Wine for The Bordeaux Smile

Holy Bordeaux day!!

I can certainly see what all the fuss is about now. We tasted eight different dry red Bordeaux, and they were all pretty terrific. So terrific in fact, that I am going to share four of them with you, because I can't pick just one.

These wines all smell wonderfully warm, and just inhaling the aromas made me smile; remembering them makes me smile, and the smiling, and the catching myself smiling, makes me think of one of the major pitfalls of tasting a lot of red wine: what I will from here on out call The Bordeaux Smile. This is a smile that says: "I just dumped a whole bunch of pen ink into a glass of water and gargled with it."

By the end of class we are all talking and smiling at each other with oddly blue mouths. I don't know why the red wine turns teeth blue, but it is a bit of a concern. How long before the staining is permanent? How long before I just give up on the AquaFresh altogether and just start brushing with shoe polish, since my teeth are going to look the same regardless?

This is the reverse of a look that I had years ago when I was acting in a production of The Threepenny Opera at A Noise Within, and was playing one of the filthy urchins. While my fellow urchins chose to strategically place sooty colored make-up on their faces, I went for the all-over approach and smeared the stuff over my entire face, so I wound up looking like I had just stuck my whole face into a pile of coal. The main issue with this was that I decided not to bother with the yellow stain that some of the other cast members painted on their teeth to make them look dirty as well. So I had a filthy face and perfectly white, shiny teeth, which prompted one of my fellow actors to comment that I was the only urchin with a dental plan.

Here we go, the wines for that Bordeaux Smile:

Chateau Tour Bayard Montagne-St. Emilion 2006. This Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec blend is a nice smooth wine with subtle aromas of earth, cassis, stewed blackberry, plums and cherries with a hint of smoke. It is medium-bodied without being overwhelming.

Chateau de Pez St. Estephe Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnels 2005. This wine was an unequivocal hit with the class. A beautiful garnet color with, yet again, aromas of stewed red and black fruits and added layers of baking spice, tobacco smoke and vanilla. It was full, bodied, round and rich. Yum. And with a retail price of $45, it is a Bordeaux buy.

Chateau Hosanna Pomerol 2004. This wine was rounder and plumper than the previous wines, with sweeter, juicier cherry and black raspberry on the palate along with some smoky cedar, coffee and sage.

The final wine is the Chateau Magdelaine St. Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classe 2001. This wine was another winner. It has aged beautifully, and has still retained a lot of its acid, tannin and fruit, giving off lovely stewed and candied fruit aromas as well as prune and fig along with maple syrup. On the palate, the figs and fruits linger with dried herbs like basil, rosemary and black tea. This wine retails for $80, but our teacher suspected it could age for another 10 years and still be delicious, so it could be an investment/special occasion wine.

Enjoy. And smile...