Château Bauduc: Tasting & Drinking
I came away from my first visit to Bauduc in 2006 really impressed by the quality of the white wines more than the red, but on more recent assessments in 2012 I see there is pleasure to be had here whatever the colour. The whites remain particularly impressive, sufficiently so for the wines to be listed as the house white by Gordon Ramsay, as noted on the first page of this profile, and they have held this position on the wine list there for many years now. The rosé and red wines are also listed. Another to fall under the spell of Château Bauduc is Rick Stein, who again lists all three colours, again as the house wines. Surely two celebrity chefs can’t be wrong?
The Bauduc Rosé is something of a revelation; to be honest I rarely find Bordeaux rosé to be worth the effort. I favour styles which bring fragrance and feminine fruit to my glass, and Cabernet and Merlot just aren’t very good at that. They make good ‘structural’ rosés, wines with backbone but not necessarily much charm, whereas varieties such as Grolleau, Pineau d’Aunis and perhaps even Pinot Noir (you can see we have now left Bordeaux for the Loire) are much more my cup of tea. But in adopting some more Provençal techniques, minimising skin contact, Gavin has cast aside the deep-pink hue of Bordeaux clairet and come up with a barely pink, peach- and tangerine-tinged cuvée which is certainly worth the time, effort and money. It is a delightful wine.
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