Ep 506: The Wines of the Côtes de Bordeaux -- The Secret Best Value Wines of the Region

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This time we explore the hidden gems of Bordeaux -- the Côtes de Bordeaux -- which make superb wines that few people know about. With an easy-drinking style, the Côtes de Bordeaux are the hidden, affordable wines of Bordeaux. These historic vineyards are a collection of AOCs around eastern Bordeaux on sunny hillside slopes that grow a majority of Merlot and have similar soil types. These are not second or bulk wines – rather family-owned, often sustainable wines that are always a good value for money.

This group of appellations under the marketing umbrella of Côtes de Bordeaux covers 9 - 10% of the total production of Bordeaux.

Faced with lots of competition from the named communes of Bordeaux (Pomerol, Saint-Émilion, etc), and the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur AOCs, efforts started in 2004 to create the Union des Côtes de Bordeaux (UCB) to create a collective “brand” of recognition: the AOC Côtes de Bordeaux with 6 terroir:

Côtes de Bordeaux - umbrella appellation
Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux
Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux
Francs Côtes de Bordeaux
Cadillac Côtes de Bordeaux·
Sainte-Foy Côtes de Bordeaux (joined in 2016)

Map: Côtes de Bordeaux

In 2009, the AOC “Côtes de Bordeaux” went into effect. They must all use the logo below on the bottle to reinforce the association:

This is the wine we were drinking...

I hope this opens your eyes to some new, fantastic, affordable Bordeaux wines! Take a listen and put this to use -- there is a lot of goodness to discover here (and it won't hurt your wallet)!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the Podcasts for People who like Wine for Normal People,
0:09.8	the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:13.2	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider author of the Wine for Normal People Book and
0:19.5	certified wine dork and I'm MC Ice just a wine-loving normal person. The show is sponsored by wine to get amazing wines $150 for six bottles, four shipments a year.
0:36.5	I hand select all of them.
0:38.0	You have got to get on it today, Wine Access.com
0:41.2	normal. Now let's get to the ship I'm excited for today's show I'm not
0:46.5	gonna lie I can't believe we've never covered this part of Bordeaux because this is my secret. It is. I'll take but I'll take any part of
0:56.7	Bordeaux seriously. Anytime that I teach the Wines of Bordeaux class this is the wine that people are blown away by and it's one of the ones that they stick with over and over again
1:07.6	So that is the coat of Bordeaux. So left bank, right bank, what there's a middle bank that I don't know about?
1:15.0	No, it's a very complex topic, so I really need to get into it to explain what this is.
1:22.0	Because it's not a set appellation. It is a group of
1:26.5	appellations that share some common characteristics but more than that they
1:31.3	needed something and so they decided to... It's sort of like a consortium
1:36.5	but it's a little different. Let me explain it. Let's do patron shout-ups. We don't have many. I always want to be grateful and
1:45.3	thankful for patrons. P-A-T-R-E-O-N-com slash wine for normal people. To everyone who joins. You are reaping the benefits of it.
1:55.9	Hopefully you're loving it. Lots of new members and we appreciate it. This week we just
2:01.5	have a real short list. We've got Tesh, Carlos, Thomas H.
2:06.9	Louise C. Kalem C. And Kimber J. Thank you all so so much. You guys make this podcast go and without you we
2:17.5	couldn't do it and I guess I'll announce now that within the next couple of
2:22.1	weeks the entire back catalog of
2:24.0	Wine for Normal People except the last year's show will be behind
	...

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