A lot can happen between the time you taste a wine and the moment it arrives at your door. In the case of the wines we tasted nearly a year ago during our visit to Bordeaux, there’s always a little anxiety when we crack the first bottle: Is it everything we remember? Is there any evidence of damage or diminishment from shipping? So far, these wines have been unqualified successes, and the streak continues with this succulent 2012 Saint-Julien from Château la Bridane.
After about a month of resting in our warehouse following its journey from France, this classically styled, Left Bank ‘claret’ is firing on all cylinders. It has a noble bearing to it, which isn’t a surprise: La Bridane is just a few minutes’ drive up Bordeaux’s D2 highway, the route des châteaux, from ‘super-second’ Saint-Julien Léoville Las Cases. It is also clearly built for aging, despite being priced lower than many middling ‘brands’ with nowhere near the amount of history and terroir expression you get here. What it demonstrates as well as any of the wines we’ve brought in is how ‘collectible’ wine can also be modestly priced. Bordeaux is a big category and economies of scale are on our side—take advantage of it!
This wine stood out for its combination of brooding structure and buoyancy: it has a bright, violet-accented aromatic profile supported by more dark-toned fruit and minerality on the palate. In the glass it’s a deep ruby with purple highlights at the rim, with aromas of black plum, black currant, cassis, and damp violets mingling with more savory notes of cedar, pencil lead, coffee grounds, wet stones, and leather. The Merlot component lends some sweet berry fruit to the nose and brightens the wine on the palate, but then the Cabernet and Petit Verdot swoop in and take over on the finish. It is not a massive, ultra-concentrated style—it has the kind of classical proportions that bring that old British word, claret, to mind. Right now, it has a very upright, slightly rigid structure that suggests a long life ahead: I won’t hesitate to lay this down for 10-15 years, which is not something I’d normally ask of a wine at this price point. As it ages, its floral notes and blue/black fruit elements will come more to the fore, along with all of the beguiling ‘secondary’ notes of tobacco and turned earth that are already in evidence. If you’re opening a bottle tonight, decant it about 45 minutes before serving at 60-65 degrees in large Bordeaux stems. This is a firm, fragrant, high-toned Bordeaux that will only get better alongside an elegant main-course protein; its savory notes had me thinking of a nice, saucy steak au poivre. That will really hit the spot. Cheers!