The Best Bordeaux Bang For the Buck Available Today
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Hi everyone –
As you know, we love Bordeaux. We’ve traveled to Bordeaux seven times in the last three years, we lead harvest tours every September, and have gotten to know the lay of the land intimately. So when a great bottle of Bordeaux becomes available here in the Twin Cities, we pay attention right away.
This wine has everything we want.
It’s from the spectacular 2018 vintage. It was shipped directly from Bordeaux to Minnesota, and has been sitting quietly in the importer’s temperature controlled warehouse in St. Paul. It has a wonderful story, as you’ll read. And best of all, it’s tasting PERFECT RIGHT NOW.
If you’re looking for a spectacular wine for yourself, upcoming gifts, or planning holiday meals, here ya go.
Château Bel-Orme Tronquoy de Lalande Haut-Médoc Cru Bourgeois 2018
There are Bordeaux bottles you buy because the château is famous. And then there are bottles like Château Bel-Orme Tronquoy de Lalande, where you start wondering why more people haven’t heard of it.
This is classic northern Médoc Bordeaux: Cabernet and Merlot, gravelly soils, the Gironde estuary nearby, and a family with some very serious winemaking credentials. But unlike the trophy-label wines farther south in Pauillac and Margaux, Bel-Orme remains firmly in the world of Cru Bourgeois—a category that has historically been one of the best hunting grounds for Bordeaux drinkers interested in what’s inside the bottle rather than what’s printed on the label.
A Château With a Great Story
The history of Bel-Orme goes back to the 18th century. The château itself was designed around 1750 by Victor Louis, the architect who later designed Bordeaux’s magnificent Grand Théâtre. The name “Bel Orme”—roughly, “beautiful elm”—came from the wooded park surrounding the property. During the 19th century, the Tronquoy-de-Lalande family became associated with the estate and helped establish the vineyard’s reputation, giving us the rather grand full name we have today.
But our favorite part of the story comes in 1936.
Paris wine merchant Paul Quié offered his wife Lucienne a rather spectacular wedding present: her choice between Château Pichon Baron, now one of Pauillac’s most prestigious Second Growths, and Château Bel-Orme Tronquoy de Lalande.
She chose Bel-Orme.
Financially? Perhaps not the greatest call in wine history. Romantically? Absolutely brilliant.
Lucienne apparently fell in love with the château and its setting overlooking the Gironde. The property remains in the Quié family today, and the same family also owns Château Rauzan-Gassies, a Second Growth in Margaux, and Château Croizet-Bages in Pauillac.
That’s an important piece of the puzzle: while Bel-Orme doesn’t carry a famous classified-growth name, it benefits from a family and technical team with considerable experience making serious Left Bank Bordeaux.
Where Are We?
Bel-Orme sits in Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, toward the northern end of the Haut-Médoc appellation, just north of Saint-Estèphe.
This matters.
The Médoc is essentially a long strip of vineyard territory running north along the Gironde estuary from the city of Bordeaux. The famous communal appellations—Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe—occupy some of its most celebrated gravel outcrops. Vineyards outside those specific boundaries can still qualify as Haut-Médoc, and some sit remarkably close to far more expensive neighbors.
Bel-Orme’s vineyard covers roughly 28.5 hectares, with soils described as gravel, pebbles and sand. Its position on the heights above Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne gives it excellent exposure while the nearby Gironde helps moderate temperatures.
In other words, we’re playing in very familiar Médoc territory.
When you’re on the left bank and near the river, you’ll see the gravel in the soil.
What Makes Bel-Orme Special?
Part of the appeal is that the wine straddles two worlds.
It has the structure and pedigree you expect from the Left Bank, but Merlot plays an unusually important role here. The 2018 is approximately 58% Merlot and 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, meaning the wine gets a plushness and generosity from Merlot while Cabernet supplies the backbone, cassis character and tannic structure. The wine spent about 12 months in French oak.
That’s quite different from the Cabernet-heavy formulas we often associate with Pauillac or Saint-Estèphe.
The result is Bordeaux without quite as much homework attached. You still get the gravel, black fruit, tobacco-and-earth world of the Médoc, but wrapped in a somewhat rounder package.
And this is exactly where Cru Bourgeois can get interesting. These aren’t the famous 1855 Classified Growths whose prices can turn dinner into a financial planning exercise. They’re estates capable of producing authentic Médoc character at considerably more approachable prices.
Bel-Orme is a very good example of why the category deserves attention.
And Then Came 2018
The 2018 Bordeaux vintage was dramatic.
The first half of the growing season was extremely wet, bringing severe mildew pressure to many vineyards. Then, almost as though someone flipped a switch, conditions changed in July. Bordeaux entered a prolonged period of warm, dry and sunny weather that continued through harvest. September was particularly sunny, allowing growers enormous flexibility in deciding when to pick.
The resulting reds tend to be ripe, concentrated and generous, often with unusually plush tannins for Bordeaux. It’s not necessarily a shy vintage. Some wines pushed toward high alcohol and over-ripeness, but successful examples combined impressive fruit concentration with enough acidity and tannin to maintain balance.
That personality works particularly well at Bel-Orme.
The naturally round character of the Merlot fits comfortably into the warm 2018 vintage, while Cabernet Sauvignon provides the structure needed to keep the wine from becoming simply big and soft.
95 points Decanter: “Astonishingly deep colours. Saturated dense red-black fruit, plum, sloe, black bramble, cassis, and blueberry. Elegant layers of mint, balsamic, aniseed, and chocolate, with generous depth. Beautiful, mouth-filling tannins, good precision, and complexity, with a persistent savoury finish. Excellent value.”
What’s It Like in the Glass?
Expect black currant, blackberry and dark plum first, with raspberry and violet adding a little lift. As the wine opens, the Bordeaux side of the equation starts showing itself: cedar, tobacco, graphite, dried herbs and a little earthy savoriness behind the fruit.
The texture is one of the attractions of the vintage. The tannins are substantial but no longer particularly aggressive, and the Merlot gives the middle of the wine a broad, velvety feel.
At eight years old, the 2018 is entering a particularly nice drinking window. The youthful fruit is still very much alive, but those savory secondary flavors are beginning to arrive.
I’d give it 30–60 minutes in a decanter, particularly if you’re drinking it with dinner.
What to Eat
This screams for lamb—grilled lamb chops, roast leg of lamb or a slow braise would all be excellent. Beef tenderloin, grilled steak, mushrooms, duck breast or a good burger with caramelized onions wouldn’t exactly ruin the evening either.
And here’s the important part: don’t save this for some mythical “Bordeaux dinner.”
Open it on a cool evening. Roast something. Make potatoes. Put the bottle on the table.
The TCWE Take
Château Bel-Orme Tronquoy de Lalande 2018 is exactly the kind of Bordeaux we love finding.
It has history without being precious about it. It comes from a very good piece of Médoc real estate. It’s made by a family that knows its way around serious Bordeaux vineyards. And the excellent 2018 vintage gives the wine enough richness and generosity that you don’t have to wait twenty years to understand why Bordeaux became famous in the first place.
The château may not have the name recognition of its neighbors in Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe.
That’s precisely why we’re interested.
Classic Médoc character, a terrific vintage, and just enough obscurity to keep things interesting.
All orders are due by Monday afternoon and will be ready for pickup at The Vine Shop in Hopkins or Solo Vino the following Thursday.
Jason Kallsen
Sommelier and founder/owner of Twin Cities Wine Education
Offer and special pricing are available as inventory lasts
This offer has closed. Thank you for your interest.