This post is about a red Bordeaux, costing under £10 and it was such a good find that I am very excited to be sharing it with you. I have begun to discover the joy of a good Bordeaux after sampling some wines which were bought in France this summer and it has temporarily shifted my focus from my first love, Italian wines, to French wines.  There were 6 red Bordeaux’s on the shelf for £10 or less but I chose Chateau Jouanin because it was the only 2014 vintage under £10 and I knew that 2014 was a good year in Bordeaux. I paired the wine with roast lamb. In the glass it was a beautiful garnet colour. At four years old the rim of the wine was beginning to change from pink to a tawny colour indicating that it was beginning to age. On the nose there was not much going on except green bananas and pear drops which is often present in wine, and as red Bordeaux is laid back in the fruit department no other aromas came through. On the palate it was smooth with subtle flavours of Parma Violets and black fruit. In addition, I recognised the flavour of bay leaf and so I crushed a fresh bay leaf from my bay tree and smelt and tasted it. The herbaceous aroma and menthol matched the wine perfectly and after chewing the leaf and tasting the wine the flavour was identical. I was absolutely loving this wine which was very balanced in tannin and acidity and was proving to be such an excellent, easy drinking wine that I was feeling less confident about whether it would stand up to the strong and varied flavours of a the roast dinner. The wine was a perfect match with the lean meat, the fat on the meat and mint sauce. It matched perfectly with: roasted potatoes braised in the lamb juices and then crisped in a hot oven, roasted parsnips, swede mashed in butter, savoy cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower florets in Blue Stilton sauce and gravy made from the meat juices. I also served Yorkshire puddings to check the wine would match with Yorkshire puddings if you served beef instead of lamb. The wine was not compromised at all by the flavours and continued to be gorgeous throughout the meal, an utter triumph.

I purchased Chateau Jouanin, Castillon Cótes De Bordeaux 2014 at The Co-op. It cost £9.

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