Château David 2010, Bordeaux Superieur - Sainsbury's

Another Thursday, another Wine Club tasting at work (see here for the last one). On this occasion, we reviewed a Bordeaux Superieur from Chateau David available from Sainsbury's.

The wine, a blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, sources fruit mainly from the right-bank region of Fronsac and was selected by the Association of Wine Educators for the Good Food Would Choose Bordeaux campaign as an example of an easily-available, mid-range, typical Bordeaux wine.

Most Bordeaux is a blend of Merlot for aromas and Cabernet Sauvignon for tannins and texture so it’s perhaps no surprise that, at the lower end of the price scale, the blends tend to be Merlot-dominated for lots of fruit and easy early drinking.

On opening, I poured this into a jug and gave it a few swirls; on the nose, it shows plentiful aromas of ripe bramble fruit and dark cherries – “summer pudding” as one colleague observed. There is also a touch of spice, sweet vanilla, coffee and some leatheriness.

Overall it smells very perfumed and ripe in more of a warm-climate, New-World sort of way than I would expect from a traditional Bordeaux.

On the palate, it is somewhere between pleasant enough and unimpressive; there is some juiciness and whilst the texture is soft and it is easy to glug, it feels unsubstantial with no development - don't expect a food wine with good, prominent acidity and the texture to stand up to meaty roasts.

The finish is perfumey, slightly hot and alcoholic but in no way unpleasant, so overall there's nothing to be offended by here and plenty to like if easy-drinking and lots of aromas on the nose are your thing. It also shows at its best straight from the bottle and does not need any aeration to open up, again making it a good "supermarket choice" wine.

The "Bordeaux Superieur" tag means it has a touch more ripeness than a basic AC Bordeaux - however, for me, this is a case of more is less and I'd much prefer a lower alcohol level with more emphasis on structural matters, but for the price it's fair enough.

£6.49 from Sainsbury's; provided for review.

In his review for the Daily Mail online, Olly Smith describes this wine as "tightly packed with a sense of austerity" - I'm not really sure I recognise any of those attributes in it, but maybe that's bottle variation for you. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2088389/OLLY-SMITH-If-love-let-breathe.html

Fellow Cambridge wine blogger Vinoremus reviews it here, describing it as a "simple, well made everyday drinking wine".

Laura Clay (http://www.birminghamimbibers.co.uk/), an accredited Bordeaux tutor suggests this is affordable, quaffable and pronounceable and that its USP is that it's an entry-level Bordeaux that can open the doors to other wines of the region. For a food match, she suggests shepherd's pie as an everyday food for an everyday wine.

The GFWCB website says "Good fruit, note of spice, decent depth of flavour, savoury. Good with food". I'd agree with the first part of that, but this is not a food wine at all; low in acidity and tannins, to me this is a quaffer. http://www.goodfoodwouldchoosebordeaux.co.uk/wine_guide_view.asp?info=237

Other related articles
Chateau La Tulipe de la Garde, 2009, Bordeaux Superieur - Sainsbury's‏
Ch La Claymore Lussac St Emilion, 2007 - Joseph Barnes Wines
Chateau Borjaud 2007 Premieres Cotes de Blaye - Wine Society



Links

Good Food Would Choose Bordeaux - http://www.goodfoodwouldchoosebordeaux.co.uk/index.asp
Bordeaux - www.bordeaux.com
Sainsbury's - http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/sol/index.jsp