- And The Top Producers Are Terrific
- But Bordeaux Has Some Fantastic Wines At Affordable Prices
- If You Know Where to Look
Today I Have a German Making Wines in Bordeaux
- Spectacular Bordeaux Fruit
- Germanic Precision and Balance
- Hidden in Plain Sight and Among the Best Red Values in My Book
2018 Chateau La Reysse Medoc
- 2018 Is an Especially Great Vintage of This Wine
- A Wine of Spectacular Balance and Precision
- A Super Fassy Wine That Just Happens to Be Made in Bordeaux
- Gorgeous Nose: Deep Red Fruits, Cassis, Tobacco, Smoke Leather
- Palate: Red Fruits Cassis, Minerality
- Terrific Acidic Balance
- Cigar, Leather, Tobacco
- Terrific Complexity But at the Price Can Be Enjoyed Any Time
- Terrific Value
- Will Age for 10-12 More Years
- Greatly Improves Over 3 Days Open / Under $26 - Insane Value - CASE PRICING
2018 Clos du Moulin Medoc Cru Bourgeois
- Nose: Hugely Fruited
- Big Deep Cassis, Bing Cherry
- Some Smoke and Tobacco
- Palate: Extremely Vivid
- Very Pure and Clean
- Deep Red Fruits
- Great Minerality
- Delicious Change of Pace Wine for Burgundy and Rhone Drinkers
- Even Better 2nd Day / Under $20 - Insane Value . CASE PRICING
The Land of Known and Unknown
Likely the first red wines that every one of us heard of was from Bordeaux. Mouton Rothschild. Petrus. Margeaux. These have been the wines of the rich and famous and are synonymous with wealth and perhaps, excess. Even James Bond drinks them when he's not sipping a martini.
But below the level of the top names, let's face it, the "it" crowd in the wine world is not seeking out Bordeaux. We're all hunting down affordable Burgundy and wines from the Rhone.
Great Value Bordeaux - A Needle in Wine's Largest Haystack
Let's step back a bit. There is no reason that there should not be terrific affordable wines in Bordeaux. They have great terroir, and a lot of it. And finding underappreciated wines, even in the middle of a famous region, is what Fass Selections is all about.
Here's the thing, the worst tastings I've ever been to in my life, by far, were two tastings in Bordeaux back in 2003. 2002 vintage En Premier tastings. One was at a hotel in Margaux and was all Cru Bourgeois. There were over 250 wines. It was 5 of us. We were to taste as many as possible and then go back and meet and discuss our top 5. Remember 2002 was the most tannic vintage almost ever. But there were also lots of wines, especially in the Cru Bourgeois category where the tannins beat the fruit and there were an ocean of them that fateful day in Margaux. I still remember that Lillian-Ladouys was the best wine that day. A small St. Estephe estate. But I can't tell you the name of any of the other wines that sucked out the saliva out of my mouth so quickly with their drying and powerful tannins that my mouth was a stage 3 catastrophe after that tasting. I remember Lillian Ladouys so much because I had to taste around 99 garbage wines to find one that was good. The next day we did the same thing on a smaller scale at the office of a negociant. This was worse. At least the hotel in Margaux's wines had fruit. These wines were obviously from high yields, had no fruit and tortuous tannin. I tasted around 50 wines at the negociant and my palate was crying. The point being here that I tasted over 150+ wines in Bordeaux and found one good one.
Now fast forward to Chateau La Reysse and Clos du Moulin and when STEFAN first sent me samples I tasted them all and decided to sell them immediately. Why? Because finding brilliant, world class, value Bordeaux is like finding a needle in a haystack.
While there might be many great value wines in Bordeaux there are many way way worse wines that are so horrible you'll contemplate giving up alcohol. Bordeaux has 6,000 growers. I knew I had caught a gem when I tasted these wines.
