WSET Celebration Dinner - with a Brilliant Bordeaux!

My WSET 3 exam is done - and now it's time to celebrate!

It's been an exciting 15 weeks - I've learned so much about wine making, grape growing and wine regions, I've tasted a whole variety of exceptional wines and I've met and befriended some wonderful people.

I've also studied harder than I ever have before and I've written a test that is as tricky as they come.

On the weekend, I decided to get a really nice wine to celebrate as well as a tasty meal. Off I went to Everything Wine and I picked up a Bordeaux wine and then went to a reputable butcher to get a couple of New York steaks.

I realize that some people would have a bottle of Champagne to celebrate and others would have a Burgundy or a pricey Napa Cab, but I love Bordeaux blends.

Courtesy AllFranceInfo

The Left Bank is famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon driven blends which have grippy tannins and include some Merlot for smoothness and Cabernet Franc for fruitiness. The Right Bank wines are predominantly Merlot with some Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Cabernet Franc added in. In all of Bordeaux, there can be three other grapes added in by law - Petit Verdot, which is only added in during warmer years as it needs a lot of heat to ripen, Malbec, which is not used a lot, and Carmenere, which is rarely used anymore.

In between the Left and Right Banks is an area called Entre Deux Mers - literally, Between Two Seas (although it's actually between two rivers - oh, those French!). The particular wine that I bought was from this area which would make it Merlot driven and a lot cheaper than the Left or Right Banks.

The wine was a 2011 Chateau de Reignac Grand Vin Cuvée Special ($50 from Everything Wine). I thought that it was a pretty fair price for a seven year old wine from Bordeaux. I opened it and decanted it for about 40 minutes, leaving the small amount of sediment that I saw behind.

The aroma of this amazing wine was complex with wonderful black fruits like cassis and blackberry with black plum, tobacco, and vanilla as well as some savoury notes of leather. This wine was still developing. On the palate, it was not overly dry with balanced acidity, silky smooth tannins, tastes of leather again as well as the other flavours mentioned for aroma, full body, with a glorious long finish. It could age for a few more years but was definitely great to drink now. I rated this wine as Outstanding.

It was even better with the food pairing! A grilled steak with a simple rub and baked potatoes were the perfect complement for this wine as the acid and tannins of the wine did a great job of cutting through the fat and saltiness of the steak. The pre-dinner glass, though, was pretty damned good as well!

I'll be honest - I wasn't sure where in Bordeaux this wine was from and might have passed it up if I'd known it was in the Entre Deux Mers region. Now that I've tried it, though, that region is going to be on my radar for (relatively) reasonably priced Bordeaux wines.

Oh, and I got an email from Fine Vintage today - I only have to wait 12 weeks for my exam results! Twelve weeks!

I think I need a glass of wine....