The Merry Drinker

Now and again over the past year I have dispensed advice about buying wine during these times of economic woe. This advice was given only partly with tongue in cheek. The fact is, very many of us must now tighten our belts. Those of us who love fine wine must either drink less of it, or lower our standards, or find some way of getting the same for less money.

The third option seems the least unattractive. But what does this amount to in practice? In the case of French wine, one trick is to seek out the more obscure appellations, such as Quincy or Monthelie or St. Aubin, whose better examples are almost indistinguishable from their more famous (and much costlier) neighbours – respectively Sancerre, Volnay and Puligny-Montrachet.  But there is another strategy.

Many of the more distinguished houses of Bordeaux offer second wines. These are made up of cuvées – that is, barrel blends – which have been passed over for the house’s top wine.  It need not follow that these wines are in any way bad.  The selection of cuvées is a complex affair, governed by a host of criteria, many to do with the wine’s aging potential rather than its flavour or quality. Hence, many second labels are conceived as wines for immediate drinking.  Their price, naturally, falls well below that of the first wine. Some are real bargains.

Needless to say, a second wine cannot deliver great depth or complexity. But nor will the first, unless one is prepared to wait the necessary ten or fifteen years until it reaches maturity. I have recently tried several 2003 Bordeaux. The experts tell us this is a very good vintage, and no doubt it is, but at the moment it is hard for the lay drinker to appreciate this from the region’s top wines, which are still too too angular and tannic.  By contrast, the 2003 second wines are now at their peak.

This week’s wine shows up the distinction nicely.  Château Potensac is widely considered one of the best wines of the Médoc.   However, the 2003 has caused some perplexity.  The wine is heavily tannic, and it is not yet clear if this is a passing blemish or a permanent flaw. We shall not know the truth for perhaps another decade.  By contrast, the house’s second wine is beautifully balanced.  Chapelle de Potensac has a delicious fragrance of berries and smoke, and chewy, long-lasting flavours of blackcurrant and cherry. A bottle of the 2003 Chapelle will cost you only 10 pounds sterling or $25, a half to two-thirds of what you would pay for the Château.  The Chapelle is at its peak, while the Château may never reach one. I know which I would rather buy.