Getting a modest refund? Here's a place to park it. Pretty Good Brdx from a solid vintage. Cheers, Jim from the NYT. Ready or Not, 2008 Mécs By ERIC ASIMOV IT.S been a rough few years for Bordeaux in the United States. While bottles of its highest-end wines have gone for record prices in Asia, many American consumers, particularly younger wine lovers, have largely turned their backs on what for centuries was the world.s best-known and most prestigious wine region. I have mixed feelings about this. I love good Bordeaux. As with generations before me, I learned about fine wine in the 1980s by exploring Bordeaux. Most likely, my generation will be the last among Americans to take that journey through the classic growths. We had far fewer choices, and Bordeaux was more reasonably priced. Many other great wines are available today, wines that cost much less than good Bordeaux and are much more accessible. Many of the best-known Bordeaux estates are vast, owned by corporations and treated like luxury goods and priced accordingly, with a largely impenetrable facade between the public and the mechanics of wine production. It.s a model that may appeal to status seekers, but the romance is lost on younger consumers who value what they see as a direct connection to the dirt in which grapevines are planted, and to the people who tend those vines. Just as the big Champagne houses have had to reckon with the rising popularity in the last decade of Champagnes made by small farmers, so has big Châau Bordeaux seen a new generation of American consumers turn its attention toward small family estates, not so much from Bordeaux, though, as from all over the rest of the world. It.s a far deeper and more complicated story than that, of course. But sometimes lost in the discussion of connotations are the wines themselves, so the wine panel decided recently to take a closer look at Bordeaux, tasting 20 bottles from the 2008 vintage in a range of prices up to $100. Two recent vintages, 2009 and 2010, have already been touted as among the greatest in history by tastemakers like Robert M. Parker Jr. They came fairly hard on the heels of other lauded years like 2005 and 2000. Often, a series of so-called great vintages can create opportunities for consumers in the merely good years that can fall through the cracks, like 2001 and, more recently, 2008. By most reports the 2008 vintage was pretty good: classically styled, which, in Bordeaux parlance, means these were not of the ultra-ripe, extravagantly fruity persuasion but more medium-bodied, with the sort of acidity that can make the wines seem fresh and lively. Best of all, the 2008 wines were less expensive than those from many of the surrounding vintages, although (fair warning) we are talking about Bordeaux. Less-expensive Bordeaux is still very expensive wine. We decided to focus on the wines of Méc, the heart of classic cabernet sauvignon-based Bordeaux, which includes prestigious communes like Pauillac, St.-Julien, Margaux and St.-Étèe, along with lesser-known satellite regions. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Aviram Turgeman, the beverage director for the Tour de France restaurant group, which includes Nice Matin, a destination restaurant for older Bordeaux, and Paul Grieco, an owner of Hearth as well as the mini-chain of Terroir wine bars. Paul is better known for his advocacy of riesling than for his love of Bordeaux. But a few years ago, he lamented the fact that nobody visiting his wine bars wanted to order Bordeaux. .I.m a history guy,. he told me back then. .How can I not revere Bordeaux?. So how did he feel about these .08s? .Heartened and disheartened,. Paul said. .Heartened that the wines weren.t over-oaked, over-fruited or over-alcoholized, but disheartened that more wines weren.t drinkable now.. Spoken like a true sommelier. Many restaurants face a quandary with Bordeaux, Barolo and other wines that require aging before they become really enjoyable. With little room for storage, and less inclination to invest in wines that won.t show a return for a few years, many restaurants must either forgo age-worthy wines or try to sell them when they are too young. Bordeaux does offer an out, though. Prices have shot up so fast in recent years that it.s possible to buy older vintages for less than what new vintages cost. In fact, Paul said, he.s looking for 2004s right now. Personally, I thought that the wines showed well, even if, as Avi said, they needed time to achieve harmony. The best wines were fresh, graceful and intense, exactly the qualities that make Bordeaux great and the wines excellent partners with food. Yet I wouldn.t want to drink most of these wines for another five years. Right now, they are austere. Paul likened them to riding in a car without cushions or shocks. A mere 20 bottles is hardly a complete look, and with a price cap of $100, many well-known producers did not qualify. This was simply a cross-section of what.s available. Still, our No. 1 bottle was both the most prestigious name in the tasting, Pichon-Longueville Baron, and the most expensive at $100. This was an elegant, complete wine, with long lingering flavors that will reward aging. But $100? Well, to each his own. Our No. 3 bottle, the Rauzan-Séa, was also on the high end at $80, but impressed us with its classic flavors of cedar, fruit and herbs. Prices were well distributed from $20 to $100, and several of the least expensive bottles did very well. Our No. 2 bottle, from Cantemerle in the Haut-Méc, was already harmonious and complex, though fairly closed. It was our best value, at $28. Two $20 bottles also made our top 10: Clarke from Listrac-Méc at No. 6, with a high percentage of merlot, which makes the wine more approachable now, and La Chapelle de Calon at No. 8, which had plenty of depth but also lots of oak. La Chapelle de Calon is a second label of Calon-Sér, made from grapes that for one reason or another don.t qualify for the top cuvé They are always more reasonably priced though not always great values. Still, two other second labels made our top 10, including Blason d.Issan, a restrained, pure wine, and Zé de Labérce, tight and savory. What does it all mean? Stripped of their symbolic value, the Méc is still the Méc, a standard-bearer for elegant, age-worthy cabernet-based wines. Figure in the prices, though, and their value will require some tough calculations. Tasting Report Pichon-Longueville Baron, $100, *** Pauillac 2008 Fresh and balanced, with aromas of flowers, tobacco and minerals; elegant and complete. (Le Reine Importing, New York) BEST VALUE Cantemerle, $28, *** Haut-Méc 2008 Harmonious with complex, lingering flavors of herbs and ripe fruit. (The Premier Wine Company, Richmond, Calif.) Rauzan-Séa, $80, *** Margaux 2008 Classic Méc with aromas and flavors of cedar, herbs, earth and fruit. (BNP Distributing, New York) Blason d'Issan, $48, ** ½ Margaux 2008 Harmonious, restrained and pure with aromas of violets and soft tannins. (Wineberry America, New York) Zé de Labérce, $36, ** ½ Margaux 2008 Complex and savory, with bright acidity and ripe fruit flavors. (Admiral Imports, Cedar Grove, N.J.) Clarke, $20, ** ½ Listrac-Méc 2008 Pure, discreet and subtle with spicy, earthy flavors. (The Premier Wine Company) Gruaud Larose, $55, ** St.-Julien 2008 Graceful and fresh with aromas of flowers, red fruit and herbs. (Young's Market Company, Tustin, Calif.) La Chapelle de Calon, $20, ** St.-Étèe 2008 Rich, dark and tannic with intense flavors of fruit, flowers and oak. (The Premier Wine Company) Léille Poyferré$80, ** St.-Julien 2008 Tight and tannic with flavors of licorice, sweet fruit and oak. (Atherton Wine Imports, San Jose, Calif.) Giscours, $50, ** Margaux 2008 Dense and tight, with flavors of red fruit and oak. (Le Reine Importing) -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 * * james(a)brewingnews.com James.Ellingson(a)StThomas.edu *