2022 Château Turcaud

[Nicklasss]

Entre-Deux-Mers, an aoc i like a lot.

This wine was very nice with a salmon poke bowl. Lot of white flowers, greenhoney melon, pear skin, yellow apple. Good medium acidity ( higher % of semillon than expected), good fat, lot sweet yellow fruit final. Tn : 87-88.

[Nicklasss]

Took last 1/3 of the bottles, tonight one week later, and the wine got even more complex, civilized, drinking beautifully. +2 pts, so now a 89-90 pts wine!

[JimHow]

There's a big difference between 89 points and 90 points.

[AlexR]

Turcaud is one of the best estates in the Entre-Deux-Mers and their white wine is particularly good value for money.

We are lookng at very inexpensive wine that can hold its own with most wines from other regions.


Best regards,
Alex R.

[JimHow]

I’ve never heard of Chateau Turcaud in 30 years of drinking Bordeaux. I have only so many evenings left in my Bordeaux wine drinking career, why would I drink this unknown estate on a Thursday night over the plethora of other Bordeaux wines I can drink, and is this wine beyond supermarket level quality? What is a price that one can expect to pay for this beauty?

[JimHow]

So if I drink two bottles per week (on average) over the next 14 years (when, morbidly, I hope to die in my sleep at age 80), that means I will drink about 1,456 more bottles of fine Bordeaux. I currently have about 1,150 bottles in my cellar. This does not leave much room for Chateau Turcaud.

[DavidG]

I hear you, Jim. Priorities shift over time.

First, Nic, let me say I enjoy your notes immensely. You report on a wide range of interesting wines. While I rarely respond (I've never had most of them), it’s a pleasure to learn about them. Including the Ch. Turcauds of the world. So this is in no way meant as a criticism and I hope it doesn’t discourage posts on wines like this.

This is going to sound close-minded and elitist, it probably is.

I’m at the point in life where I’m only going to buy something I’ve never tried before if I have a reasonable expectation that I’ll enjoy it at least as much as the average bottle in my cellar. I'm no longer looking for just ok wines simply to try something new or because it’s good for the price. I still like reading about them, though.

[JimHow]

Indeed David, I agree with everything you say. I enjoy Nicola and Alex’s notes on wines that I’ve never heard of, even though I don’t really have much to say about them. It’s hard to believe, but a lot of my actions these days are now being driven with my age taken into account. This is a difficult thing when you are a 27 year old man trapped in a 65 year old body.

[JCNorthway]

This is a difficult thing when you are a 27 year old man trapped in a 65 year old body.

I can relate to that - except my body is 10 years older.

[stefan]

I am a four hundred year old man trapped in a 79 year old body. I would rather be like Duncan MacCloud (minus worrying about keeping my head).

[Nicklasss]

Jim and David, i understand your point of view, and at the end, anybody can drink any wines they wanted. This is the fun about wine.

I know my taste and always liked basic dry white Bordeaux wines for what they are (when well made, best qpr of the World) more than the dry whites from Haut-Brion, Pape Clément or Ailes d’Argents, but that’s only me.

I also understand that you, Mr. Audouze or Mr. Leve won’t run buying Turcaud, but there are probably some lurkers on BWE that can’t afford expensive Bordeaux (white, red or sweet) all the time, so i guess they read that post and i’m encouraging them to join BWE, and post on any Bordeaux wines.

Finally, is it true or not, people from France don’t drink that much the Haut-Brion, Le Pin or even Montrose, as they have access to lot of great wines from great terroirs, at affordable prices. And don’t fool yourself, the 500$ bottle of Mouton Rothschild doesn’t cost more to produce than the 50$ Fonbadet, and come from almost the same terroir… and is the Second/First Growth is 10 times better than the small Pauillac? And why Sociando Mallet seem to always perform great in blind tastings vs growth with way higher prices or reputation? And Jim, why should i still drink Château Margaux after your appreciation of 2019/2020 Château Labégorce? The theory is the high price wines, are like luxury items, just made mostly to sell outside of France or to non-french people, to bring back foreign capitals to France…

At the end, some prefer drinking luxury items, « very special » wines, to improve their life experience, to have the perception that they drink only the best as life is short… Don’t get me wrong, i buy also the « great » wines, but at the end, i like to enjoy color/aromas/taste of wines and people i drink it with, not it price or reputation or high critic marks or any marketing stuff about it.

Finally i love you guys, that we enjoy a 10$ Entre-Deux-Mers or 1000$ Classified Growth.

[AlexR]

Jim,

You’ve made some worthwhile points.

It’s uncanny, because I have pretty much the same exact number of bottles in my cellar as you have. At my age, I should stick essentially with what I have, but I find it very hard to stop buying wine…
I think I’m a different sort of wine drinker from you in that I consume the stuff with great regularity. So, I need some early-maturing affordable bottles, ones I tend to think of as “mid-week” wines I can open on a whim and not spend a fortune on. A wine like Turcaud fits the bill very well.

Some weeks, especially in winter, I have wine with at least one meal a day.

Nic points out the difference between what wines cost in France and North America.
Take a gander at the Turcaud prices from their website:

https://eboutique.chateauturcaud.com/fr/

Hell, their leading wine costs just over 7 euros a bottle.

You wonder if this is just another “supermarket wine”. I have no idea what sells in supermarkets these days where you live, but some here have a really good selection of wines, up to and including first growths. Not always superbly stored, granted, but I buy many bottles in supermarkets.

Those of us who don’t buy wine over the internet (a majority of BWEers?) buy their wine from a fairly limited number of sources. Our frame of reference is necessarily limited. That goes for me as well, of course! I have a decent selection of Burgundy, for instance, but I never could have constituted it if I had had to rely on what was available locally…

You ask why one should drink a Turcaud, or any Bordeaux for that matter, one has never heard of. I understand completely where you’re coming from. I guess it comes down to trial and error, in the expectation that there will be more gems than duds. Not forgetting of course, the reputation of the importer/distributor/retailer.
As for the case in point, Turcaud, in my opinion,represents excellent value for money and is not anoymous, boring, and standardized.

One other factor in all this is that Christine and I are pretty social animals, so we frequently need wine to serve our guests,
Tomorrow is Bastille day. We’re having 16 people over for dinner before the fireworks. I don’t serve expensive old wine on such occasions because most of our guests are not attuned to it. We’ll have Crémant de Bordeaux from Tocard, Bordeaux Rosé from Château Mercier, Bordeaux Clairet from the coop in Génissac, a magnum of 2016 Ch. Chevrol Belair (Lalande de Pomerol), another magnum of 2016 Ch. Ferrand (Pessac-Légonan), a magnume of Champagne someone is bringing, and probably another bottle or two thown in for good measure .

Good, rather than excellent wine fits the bill just fine here.

All the best,
Alex

[DavidG]

Nic, I love your reports and think you have an enviably well-rounded approach to wine. My attitude was much closer to yours when I was your age. The premium bottles just kept accumulating as I was exploring. At this point my perspective has flipped, but I still appreciate the education.