Dr Vino’s wine blog

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The eyes of the wine world turn to Bordeaux this week as hundreds of critics and buyers descend on the region for “en primeur” week. The dark, inky, fiercely tannic wines of the 2006 vintage are rolled out to the thronging crowds, who get to smile at each other with purple teeth. Then they decide how much they like the current wines, for delivery in 2009. Opinions will roll out from critics and some of the prices at the top chateaux will not be set until as late as June.

Since I won’t be there this week, I dug through my notebook for a producer profile from my stop in St. Emilion in January.

I dropped by Chateau Corbin and met with Anabelle Cruse-Bardinet. The Grand Cru Classe property had been run by three generations of women in her family. But in 1999, Anabelle, now 39, and her husband Sebastien decided to purchase the property from her grandmother.

The big, stone chateau was in need of some TLC. They added a new roof and rehabbed two barrel rooms, one with an office overlooking the wines quietly aging. Now they live there full-time with their three kids under ten. It is a vital chateau, unlike many of the properties in the Medoc, the left bank, which are more museum-like.

However run down the main house was, the vineyard was in much better shape. She brought in Michel Rolland from neighboring Pomerol to have a look at the vineyard planted to merlot and cabernet franc and advise on grape maturity. But she makes the wine. Trained in enology at the University of Bordeaux, she makes the wine though and wants the wine to “reflect the vineyard first and the human hand second.”

She sells the wine at what she calls an “ultra-realistic” price in the system known as the place de Bordeaux. She sells it to about 30 brokers in Bordeaux who then sell it domestically and to importers from places like the US. In the past couple of years, she is selling all of her wine faster–it took one day a few years ago but the 2005 was sold out in one hour. The wines eventually make their way to the US market at the reasonable price of $25 -30 retail (find these wines).

These merlot-based wines are ones that would make Miles eat his words. Of the wines that I tasted at the chateau, the 2003 is an excellent price to quality ratio (find this wine). The dark purple wine has great St. Emilion character, with good balance between dark fruits, faint oak spice, and acidity from this vineyard that shows well in hot vintages. Not too extracted, not too high in perceptible alcohol, the wine has great character. The 2005 is even better, more concentrated and still wrapped in tannins at this stage and will require some bottle aging (find this wine). The 2002 is wonderfully drinkable–paired with grilled meats it would be a great match (find this wine). The 04 is very solid and I saw it for a reasonable $20 online, which makes it serious wine for a very reasonable price (find this wine).

We’ll check back with Anabelle soon to see how things went for her showing her 2006 wine at en primeur.

chateau-corbin.com