Bordeaux Step 1: Drink Some

If you're going to start buying Bordeaux, the first thing you have to know is: do you like it? This may seem an obvious first step, but you'd be surprised how many people skip it. Don't buy wine just because a magazine tells you it's a great vintage, or because someone you know likes to collect trophy wines from top chateaux.

Since I do not have a bank account the size of Bordeaux, nor a trophy wine mentality, nor unlimited storage (and I suspect you don't either), it was important to me to actually have some of this famous wine before I took the plunge. I did so several years ago, and my first serious exposure to Bordeaux was magical in every way. I loved buying the wine, planning a meal around the wine, and of course drinking the wine.

It was the fall of 2000, and the wine in question was a 1985 Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases. I was living in London at the time, and was three years into my serious engagement with wine. While in the City, my wine shop of choice was the venerable institution Berry Bros. and Rudd. Established in 1698 by Widow Bourne just up the street from St. James' Palace, they've been selling wine there ever since.

After buying a few cases of wine and getting to know their unbelievably knowledgeable staff, I decided to buy a bottle of Bordeaux to take home for the holidays and have with a traditional English holiday meal with close friends. I went to the shop, opened the ancient wooden door, stepped down into the store alongside the ramp that was used to roll barrels from the street back in the day, and sat down at the desk with a wine merchant outfitted in a morning coat.

One thing to know about Berry Brothers then: there was no wine in sight. Now they've put a few bottles out but when I went they were still old school.

Feeling slightly disoriented as usual at not being able to browse the labels and stumble around in relative solitude and ignorance, I instead talked to him about what I liked in a red wine, when I was going to serve it, and with what.

My wine merchant disappeared down a twisting set of stairs into the cellars beneath the shop and reappeared with the 1985 Ch. Leoville-Las-Cases (and a bottle of inexpensive Riesling Kabinett that I've long since forgotten but which blunted the shock of what I had done when I sat down in my flat that evening). I paid around $125 for it when the taxes were levied and the exchange rates were figured out. It was and is the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever purchased. Not a single bottle of Bordeaux I've bought since was more than $30, but I'm glad I started with this one.

The bottle was packed up in a carrier for me to take on board the plane (pre-2001) with me in early December for serving late in the third week. (You can still get this wine from Berry Brothers, for around $236.00 plus shipping). Both of us arrived safely in San Francisco, and the wine was stowed in cool dark place for the next 3 weeks.

When the night of the dinner came, I realized I had no idea whether to decant this wine, or how early to open the wine. I signed on to a Wine Spectator forum, described my dilemma and got excellent advice (decant, yes; only about 30 mins before you sat down to eat). After glasses of champagne, we sat down to prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes--all the makings of a traditional English holiday meal. I poured the wine, and everybody's noses went straight into the glasses. Flowery, spicy, berry, and leafy aromas made us all eager to take our first sips. And what sips they were, with every note of the aromas echoed in the flavors--and then some. People ate the food, but all anyone talked about was the wine. I continued to open up and develop throughout the meal.

Harry Potter for grownups. Magic. Alchemy.

Before you consider buying Bordeaux futures and devoting some precious storage space to these wines, it's crucial that you have some Bordeaux and discover whether you find it magical, too. If at all possible, look for some aged Bordeaux that is ready to drink. K&L has some excellent wines that are ready to drink now that are under $100, and one of their recent blog posts highlighted several Bordeaux from 1996 to 2003 that are available for under $35 (and three of them are ready to drink now). Still, drinking Bordeaux you haven't aged yourself is usually an expensive proposition, and merchants seldom hold on to lots of the lower priced Bordeaux wines, so you might prefer to look in your area for Bordeaux tastings instead. Here in LA, for instance, there are several Bordeaux events in the upcoming weeks, and Local Wine Events has lists of events all over the world on its site so even if you're not in LA you can find something that will better acquaint you with the wines of these regions. I'd hoped to make it to the UGC Bordeaux Tasting sponsored by Wally's and LearnAboutWine.com on January 20, but I have a conflict so no report from that event this year--at least not from me!

Next week: Bordeaux Step 2 will focus on the varietals used in most Bordeaux blends, and the differences between Old World and New World styles of wine.