Today, after a very long wait and many requests I finally have the 2014 Chateau La Reysse for as little as $24.99 a 4-pack. This is the best La Reysse since the 2010. The 2014 has a cooling mineral nose with astonishing depth and purity which gives off an impression of amazing freshness. The palate is pure pleasure with oodles of blue and black fruits, wonderful acids, grippy forceful tannins and a real sense of place. Just an amazingly complex, powerful and delicate bottle of Bordeaux. You also get cigar, leather, tobacco and some nice wet earth as well. I can see this aging for up to 10-12 years. 2014 is such a great vintage as it allies finesse, power and freshness all at once. Freshness is so key in Bordeaux as wines can tend to be lactic, oaky and rich due to a general change in winemaking over the last 20-30 years. This is not that at all, this is what Bordeaux should be at $25 a bottle but rarely if ever is.
The Medoc can have challenging terroir as some of the vineyards are on soil that is more clay-dominated. Le Reysse has some terrific terroir on its vineyards that border Roland de By, which is a favorite wine of mine from this area.
I am also offering another wine from the La Reysse winemaker, Stefan Paeffgen that is just an outstanding value. The 2014 Clos du Moulin can be had for $17.99 on a 4-pack. This is value you do not see every day. This wine has its obsessive fans. It is silky, with such well-defined and vivid fruit and perky acidity and such amazing persistence. The fruit is red and deep. This is another baby vin de garde from Stefan Paeffgen and really will cellar well for 7-8 years. I have had around 4 bottles of the 2012 Clos du Moulin over the past 2 years and each one was better than the next. 2014 has ripe, juicy fruit a wonderful sense of place, not too tannic at all, but when the tannins are there, they are ripe and juicy. Again, so silly for a wine of this quality. It is best, for me, on the 3rd day and it, oddly enough, needs a longer decant than the 2014 La Reysee to start showing its stuff.
The Le Reysse is part of stable of wines under the umbrella Vignobles Paeffgen, which is owned by the highly successful Stefan Paeffgen who in another life, was in agriculture in his home country of Germany. Of course I would find a killer Bordeaux via Germany. Ha! He grew up and worked in the Cologne area. Stefan finished his agricultural studies at the University of Stuttgart. He finished with a Doctorate in agricultural science. His parents had a farm and his older brother took over after his parents retired. Stefan worked in the Scandinavian Agriculture industry after his brother took over the farm.
The company he worked for got acquired and at age 46 Stefan was financially successful, but at a crossroads. He always had a passion for the wines of the Medoc and made a decision to go back to practical agriculture. He searched for a winery for up to a year and finally found a great spot in the Medoc.
Stefan bought 2 wineries in 2010 from Patrick Chaumont, Le Reysse being one of them. Chaumont stayed on for 2 years to help. They cooperated wonderfully and Stefan learned to make wines in the traditional style. Chaumont still visits every now and then to see how things are going. Stefan's family came and moved there in 2011. He then acquired Château Clos du Moulin and Château Moulin de Lestagne from Michel Boyer.
I've been very lucky to find this gem of an estate, Chateau la Reysse, in a category that is very hard to navigate. That is sub $25 Bordeaux. So many either soulless, souped up Parker wines, or wines that are just bad from the result of bad vineyard management and careless cellar work. Let's face it, there are a lot of hacks in Bordeaux selling mediocre wines at high prices based on the popularity of the region which is why Bordeaux has fallen out of favor among many wine drinkers.
That's why it is refreshing to do business with Stefan Paeffgen of Chateau La Reysse, a German who was enchanted by Bordeaux and decided to make it a career by buying Chateau la Reysse. He finished the 09 vintage as the sale happened halfway through that growing season but by 2010 it was his show and the debut is akin to Bob Feller on opening day in 1946.
2014 Chateau La Reysse - $26.99 ($99.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
2014 Clos du Moulin - $19.99 ($71.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
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