Classy, mature Grand Cru St Emilion

It’s easy to bash Bordeaux - there's plenty of bilge about - but when it’s very good it’s a truly brilliant drink with food. I don’t drink much high end Bordeaux, but I was inspired to look for a mature Pomerol or St Emilion after drinking a beautiful old Pomerol at a friend's birthday recently. Albeit from a more modest terroir than the Pomerol, this has much of the same DNA flavour of the grander and much more expensive wine.

Although the current vintage release from this Chateau is 2011 we've been fortunate to have been given some 2008 that they were keeping back until mature - only 50 cases

Chateau Louvie Cuvée Veyry Grand Cru St Emilion 2008

           80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc
“It has the lovely notes of high quality classic St Emilion or Pomerol”

Swig Tasting Note
  Superb for decanting and drinking now or for laying down for another 5 - 8 years

I was served a stunning Petit Village Pomerol from 1998 - a domain with a fine reputation sandwiched between the great Vieux Chateau Certan and Chateau Petrus of the Pomerol district - in an Imperial (5L) bottle at a friend’s special birthday recently; the wine that reminded me of how good Bordeaux can be . There weren’t that many of us to drink such a large bottle, so I got a generous splash, and it left a real impression on me of what good right bank Bordeaux (in general terms that’s Pomerol and St Emilion) should taste like, and so tasting this sample  so soon after was actually very helpful, as I had a benchmark. It could have been very harsh on the sample but I was very impressed. I took the bottle home and enjoyed it with some food and it was excellent. In fact the flavours were incredibly similar to the very grand Petit Village; with a lot of the flavour and silkiness of this fine Pomerol, with hints of game, graphite, a touch of cedar and lovely pure fruit.  It's a very well poised wine; fine boned and precise, not big, and very well proportioned. You could say it is classically proportioned Bordeaux - put very pure - which is what you get from a top winemaker. The flavours developed over several days, suggesting that this is a wine that can not only be drunk now but one which will also age for about another 8 years.

Serving

Decant this wine to let it breathe  - you can do this any time up to drinking it – but even two or three hours in a decanter will allow it to open up and make it more expressive. Perfect with roast beef, steak, roast lamb, roast chicken chicken, and it will be very good with goose and turkey. It’s also good with pasta and you’ll find  it is surprisingly good with fish.

  It was a bit of a chance asking a Chateau in Pomerol we have recently had dealings with (whose wine is amazing but twice the price we wanted for our Christmas claret) if they had a tip for a  delicious mature Bordeaux that wouldn’t break the bank. What with the Pomerol producer’s vineyard real estate being the most expensive in the world, their idea of what will not break the bank is very different to ours, to the tune of about 1,000,000,000:1, but they had obviously got the measure of us the last time that they came back with perfect recommendation.