Petrus Releases "House Wines"

Filed in archive French Wines on November 29, 2007

If you've always wanted to taste a bottle of Chateau Petrus, but couldn't quite swing the $4,000 price tag, you might be in luck. The famous Bordeaux estate is releasing three Bordeaux blends - a St. Emillion, a Pomerol, and a Medoc. They are all priced in the more reasonable $20 range.

Elin McCoy sat down with Christian Moueix and tasted the wines. She wrote about them in in Bloomberg:

I'm underwhelmed by the St. Emilion, a typical blend of merlot and cabernet franc. Pleasant nose, but too lean and green and no spark. Moueix concedes "it's a little too neutral.'' Since only 2,000 cases of the final 20,000 have been bottled, Moueix will adjust the blend to ``make the rest more special.''

The Medoc is a different story. It has the tannic structure and cabernet taste of Left Bank wines and shows more balance than overblown California cabs for twice the price.

But it's the Pomerol that grabs my attention. Succulent, rich and smoothly plummy, it has the gentleness and lush texture I associate with the glamorous, expensive merlot-based wines from Bordeaux's smallest red wine district.

Seems like the fine folks at Petrus are following in the footsteps of the Rothschild estate and making wines the bear the prestigious name at an everyman's price.

Speaking of Rothschild, last night I finally opened the bottle of Los Vascos Cabernet 2005 that's been waiting in my wine rack for at least a month. Truthfully it didn't impress me at all. There was perhaps a bit of cherry on the nose, but I didn't find much fruit at all on the palate. The wine was thin and too dry and the finish was bitter. You can do a lot better for the price.

Switching back to Petrus, though, I'm going to try to get my hands on the Pomerol. It sounds quite sumptuous, and I'd love to try it myself.