The winery is run by, of all things, a German winemaker by the name of Stefan Paeffgen. And
his wines reflect a Germanic precision and balance. It's easy to find fruity wines in Bordeaux. The challenge is to get that balance so that the fruit is a platform for the aromatics. And that's what great winemakers do, even if they do it in relative obscurity in the land of known and unknown that is Bordeaux. The level of quality on a pound for pound basis has to be amongst the top wines in our book. Incredible Medoc character, exquisite purity and precision, incredible depth, wonderful energy and linearity and incredible vivid, clear and detailed fruit.
The Wines
Up first is the 2018 Chateau la Reysse for $25.99 a bottle on a 4-pack and $24.99 on a 12 bottle case. This is the best La Reysse since the 2014 and Stefan says it is one of the the best La Reysse ever. Only time will tell. Please pay attention La Reysse lovers as this is the vintage to go long. The 2018 has a cooling mineral nose with astonishing depth and purity which gives off an impression of amazing freshness.
Ripe nose. Loads of tobacco and cassis. Smoke and camphor. Graphite. Leather and so much tobacco. You also get cigar aromas, leather, tobacco and some nice wet earth as well after some air but with age I see this being a knockout.
The palate is pure pleasure with oodles of blue and black fruits, wonderful acids, grippy forceful tannins and a real sense of place. It is so, so crunchy and insanely fresh with dramatic depth and richness yet so crunchy and the tiny berry fruit intensity is just drop dead. It is rich and opulent with loads of sweet, concentrated fruit. Lovely finesse and terrific purity. The acid is so amazing in this wine. Awesome showing. Explosive, deep and complex with great precision. It is insane this is $25.99. RWOTY material here. It has the authority and refinement of a classed growth in 2018. Just an amazingly complex, powerful and delicate bottle of Bordeaux. I can see this aging for up to 10-12 years. Maybe longer 2018 is a very good vintage as it allies finesse, power and just the most insane 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 and combine that with the amazing 2018 vintage this is what Bordeaux should be at $28 a bottle that rarely if ever is. Do not sleep on this. I rarely if ever sell Bordeaux this great for $25.99. It's one of the best values of the year.
I am also offering another wine from the La Reysse winemaker, Stefan Paeffgen that is just an outstanding value. The 2018 Clos du Moulin Medoc can be had for $19.99 each on a 4-pack and $18.9 on a 12 bottle case. This is the more Burgundian of the two and a bottle of the 2017 recently knocked me out and was even better on day 2. How often can one say that about an under $25 Bordeaux? This is value you do not see every day. This wine has its obsessive fans and in 2018 they better back up the truck.
Nose of tobacco, gravel, cassis, dusty, classic left bank Bordeaux. So good. Love this little wine. After air it has a dusty nose of wild berries, cassis, lipstick-like intensity, smoke, blueberry, tobacco, some stone dust
On the palate, it is silky, with such well-defined and vivid fruit and insane acidity / freshness and such amazing persistence. The fruit is red and deep. Juicy and concentrated with nice tannins and fruit depth.
Finish of tobacco and berry fruit and ripe , sweet and chewy tannins. Really really juicy with terrific clarity and energy. So pure. Such an insane value. Long. Just terrific. 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 2014 Clos du Moulin over the past 2 years and each one was better than the next. It's in such a great place now. Another one of those wines that 5-6 years just takes it to another level 2018 has ripe, juicy fruit a wonderful sense of place, refined there but not there tannins, but when the tannins are there, they are so ripe and so juicy. Again, so silly for a wine of this quality. It is best, for me, on the 2nd day and it, oddly enough, needs a longer decant than the 2017 La Reysee to start showing its stuff.
The Winery
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.
2018 Chateau La Reysse Medoc - $27.99
($103.96 4-Pack, $299.88 12 bottle case {$24.99})
2018 Clos du Moulin Medoc Cru Bourgeois - $21.99
($79.96 4-pack, $227.88 12 bottle case {$18.99})
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