Château Tour Saint Bonnet: Tasting & Drinking
As noted in my introduction, Château Tour Saint Bonnet was one of the wines I encountered in my younger wine-drinking days. I would love to spin you a line about how my father’s butler once surprised me with the 1961 vintage, or that it was the tipple of the day on my first ever pheasant shoot, but I suspect you would see through the lies straight away. The truth is (and the memory is a little sketchy) I think I bought it from a supermarket just down the road from a hospital where I was working at the time.
We are all on the lookout for cheap and cheerful wines, and I always found the wines of Château Tour Saint Bonnet to be affordable. Exactly how much cheer they brought to the occasion, however, was variable and sometimes a little unpredictable. A good vintage, such as 1982 or 1990, certainly helps. But whatever the character of the year, the style here undoubtedly veers towards the rustic, with fairly robust tannins providing the structure, while the texture of the wine often tends towards the lean. They tend to be firm and unyielding in youth, angular even. Nevertheless they are often highly regarded by followers of the style, who recognise that cellar time can soften some of these awkward edges, just as age causes a teenager to mellow (in theory).
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