Bordeaux disappointment in Shanghai

Our second wine tasting in China confirmed what we found last time: it's hard to find good wines at the $26 price point. There are some, but it is difficult. That's the bad news.  The good news?  The quiche was great!

Our latest wine tasting was a bit of a surprise - we had been wanting to do this but kept letting planning get in the way. So on Wednesday we announced that we were going to do a wine tasting and emailed past participants and a few others who had expressed interest. By Friday we had our 8.

Because it was short notice the easiest wine to get around here, by far, is Bordeaux. The French have a firm foothold in the Chinese market. So that's what we were drinking, Bordeaux, priced at up to ¥160 (about $26 USD).

In the US we choose the price point of $20 because we were interested in finding good tasting wines that wouldn't break the bank.  Even everyday wines ought to taste good. So that was our mindset. In China prices are higher and it seemed that we could find a variety of wines at ¥160.

Sadly, these wines were mostly bad. It is as if we were looking for a drinkable wine at $6 instead of $26.  Here is the tally:

Bordeaux, La Buissiére, 2011, 13% ¥unrecorded, wine "D" scores from 4.5-9, average total 6.5/20

Mouton Cadet, Rothschild, 2009, 13.5%, ¥135, wine "C", scores from 1.5-13, average total 7.5/20

Bordeaux, Chateau Dudon, 2009, 13.5%, ¥118, Wine "B", scores from 6-9, average total 8/20 

Bordeaux, l'Union de Producteurs, 2010, 14%, ¥158, Wine "A", scores from 9.5-15, average total 13/20

So, wine "A" was a winner, and pretty closely scored by everyone. We bought it at Carrefour, prompted by a French salesman who told us he drank it at home growing up. And we believed him, but whether true or not it was a good wine.

After finishing our sampling, I brought out a bottle of Cotes du Rhône, Chapoutier, 2010, 14%, ¥158.   Dory had found this and we liked it.  Everyone at our Bordeaux tasting also liked it, better than at least 3 of the four bottles, and certainly competitive with the best Bordeaux.

The reason we do these wine tastings is to have fun but also to learn  about various wines, and one of our guests commented that the Cotes du Rhône was spicier, a really different taste. So I was pretty happy that even though we are not finding affordable everyday wines, we are certainly learning something!