Ep. 941 Map 4 Bordeaux Left Bank | Jumbo Shrimp Maps

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding course? Do you want to be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Learn more and apply now at viniti international dot com. Welcome to jumbo shrimp wine study maps. We have specially created this free content for all our listeners who are studying for wine exams. This has been a journey of development since Stevie Kim discovered Rosie Baker's hand drawn maps on Instagram through two years of work by our in house editorial and graphics team, and now the maps are available to purchase in beta form while they undergo the final briefing and editing by our expert advisory board. It's a three layered project because we know everyone learns differently. We now offer the complete box set of thirty nine maps, this series of podcasts with the maps narrated by our crack team of wine educators. And finally, the study guide book, which will be published later this year. Our map project is in no way a substitute for the material set out by other educational organizations. But we hope all the wine students out there will find our map project, a new exciting and useful tool for learning. For more information and to buy the maps, please visit our website at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. The left bank of Bordeaux map. As I mentioned in our Bordeaux overview, Bordeaux is actually a very large area, but we can make it easy to study by separating it into its smaller areas and really focusing on this split between right and left bank, which is why today we're going to be focusing on the left bank, which are commonly the cabernet sauvignon dominated wines. Now before we get into the specific wine making and areas and soil types, and everything that you need to know. Let's take a quick look back at the Bordeaux Apelastions. First up, we have this regional appelastion of Bordeaux. This covers wines that are made with grapes from all over the region. But broadly speaking, what this means is wines made from Merlo. This is because Merlo grows very easily and therefore it's easier to put these grapes into Bordeaux Apelastion wines. Now within this regional appelastion, there is a step up of Bordeaux superior. This is stricter appelastion rules and particularly higher levels of alcohol, so higher sugar potential in the grapes. Normally meaning that the grapes for these wines, although still merlot dominated tend to come from slightly better sites. More warmth, more ripening potential, hence, more alcohol. From here, we then start looking at the commune wines. So these are wines from specific areas, and a lot of focus in these commune's are actually on specific shadows thanks to the eighteen fifty five classification. Here, we're talking specifically left bank and even more specifically thinking about the Medock area. That's gonna be our focus for a lot of this podcast. So in eighteen fifty five, there was a classification made of the best wines according to their market value. And these classified certain growths a k a shadows and put them into an order from best to least according to how much money they could command on the market. And this gives us the classification for this Medock area of the left bank of Bordeaux. What it's really important to understand about this MEDock classification is that it is fixed. It never changes. It has been this way since eighteen fifty five. It is staying this way. So we have a series of shadows that command very high prices still because of this original classification. Now, obviously, the shadows vary in size, and you can see some variation in quality here. This is not a quality classification. It is just based on this original market value. Because of this and this understanding because this classification is fixed, new shadows can't take advantage of it. As a result, we have an additional classification here of crewe bourgeois. This was added later to give these newer shadows, those who weren't able to capitalize on the original classification, the opportunity to have a designation on their label that indicates that they too have very high quality wines. It's worth noting that within this eighteen fifty five classification, there are also the sweet wines of so turn, which we'll cover in a moment. But let's focus now on these prestigious red wines of the medoc and hot medoc. So it's a moderate maritime climate here with lots of humidity, lots of water, and lots of rot. This also leads to lots of vintage variation because it can change throughout the year. Now the focus in the med doc is these red wines. Frost isn't really a problem here, and so you do get ripening late into the season right into October. Which is really important because the focus in the medoc and hot medoc is cabernet sauvignon that needs warmth to ripen and also needs specific conditions to continue ripening. However, one of the key issues here again related to water actually is that spring rains can disrupt flowering and fruit set, and summer storms often damage or dilute fruit. So canopy management is really important in this area for air circulation. Now one of the reasons that the left bank of Bordeaux for the red wines is a little bit more focused on cabernet, sovignon is because of the soils here. We see a lot of gravel and stone allowing free drainage, meaning the roots are not sitting in water. Also, gravel soils warm up and stay warm throughout the season. Like I say, into this late ripening period allowing for long ripening for Cabernet sauvignon. