2020 Chateau Ducasse Graves Bordeaux Blanc

Product description

Bordeaux is often thought of as red-wine territory. One of France’s most renowned wine regions, it boasts many of the most coveted Cabernets and Merlots in the world. Yet this slice of the country’s Atlantic coast also produces very worthy whites that are perfect as apéritifs or paired with the local catch, like cod. If you want to sample the region’s most reliable and versatile blancs, look no further than the Dubourdieu family of Château Ducasse and Château Graville-Lacoste.      

Southeast of Sauternes, the modest, meticulous, and apparently ageless Hervé Dubourdieu makes both dessert and dry whites that have been among our best values for decades. This dry Bordeaux blanc is made from Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc vines planted in complex soils of clay and limestone on fissured rock. The wine is bone-dry, even if your first whiff of sunny, slightly tropical fruit leads you to expect otherwise. On the palate, it is luscious and mouth-coating with generous passion fruit and lychee, and yet it is racy at the same time—constructed along a sturdy spine of chalk and acidity, it bears the classic Sauvignon Blanc notes of lime and grass. This blanc is astoundingly versatile at table. Exquisite with seafood, it is also perfect on its own.