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750ml
Bottle:
$426.60
$474.00
The 2008 Angélus offers a still youthful, vibrant color as well as a classic Angélus bouquet of spice box, black...
750ml
Bottle:
$34.20
12 bottles:
$33.52
Love the nose of crushed berries and slice plums. Full and chewy, with velvety tannins and a long finish. Needs time...
750ml
Bottle:
$131.25
12 bottles:
$128.63
Beautifully concentrated, rich and textured, with just a hint of maturity, the 2008 Château Canon offers classic...
750ml
Bottle:
$77.40
12 bottles:
$72.96
This château is progressing well in raising its quality as this big, chunky wine shows. The fruit has a solid...
1.5Ltr - Case of 3
Bottle:
$214.95
The wine is dark, deep, rich and dense. It has just the right wood element, black berry juice and a pure line of...
750ml - Case of 3
Bottle:
$107.45
The wine is dark, deep, rich and dense. It has just the right wood element, black berry juice and a pure line of...
750ml
Bottle:
$184.95
$205.50
The first vintage made at the new winery, the 2008 Cos d’Estournel is drinking beautifully today, with terrific...
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle:
$56.70
Barrel sample. Big, ripe and jammy, this is a ripe, soft wine, showing warm black plum and fig flavors. It gives...
750ml
Bottle:
$228.15
$253.50
This has real depth of flavour, with an extremely good quality, juicy slate and mineral-filled finish. The emphasis,...
750ml
Bottle:
$129.33
$143.70
A magnificent sleeper of the vintage, the 2008 Duhart Milon is the shrewd consumer’s wine to purchase by the case...
750ml
Bottle:
$119.34
$132.60
You start to feel the dial turning up the power as this travels through the palate. Even at 10 years old, the tannins...
750ml
Bottle:
$630.63
$700.70
I loved this vintage of Haut Brion en primeur and am so happy that it has more than lived up to expectations now that...
750ml
Bottle:
$130.68
$145.20
A candidate for the -wine of the vintage,- the 2008 Haut-Bailly possesses incredible complexity. Tell-tale notes of...
750ml
Bottle:
$31.41
12 bottles:
$30.78
A delicious sleeper of the vintage, the dense plum-colored 2008 Hortevie offers up scents of herbs, earth, Asian...
750ml
Bottle:
$324.54
$360.60
The 2008 La Mission Haut-Brion has an open, feisty, lively bouquet with blackberry, briary, cedar, black olive and a...
750ml
Bottle:
$1026.00
$1140.00
A candidate for the -wine of the vintage,- the 2008 should have been purchased before it began to soar in value...
750ml
Bottle:
$805.68
$895.20
I continue to love the 2008 Château Latour, unquestionably in the top handful of wines in the vintage. A rich,...
750ml
Bottle:
$258.03
$286.70
The 2008 Léoville Las Cases has a backward, broody, earthy bouquet with intense tobacco and graphite aromas, more...
1.5Ltr - Case of 6
Bottle:
$306.62
The 2008 Lynch Bages is brilliant stuff as well as a textbook Pauillac. Revealing a still youthful ruby/purple color...
375ml
Bottle:
$108.30
The 2008 Lynch Bages is brilliant stuff as well as a textbook Pauillac. Revealing a still youthful ruby/purple color...
Merlot Primitivo Red Bordeaux 2008 Wine
With its dark blue colored fruits and high juice content, Merlot varietal grapes have long been a favorite of wine producers around the globe, with it being found in vineyards across Europe, the Americas and elsewhere in the New World. One of the distinguishing features of Merlot grapes is the fact that they have a relatively low tannin content and an exceptionally soft and fleshy character, meaning they are capable of producing incredibly rounded and mellow wines. This mellowness is balanced with plenty of flavor, however, and has made Merlot grapes the varietal of choice for softening other, more astringent and tannin-heavy wines, often resulting in truly exceptional produce. Merlot is regarded as one of the key 'Bordeaux' varietals for precisely this reason; when combined with the drier Cabernet Sauvignon, it is capable of blending beautifully to produce some of the finest wines available in the world.
As with many European grape varietals, there is some debate regarding the precise origins of the Primitivo grape. Most people now agree that it probably came from Croatia, where it is still used widely in the production of red wine, and it known as Tribidrag. However, today it is a grape most commonly associated with the powerful red wines of Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot, where the intense sunshine and brisk Mediterranean breezes produce grapes of remarkable character and balance. Primitivo is a dark grape, known for producing intense, inky, highly tannic wines, most notably the naturally sweet Dolce Naturale and the heavy and complex Primitivo di Manduria wines. Primitivo tends to be naturally very high in both tannin and alcohol, making it ideal for both barrel and cellar ageing, which brings out its more rounded and interesting features.
Primitivo is not the easiest grape to grow or manage, and it has had something of a difficult century. Indeed, by the 1990s, there was little interest in Puglian wines in general, and winemakers were neglecting their Primitivo vineyards and looking to other, more commercially viable varietals. However, the last decade has seen this grape come well and truly back into fashion, with new techniques and a heightened interest in native Italian grape varietals bringing Primitivo back into the spotlight. It is now widely loved for its intensity and ability to be paired with strongly flavored foods.
There are few regions in the world with stricter regulations in regards to wine production and grape varietals than those found in Bordeaux, France. Here, in the home of the world's finest wines, the type and quality of grapes used is of utmost importance, and the legendary wineries which work on the banks of the Gironde river have mastered the careful art of juice blending to find the perfect balance for their produce. Whilst there are six 'official' Bordeaux grapes, the two key varietals for almost every fine Bordeaux wine are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and with good reason. Whilst Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are renowned for their acidity and astringency, strong fruit and spice flavors and full body, Merlot grapes are notably rounded, soft, fleshy and lighter on tannin. The combination of these two varietals, along with a small percentage of (commonly) Petit Verdot or Cabernet Franc, is the perfect balancing act – the two grape varietals cancel out each others weaker points, and accentuate all that is good about the other.