able to tell you to the decimal point. To make White Bordeaux, Sauvignon Blanc is blended with Sémillon and Muscadelle, with each grape playing off the other to bring a unique characteristic to the wine. What you wind up with is a reliably pleasant and easy-to-drink wine that will quickly be finished.
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White Bordeaux represents only 8 percent of all Bordeaux wine production, so if it’s on the shelf, chances are it’s good.
Because White Bordeaux is not as well known as its red sibling, and therefore cannot demand the amount of scratch Red Bordeaux can, not as many wineries in Bordeaux give up their land to farm the grapes. This means if a winery is devoting space to make the wine, they are proud to put their name on the bottle. If it makes it to your store, it’s worth taking the chance.
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Love White Burgundy, but don’t love the price? Bordeaux’s got you covered here too!
Although most of the white wines that come out of Bordeaux are affordable everyday sippers under $25, the region also produces some highly sought after collectible white wines. These wines tend to have more Sémillon in the blend which gives them a luscious and round mouthfeel more similar to the high-end Chardonnays of Burgundy, but they aren’t nearly as expensive. To find these whites, look for the Bordeaux sub-region Pessac-Leognan on the label.
By Adam Teeter, VinePair