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local food, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Key communes that you need to be aware of in this area are Santa Steph, Puyac, San Julien, and Margot, all of which have this high percentage of cabernet sauvignon in the blend, lots of sharp, black currant fruit, and lots of oak aging. We're right at the limits of cabernet sauvignon ripening here, so the tannins can be really aggressive, very high, and high sharp acidity. So oak is used a lot and you get lots of cedar, spice, clove, and nutmeg. And one of the reasons it's used is to soften this tannin and acidity. You often see new oaked at very intense concentrated flavors. These are wines designed to have complex city and intensity so that they can withstand long aging periods. Hedding a little bit south from this medoc and hot medoc area, you come into grav. Now again, high levels of gravel soils here, easy to remember, grav, gravel. And here we have both red and white wines. And although the white wines that might be made in the medoc would just be labeled as bordeaux Apelacian, in grav, you actually have Apelacian's four white wines, one of the most famous being Pessat Leon Yang, this commune area that produces dry sauvignon blanc semillon blends, often with oak use, with the semillon giving body, and richness, and weight, being able to withstand oak as it is not aromatic, sovignon blanc giving flowers, aromatics, and acidity to help with potential aging here. There are, however, cabernet sauvignon based blends in Peasant, Leon, as well. This area, obviously, with this gravel soil very suited to cabernet sauvignon, but here, they tend to be a little bit lighter bodied and more fragrant, more floral than the hawk medock reds. In the bigger area of grav, we have a slightly higher merlot percentage in the blend often, giving slightly less concentrated and complex wines with more of this soft fruity character rounding out the tannins and acidity, much more focus on black plums and black berries than black currant. And quite often fresh unoaked sauvignon blanc wines. A little bit further south into this grave area as you're heading along the river, we come to barsack which is an area dominated by semillon. It lies within the Appalachian of Sotun, and so often the grapes here in the best years are put into the Sotun sweet wines, but can also be labeled as barsac. A semillon dominating the blend here because of its susceptibility to botrytis. And this is where we really begin to see, noble rot coming into the wines. And then our final stop here so turn. Actually, the home to not only sweet wines, but also dry wines, although the dry wines are more likely to be labeled under the generic Bordeaux appylation. It's the sweet wines that really command prestige here. Again, this blend of semillon and sauvignon, but often also with muscadel, which is this exotic perfumed grape that enhances the aromatics of sauvignon. They tend to be high alcohol, sweet, but balanced with this very high acidity coming from sauvignon blanc with lots of apricot citrus peel. These real bitter orange marmalade and saffron characters you get from sauternes, and lots of toast, oak, vanilla. From new oak use. These are sweet wines that are designed for strong amounts of aging. Thinking about key factors, natural and human that are in play in the left bank of Bordeaux, for those exams. It's really thinking about grape varieties, why we might blend here. And this is all tied into both the conditions for grape growing, the climate throughout the year. And, obviously, the actual varieties themselves and what they add to blends, you will quite often get questions asking about why Cabane might be blended with merlot here or why merlot might be blended with Cabane. And in connection to that, why we see lots of new oak use and lots of aging in bordeaux wines. It's really about being able to tie all of these factors together, natural factors in the vineyard, human actors in the winery and connecting that to the grape varieties used and then the style of the wine. And in addition to that, you might find questions about differences in style between Bordeaux Apple or Bordeaux superior wines and the actual commune or Chateau, these crew wines, looking for you to make this connection between Merlo dominating in the blend being easier to grow. Therefore, producing these light fruity, red and black fruited simple bordeaux appelacian wines in comparison to much more concentrated intense wines, being able to take that gamble to use higher percentages of cabernet sauvignon in the blend This is really one of the key questions that often gets asked. And it's trying to make these connections between the factors in the vineyard, the factors in the winery and the style of wine produced, and therefore, the Appalachian with which it will be labeled. This is a theme we will continue to talk about in the next episode when we tackle the right bank of Bordeaux and entree Demaire. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast. Brought to you by Vineetli Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at benetli international dot com. For courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast and catch us on SoundCloud, Spotify and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian podcast dot com.