Tag: ABV

Here Lies the Carcass of Napa Valley Winemaking

or

A DEAD HORSE ;

The Tragedy of Napa Valley,

as Seen Through the Lens of

BV Georges de Latour Private Reserve

Two weeks had passed, and I still couldn’t bring myself to pour the 2010 Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) Georges de Latour Private Reserve down the drain. It had been offered to me as a gift, and I knew damn well how much it cost. After relegating the bottle to my fridge and checking in periodically hoping that either the wine or my palate would change, I tried one last time and then finally accepted the inevitable.

BV 2010 outclassed by Marmandais malbec
Who better accompanied smoked duck magret? You guessed it.

This $100 bottle of wine is an undrinkable monstrosity. The $10 2011 Château Terrebert Cotes du Marmandais aside it is a far more alluring wine. The Terrebert was finished; the BV was poured down the drain.

Even if there’s no correspondence between price and quality in wine, it’s a bit shocking: how did BV end up crafting a wine that was impossible to drink? And what could the BV have tasted like?

THE BEAULIEU VINEYARD: TCHELISTCHEFF’S LEGACY


André Tchelistcheff is a deity among California wine enthusiasts. If Georges de Latour — a French businessman who founded the Beaulieu Vineyard in Napa Valley in 1900 — was the visionary who selected the vineyard site and European vine clones to plant, Tchelistcheff was the humble master technician who (Click to Read more)