Wow, I’ve been so busy lately that I have two wines to write about. Luckily, I haven’t been too busy to drink wine. I can multi-task! Both of the wines are from Pessac-Léognan, which is a sub-appellation of Graves. The area is located just south of the city of Bordeaux. This is a full service wine education blog, so to help both myself and the rest of us that cannot properly speak or pronounce French, here is how you say .


It is said that it was in Pessac-Léognan that fine red wine was born 450 years ago at Château Haut-Brion. (Which is also the only classified first growth from the 1855 classification outside the Médoc.) This area of Graves is dominated by pine trees, apparently the vineyards are clearings and can be heavily isolated from each other. And while red wine is the primary type produced, most château also produce high quality white wines as well.

Another interesting tidbit is that Château Haut-Brion is owned by Americans (!), it was purchased in 1935 by Clarence Dillon when Bordeaux wine production was so unprofitable that it wasn’t the only first growth for sale! Now his descendants own four high end château in Pessac-Léognan: Château Laville Haut-Brion, Château La Tour Haut-Brion, Château La Mission Haut-Brion, and of course, Château Haut-Brion itself. The red I tasted for this region is the second wine of another château in the area with in the name (good thing they named all the château around here with completely different names so we could easily keep track, right?), Château Larrivet Haut-Brion. Under the name of Domaine de Larrivet, this wine was quite the bargain.

So, what is a second wine (or in French, second vin)? It's very common in Bordeaux for a winemaker to make wine out of younger vines or certain vineyard plots, which he/she will ferment and age separately. Some of the wine goes into the Gran vin, the rest into the second vin. Its a great way to get good wine for less money- the wines are both made by the same winemaker using the same equipment!

The Domaine de Larrivet was certainly a bargain, the cheapest Bordeaux I bought at only $16.99. Not bad for a wine that’s spent the last nine years aging! The wine is half cabernet sauvignon and half merlot. In the glass it showed its age being a dark reddish brown color, very maroon for a wine. It had a very smoky nose, also smelling like cassis, nuts and wood.

It had a very smooth texture, most likely from the very mellow tannins. I tasted bacon (or maybe Myles and I had just been discussing bacon before opening the bottle!) as well as black pepper and oak. It had a long finish. Hands down the best “cheap” red wine I’ve had in a long, long while.

The white wine, from Château Cantelys, is primarily sauvignon blanc. It was super pale yellow and smelled of lemon, peach and was even slightly floral. It had good acidity, and tasted citrusy (as I have come to expect from sauvignon blanc) and even a bit like green apple. Perhaps the only twist is that it also had a hint of oak. Unlike sauvignon blanc that I typically drink, this one was aged for a bit in oak. Still quite tasty!

The Dual Score: ★ ★ ★