Guest Author - Jim Fortune

I didn't know this, but one of the original wineries in the Bordeaux region is Chateau Lafite Rothschild. If you have seen any movies in your day, you will have usually heard this name in a James Bond or some other film as the leading man orders some hooty tooty wine in a fancy restaurant. A Chateau Lafite Rothschild can set you back $1,000. This is not only out of my price league, but I do not know anyone who is in this price league. So I not know how this wine tastes, and there is no one I can ask about it either. If I win the PowerBall on Saturday night - no - come to think of it I will probably not buy it then either.

A person can go overboard buying wine from a specific region of any country, if they choose. The idea is to find a good varietal, from a good region, in a good vintage, and get it for a good price - what I refer to a VRVP. So how do you do that? I try to specialize in wines under $10. This is my wine purchase threshold - most of the time. I have been known to spend more than $10 - sometimes as high as $17 or $18, but $10 is generally my dollar limit. Also, if I find something I like, I often try to go back and get a few more and getting a few more bottles costing under $10 means I can get three or four and not go over my monthly wine allowance.

For research, I go to Borders or a store with a wide selection of magazines and browse through Wine Spectator magazine. If you are serious about wine, you could get a subscription, but I just like to browse through the recent copy and see what wines they are featuring in that issue. This will give you an idea of what is on the hot list right now. That is how I found out about the 2005 Bordeaux. I then did a search in Wine Access, (http://www.wineaccess.com) and Googled “2005 Bordeaux”. I was not able to find anything for under $10. It might have been on page 25 but I wasn’t going to look at each listing for 25 pages to find one. Sorry – I have my limits. I did find one at Wine Access that was selling for $11.99.

The bottle was Chateau Au Grand Paris (Bordeaux Supérieur). I saw that one store used to have it for $8.99 but they were sold out. The point is that you might find a bottle of 2005 Bordeaux in your neighborhood for under $10, even though I did not.

So you have a good varietal (Bordeaux) and a good year (2005), a good region (Bordeaux again) and a good price ($11.99). I walked over to my favorite wine shop and did some looking around. My favorite wine shop did not have any Chateau Au Grand Paris (Bordeaux Supérieur). However, I knew that there are many importers of the 2005 Bordeaux and finding a bottle of the 2005 Bordeaux in your area may or may not happen, I found a couple so I bought three.

The first one I bought was $13.99. The name was Chateaux La Rame. Look for my review of this wine.

Until then, let me know what is on your mind, and how you are doing, O.K.?

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Jim Fortune - the Bella Wine Guy