Waching daily Feb 17 2018

Welcome to Winemaker.tv, I'm Mark Aselstine.

Today we find ourselves in downtown San Francisco and we're joined by the

Grand Union de Bordeaux for their 2015 tasting and release.

What are we tasting?

We are tasting, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru

Ok. So small names, right?

Yes, small names. Easy for you.

Bordeaux makes a lot of wine.

These wines are the creme de la creme.

My family has owned the property for the last 90 years; four generations.

We have 89 producers here. We actually have a few more wines than that

because some of the producers have both a white and a red.

So did your grandfather plant or was it already planted?

No, no, no, it was an older property. The origin of the property is around maybe the 16th century.

We have a lovely vintage, 2015, and because of this vintage,

we have many chateau and because of this vintage we have many people coming from San Francisco to taste this wine.

We drink so many Napa wines and taste so many of our friends' wines in Napa and Sonoma,

it's good to get out and see totally different producers and taste different flavors.

There is a lot of excitement about it. I can tell you that we've been to five different

cities previous to this and in every city, it's been a packed house.

Because all the notes up until now have been either from cask or just bottled.

So now we've got wines that have been bottled 6-8 months, depending on the property.

So you get a little better idea of what the wines are like.

We have a beautiful wine with a good structure, a good acidity.

With very fine and ripe tannins with which you have some bit of acidity.

Something like really classical, very fresh.

It's a very refreshing finish. You'll feel a bit of mandarin, a bit of apricot.

And we make sure the wine is coating your pallet with velvet and enjoyment.

We had a lovely summer. Nothing too much, nothing too cold and nothing too warm

and we had a lovely Indian Summer; September and October.

After '13 and '14 which were a bit more challenging, '15 was a very nice vintage.

There is a big difference in Bordeaux between a difficult vintage like 2013 for example

and a great vintage like 2015 or 2016.

It's night and day.

But you need that combination that you don't always get

of mist in the morning, sunny afternoon so the fungus doesn't develop into gray rot;

which is a bad thing.

'15 is back to the reality, what is the essence of Bordeaux.

The essence of Bordeaux is a great wine with a lovely balance but nothing too much.

And '15 is like that.