OK, on to business.  A few weeks ago I got an offer via Twitter (I’m @spinthebottleny, if you’re so inclined) for free samples of Bordeaux from the region’s trade promotion council. I’m still new enough to this game to be thrilled by an offer of free wine, so I signed up. And as a PR/communications professional by day, I was curious to see how Bordeaux is marketing itself these days. Believe it or not, these guys are actually in a lot of trouble. Once you get beyond the famous names that sell for stratospheric prices — Lafite-Rothschild, Château Margaux, Château d’Yquem — there’s a lot of undistinguished plonk coming out of Bordeaux and many small producers are totally unequipped to compete in the global wine marketplace. (Michael Steinberger goes into great detail on this in his book on the demise of French cuisine, Au Revoir to All That.) Wine is poetry, wine is transcendent…but wine is also a business, and a hard one at that, filled with people who struggle to make a decent living.

That’s why I died a little inside when I tore into the “Life Goes Better with Bordeaux” FedEx package they sent me. Not to look gift wine in the mouth, but I was beyond bummed to see the marketing materials they had enclosed. First there was a dial indicating what type of Bordeaux you should drink based on your other wine preferences, pictured above. Eg, if you like Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, you have to try white Bordeaux Supérieur (Sauvignon Blanc is the primary component of dry white Bordeaux). The whole thing had a chintzy Designer Imposters “if you like Giorgio, you’ll love…” feel to it. Plus there’s something a little desperate about offering up Bordeaux, the historical nexus of the wine universe, as playing second fiddle to the rest of the world’s wine regions. Then there were the food matching notes. The overall message of this campaign is clearly to make Bordeaux more accessible. But with pairings like Glazed Grilled Duck Breast for the Larose-Trintaudon and Maccheroncini with Lobster & Cauliflower Sauce for the Clarendelle, they totally missed the mark. I don’t know many people who cook like that regularly, and the ones who do already know plenty about Bordeaux. What’s wrong with steak for the red? Or a lobster roll for the white? Both would be fine matches. The final tragic piece of the puzzle was a huge, slightly psychadelic poster that follows that same aesthetic of the promotion campaign’s Web site.

Still not sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Hang it above my bed? I don’t see how any of this is supposed to revive the mid-priced segment of the Bordeaux wine industry.

The white wine they sent, the 2006 Clarendelle, is a blend of 44% Sauvignon Blanc, 46% Sémillon, and 10% Muscadelle. The nose was interesting enough, with herbal, citrus rind, toasted almond and Golden Delicious apple aromas.  I’m not in love with oaked Sauvignon Blanc — to me, treating this fresh and sprightly variety with heavy oak is like drowning a beautiful piece of grilled fish in a heavy cream sauce — and I ran into some of that problem here. The wine is fine, although it occupies an uncomfortable place: somewhere in the gray area between fresh, bright, aromatic (unoaked Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or Grüner Veltiner) and round and unctuous wines (Chardonnay, Viognier). You can see why this wine would be hard to market. With a suggested retail price of $19.95, I don’t see it as a great value, either. (To be fair, I saw it online for as little as $14.99, which sounds more like it.)

The 2004 Larose-Trintaudon, while still pretty basic, offers a little glimpse of what can make Bordeaux great. A blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, and aged entirely in French (of course) oak, it has that lovely gentlemen’s club library smell of cedar, spice, leather and pleasant mustiness that makes me feel like I’m paging through a fragile old book. All the more ironic that  I spilled it on my laptop:

There’s fruit here, too — blackberries and a little raspberry — as well as some dark chocolate. Suggested retail is $17.99 but I saw it online for as little as $10.99. For $11, you could a lot worse–but for $18, you could do much, much better.

Last night was one of those exceptions. My dear friend Marco opened a (half) bottle of 1997 Château d’Yquem, one of the world’s most acclaimed wines. It’s a sweet white wine from Sauternes, a region in Bordeaux, that’s incredibly expensive to make. When the weather’s just right, botrytis rot attacks the grapes, causing them to shrivel up and concentrating the sugars and flavors. The rot takes its time to work its way through the vineyard and affect the grapes, which means that it requires several passes during the course of harvest to collect the grapes at just the right time. The picking is done completely by hand, sometimes grape by grape, which, as you can imagine, is pretty laborious. (And also helps to explain the astronomical prices. My buddy Marco got this half-bottle as a gift, but it would have set him back nearly $200 if he had paid retail.)

The botrytis rot, age, and the predominant grape variety used (Sémillon, accompanied by a smaller percentage of Sauvignon Blanc), all help to explain the stunning gold color. White wine darkens as it ages, and Yquem and other Sauternes take on beautiful amber and tawny shades as they get older. Aromas of dried apricots, buckwheat honey, toasted almonds, and even mushroom jumped right out of the glass. The palate wasn’t quite as complex — at least at first — with flavors of dried apricot and peach taking center stage against a backdrop of savory smokiness. I wasn’t disappointed, exactly, but Yquem is such an iconic wine, I was practically expecting the skies to part and reveal a chorus of angels as I took my first sip.

Then a funny thing happened. I tried it with some Roquefort — blue cheese and Sauternes is a classic food/wine pairing combination — and that snapped the wine into focus, like a final sprinkling of salt over a sauce. And suddenly, this new taste emerged, one I had experienced many times but never noticed as a distinct flavor: the taste of apricot skin. Tangy/fruity/sweet, with an edge of bitterness, and entirely different from the taste of apricot flesh.  The same way a great photograph can teach you to see something you’ve looked at a million times before, this wine helped me helped me understand a flavor I’d taken for granted my whole life.

After this mini-revelation, I took a break from the Yquem (the conversation had taken a particularly raucous turn) and realized that even 10 minutes after my last sip, the flavor of the Yquem was still vivid in my mouth. In fact, I could still taste it on our cab ride home. It made me realize I don’t pay enough attention to length when I’m tasting. It’s one of those factors that I’m trained to consider and note as part of my diploma classes, but I usually treat it as an afterthought. The Yquem was a great reminder to slow down and pay attention. If you have the good fortune to try this wine, remember to take your time. (And don’t forget the Roquefort.)

A great place to start is Bordeaux, where the red wines are a blend of up to five permitted grape varieties. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are the stars of this classic wine region, while Cabernet Franc and Malbec usually play supporting roles. Waiting in the wings is Petit Verdot. (It’s pronounced Vair-DOH). The grape has dark, thick skins, which add color and tannin to the Bordeaux blend. It also adds spiciness and and a firm intensity to the wine. The downside of Petit Verdot is that it ripens late in the harvest season, which, in temperate Bordeaux, means that in some years it doesn’t really ripen at all.

Some intrepid producers in warmer regions are trying their hands at making wines starring Petit Verdot, like this 2006 Deen De Bortoli Vat 4 ($13.99) from South Eastern Australia. I can see the potential here. There’s some good spice on the nose — cloves and nutmeg — and the firm tannins made it a decent match for the skirt steak I served it with. But the wine spent 12 months aging in American oak, and the wood clouds the taste of the fruit, like a film of dirt on a glass window. Petit Verdot sometimes has a hard, rubbery character that reminds me of a pencil eraser, a quality that’s in full effect here. In theory I support the idea of a predominantly Petit Verdot wine, but in this case I’m not loving the execution. Back to the drawing board on this one, guys — I promise that the next BKaG will feature a wine I actually like.