Bordeaux: 2007 Chateau Crox-Mouton

Date night!! Dinner was sauteed lamb chops, potato slices tossed with olive oil and seasoning and baked in the oven, and roasted vegetables with olives. The wine was another Bordeaux. Delicious! This wine was very nice with the strong, savory flavors of this meal. When first opened the wine smelled of blackberry and smoke with a little tar and a little of the mulch/forrest aroma I've tried to describe before. It tasted much like it smelled. The acidity and tannins were fairly soft. As the wine opened up over the next hour or so, it developed some cherry flavor, and the smokey/tar flavor mellowed a bit. The tannins were a little more apparent and it developed this wonderful silky mouth feel. Very nice lingering finish. Overall I really liked this wine and this pairing, but I think I prefer the L'estang we had the other night. It was a bit more complex than this wine. This wine would be better than the L'estang with something like barbeque. Both were very good. This wine was about $18 at Bob's, which was actually $3 or $4 more than the L'estang, so... Still, I think the take home message is that there are some good Bordeaux's at affordable prices out there, you just have to be willing to try a few. Both these wines are listed in Robert Parker's Wine Bargains book. Interestingly, he doesn't give numerical ratings to wines in this book, he just describes the wines. I guess if it's listed, that's recommendation enough. I also picked up a Cadet Mouton Bordeaux at bob's for $6!! I guess I'll have to get around to trying that before too long.