2015 Vin Blanc de Palmer

Château Palmer is a Third Growth Bordeaux with a First Growth profile. Robert M. Parker Jr. has noted that “Palmer can be as profound as any of the first growths… (and in some vintages) Palmer can be better than many of them.” The estate takes its name from Charles Palmer, an English military officer who bought the property in 1814 and spent the rest of his life improving it and buying additional vineyards. The estate was later purchased by French entrepreneurs and today is owned by a consortium of families in the negociant business. The estate includes 128 acres of vineyards planted to 47% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Petit Verdot. About 130,000 bottles are produced each year. Besides its wine, the estate is known for its exquisite château with neo-gothic turrets worthy of a fairy tale castle. It was built in 1856 by Charles Burguet, one of the period’s most renowned architects. Since 2004 the estate has also produced Palmer Historical XIXth Century Wine, a blend of grapes from Palmer’s Margaux estate and Syrah grapes from the Rhone Valley. By law his Vin de Table cannot list a vintage but the batch number on each bottle notes the vintage year. Only 4000 bottles are made annually.

Bordeaux is the world’s most famous fine-wine producing region. Even non-wine drinkers recognize the names of Bordeaux’s celebrated wines, such as Margaux and Lafite-Rothschild. Located near the Atlantic coast in southwest France, the region takes its name from the seaport city of Bordeaux, a wine trading center with an outstanding site on the Garonne River and easy access to the Atlantic. Like most French wine regions, Bordeaux’s first vineyards were planted by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago, then tended by medieval monks. Aristocrats and nobility later owned the region’s best estates and today estates are owned by everyone from non-French business conglomerates to families who have been proprietors for generations. Bordeaux has nearly 280,000 acres of vineyards, 57 appellations and 10,000 wine-producing châteaux. Bordeaux is bifurcated by the Gironde Estuary into so-called “right bank” and “left bank” appellations. Bordeaux’s red wines are blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec. It also makes white wines of Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle. There are several classification systems in Bordeaux. All are attempts to rank the estates based on the historic quality of the wines.