Bordeaux
Left Bank Cabernet is a great story. It is not this story. Vignobles Sullivan is Merlot and Cabernet Franc, clay and limestone, five appellations, and the wines critics scored as if the famous list had already been rewritten.
Bordeaux is a river system pretending to be a wine region. The Gironde splits the department into a Left Bank, gravel and Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Right Bank, clay and Merlot, with Cabernet Franc as the grape that keeps the wine awake. Entre-Deux-Mers sits between the Dordogne and the Garonne and has always been allowed its own ideas, especially about white wine.
“The finest wines in the world” is a phrase Bordeaux has spent three centuries earning and occasionally spending. The 1855 classification fixed a moment on the Left Bank and then refused to move. The Right Bank’s answer was different. Pomerol never joined that ladder and became priceless anyway. Saint-Émilion built a ladder and kept repainting it. Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac kept making wine on hills the brokers drove past. Castillon waited.
Vignobles Sullivan is a collection assembled from that answer. Not a tour of every classified growth. A point of view: the absolute bottles are the ones that taste like a slope, survive a critic, and can be bought without a waiting list performed as theater. In the United States that purchase is vsatsr.com.
Right Bank
Upstream of Fronsac, on clay-limestone hills that have grown wine since the seventeenth century. Merlot leads. The wines can be as dark and structured as more famous communes, which is why Gaby surprised people who thought they already knew Bordeaux. Forty acres. Château bottling. A Cuvée the Grand Classement ranked among the best in the region.
Château GabyRight Bank
The plateau and the slopes, limestone and clay, and a classification Saint-Émilion is willing to revisit. Grand Cru on a label is a claim that has to survive review. Du Parc’s answer is an eighty-twenty Merlot and Cabernet Franc, 95 points from Forbes, blackberry and orange peel, tannins that are silky and still ask for a little time.
Château Du ParcRight Bank
No 1855 ladder. A plateau of clay and gravel anyway, and prices that assume you already know. Clos Beauséjour is one of the smallest vineyards in the appellation. The U.S. release is 163 cases. Tom Mullen’s Forbes note is 97 points: red cherry, mint, tree bark, mocha, finessed tannins. James Suckling: 93.
Château Clos BeauséjourRight Bank
The neighbor Saint-Émilion does not advertise. Named for Castillon-la-Bataille, 1453, the last battle of the Hundred Years’ War. The slope and the sun are why the appellation became fashionable. Moya farms it organically and bottles at the château, with Genodics — music at dawn and dusk — in the vineyard program.
Château MoyaBetween the rivers
The land between the Dordogne and the Garonne. Historically a white-wine country, now also the home of Château Auguste’s rouge, Grand Rosé, Augustine Blanc, and Le’ Zilch. Organically grown fruit. Limestone plots for the rosé. A 2016 rouge at 90 points from James Suckling. Proof that a collection can be absolute and still have a Wednesday bottle.
Château Auguste