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2021 Bordeaux Blanc
Château Ducasse
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 bedrock. The wine is bone-dry and bracing, bearing 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.
—Tom Wolf
Wine Type: | white |
Vintage: | 2021 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | 70% Sémillon, 30% Sauvignon Blanc |
Appellation: | Bordeaux |
Country: | France |
Region: | Bordeaux |
Producer: | Château Ducasse |
Winemaker: | Hervé Dubourdieu |
Vineyard: | 35 years average, 13 ha |
Soil: | Clay & Limestone on fissured rock |
Aging: | Wine ages in stainless steel for 6 months |
Farming: | Lutte Raisonnée |
Alcohol: | 12% |
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About The Producer
Château Ducasse
About The Region
Bordeaux
Often considered the wine capital of the world, Bordeaux and its wines have captured the minds, hearts, and wallets of wine drinkers for centuries. For many, the wines provide an inalienable benchmark against which all other wines are measured.
Bordeaux is divided into three winegrowing regions with the city that gives the region its name in the near geographical center. The “right bank,” or the area located east of the Dordogne River, produces wines that are predominantly Merlot with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The “left bank” is located to the west of the Garonne River and produces wines dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, with Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot.
The third region, Entre-Deux-Mers, lies between both rivers and produces white wines from Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and Muscadelle. Though technically in the left bank, it is worth noting the appellation of Sauternes, which produces arguably the world’s most famous sweet wines from Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and Muscadelle as well.
Though many top Bordeaux wines are sold en primeur (in advance of their bottling) and often through a middleman known as a negoçiant, Kermit has always preferred to purchase directly from the winemaker. For more than three decades he has sought out small producers, who make classic Bordeaux wines and are willing to play outside the negoçiant system. This ethic has led to longstanding relationships, excellent prices, and perhaps most important—wines of great value and longevity.
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Château Gombaude-Guillot France | Bordeaux
2020 Sauternes
Domaine de l’Alliance France | Bordeaux
2020 Atlantique Blanc “Déclinaison”
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2016 Canon-Fronsac
Château Moulin Pey-Labrie France | Bordeaux
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Château Gombaude-Guillot France | Bordeaux
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Where the newsletter started

Where the newsletter started
Every three or four months I would send my clients a cheaply made list of my inventory, but it began to dawn on me that business did not pick up afterwards. It occurred to me that my clientele might not know what Château Grillet is, either. One month in 1974 I had an especially esoteric collection of wines arriving, so I decided to put a short explanation about each wine into my price list, to try and let my clients know what to expect when they uncorked a bottle. The day after I mailed that brochure, people showed up at the shop, and that is how these little propaganda pieces for fine wine were born.—Kermit Lynch