Bordeaux 2022 Cru Bourgeois: Médoc Communes
As if it wasn’t already obvious, I adore Bordeaux. The city. The vineyards. Many of the people I have met there over two decades of visiting. And, of course, the wines.
Alright, I admit it. I’m not a fan of the traffic jams that bring the Rocade to a crawl or occasionally a complete standstill. And I could do without the speed bumps dotted along the D2, the famed Route des Châteaux. But then they do cause me to slow down, so maybe they’re not such a bad idea after all.
Bordeaux simply has so much going for it. It has always enjoyed prominent coverage on Winedoctor, even in the early days when I would tackle any bottle, from any region, rather than focusing almost purely on those from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux, as I do today. Indeed, one of the very first articles published on this site back in May 2000 was a vertical tasting of Léoville-Barton. During my frequent visits to the region I knock on cellar doors (literally in the case of Tertre-Roteboeuf – hello… hello… François?… anyone there?) but I also walk the vineyards and spend spare moments photographing châteaux, documenting the region pictorially as well as with words. I don’t believe there is a single image of a Bordeaux château, vine or vat on this site that wasn’t snapped by me.
Bordeaux also wins on the sheer volume of wine produced, dwarfing some other famous regions. And while it has a reputation for high prices (although I think many prices look rather soft compared to the most expensive wines of Burgundy and California), to focus only on these über-expensive wines is to overlook the great majority of wines made in Bordeaux today. And it would be easy to fall into this trap, to devote all one’s tasting time to Lafleur, Le Pin, Latour and Lafite. Who wouldn’t? It’s fun. But it would ultimately be a disservice to subscribers if the more approachable and – frankly – more affordable side of Bordeaux did not have its moment in the spotlight.
