Advice on French Wine

August will be a special month for Aussie Wine Guy, and AWG content will be devoted to a further study of French, Spanish and Italian wine.

  Aussie Wine Guy was recently asked:

  “Any idea what wine to buy when we are in France? I like red cabs or
  merlot but usually drink California or Chilean (don’t have expensive
  tastes)... but it would be nice to know what to buy when we are in
  [France]”

  which we thought was an excellent question.

  Although this site is called Aussie Wine Guy, AWG has decided to
  enjoy wines from all regions, including France and, indeed, has spent

Vaucluse Headland, Sydney Australia                the past 18 months investigating various wines from the Bordeaux and 
                                                               Burgundy regions – no small feat given the cost of some of the labels! 

AWG’s answer to the aforementioned question is below and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic of affordable French (or other) wine, so please leave a comment or three.

“A Great question!

[AWG is] partial to Bordeaux which I think you would enjoy also as Bordeaux reds are typically made up of Cabernet Sauvignon and blended with Merlot or Cabernet Franc. Typically wines from Bordeaux come from 'Chateaus' (although not always).

If you want to do a little more exploring, try a Burgundy red which is typically Pinot Noir (and arguably some of the world's best Pinot comes from this region). Typically wine from Burgundy comes from a 'Domaine' (although not always).

You should be able to pick up wines classified "Fifth Growths" from the Medoc regions. I think you'll find 4th/5th growths which will challenge Napa Cabernets. The price bracket tends to match the growths (e.g. expect to pay a premium for 1st growths like Chateau Margaux, Chateau Haut Brion etc) and it can get very pricey. I've found the higher end bottles tend to age better.

Chilean wine seems to be doing well with Syrah (Shiraz) in particular, but I'll be unable to be anything other than faithful to Australian Shiraz . Again, I'd go for a Bordeaux or Burgundy but you might find Loire Valley offers some interesting alternatives.

The hard part is the number of individual vineyards makes it hard to remember the good drops! There are thousands of small producers in each wine region and usually only the big labels are well known. Each of the larger estates also (usually) produces a "second label" which worth looking out for.

Lastly, many small producers operate together in co-ops which produce quite nice wine, can be very surprising.

Hope it helps!”

We’d like to also mention the St Emilion region which has a nice share of fine tasting Bordeaux Cabernet.  Stay tuned for a “how to interpret a Bordeaux wine label” post – coming soon.