Château La Gabarre Bordeaux Blanc 2020

The Gabards consistently fashion superb Bordeaux Blanc, using, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, Bordeaux’s two most important white grapes. The 2020 Château La Gabarre Bordeaux Blanc (80% Sauvignon Blanc, 20% Semillon) first delights the eye with its brilliant sun-splashed color before enticing the nose with a sensuous bouquet of citrus, freshly cut melon, and mango, all infused with a delightful touch of herbaceousness. The wine’s sensual appeal continues in the mouth where a mélange of suffused fruit and minerals flow gracefully across the tongue. Add superb texture, a gentle roundness, and a refreshing finish, and the 2020 Château La Gabarre Bordeaux Blanc is truly hard to beat. For optimum enjoyment we suggest affording the crowd-pleasing 2020 Château La Gabarre Bordeaux Blanc a moderate chill (38°-42° F) before serving. Anticipated maturity: 2021-2023. Enjoy!

Château La Gabarre’s 2020 Bordeaux Blanc makes an ideal aperitif. It also provides a tried and true companion to seafood, especially broiled scallops and flaky white fish served in a beurre blanc sauce. It pairs equally well with smoked salmon, sautéed oysters, grilled shrimp and most anything that once swam in the sea, including sashimi. Heartier fare won’t cause this balanced and flavorful Bordeaux Blanc to fade either. Consider serving the 2020 Château La Gabarre with Cajun Shrimp and Grits, Thai Chicken and Basil, and sautéed chicken, veal, or pork cutlets. Soft and crusted cow’s milk cheeses such as Brie, Camembert and Comté provide additional tasty and easy to prepare accompaniments to this wine. And, for those of us who enjoy crisp, refreshing, terroir-driven white wines, a glass of Château La Gabarre’s 2020 Bordeaux Blanc offers the ideal way to begin any event or festivity. Just be prepared to refill your guests’ glasses often, so be prepared to have an extra bottle or two on hand to slake their thirsty tongues. Bon appétit!

Château La Gabarre is located in the commune of Galgon within the greater Fronsac district of Bordeaux, very near Lalande de Pomerol. Château La Gabarre is very much a Right Bank estate (meaning the property sits north of the Dordogne River along with St. Émilion and Pomerol) where the region’s fine terroir consists of clay and stony soils that are ideal for the production of first rate white and red Bordeaux. The estate’s vineyards have been in the Gabard family since the 1800's and are now under the care of Stéphane and Paola Gabard, a delightful couple who took charge of the château in 1999.

Château La Gabarre operates as a true family enterprise. Stéphane oversees the vineyards and the cellar, while Paola takes charge of the administration and marketing while keeping an eye on the couple’s young daughters. The château produces very fine Bordeaux Blanc and Bordeaux Supérieur Rouge as well as small amounts of Bordeaux Rosé and, most recently, sparkling Crémant de Bordeaux. Stéphane's wines have won numerous medals at major Paris and Bordeaux competitions and have been cited for distinction in the Guide Hachette and Gault et Millaut, France’s two most prestigious food and wine publications.

The undisputed king of France's wine regions, Bordeaux sits amidst and astride the Dordogne and Garonne Rivers. The sprawling Bordeaux region accounts for some 800 million bottles of wine each year. Bordeaux has built a reputation on quality, as many of the world's most sought-after wines are crafted along its river banks. Bordeaux boasts over 10,000 winemakers working in the region’s 57 appellations. Known mostly for red blends made primarily from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc, Bordeaux also enjoys great notoriety for its excellent dry and sweet white wines, comprised mostly of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, which emanate primarily from the central regions of Bordeaux between the area’s two great rivers.

Sauvignon Blanc is a premium white wine grape that is considered to be indigenous to Bordeaux. Yet, in Bordeaux, Sauvignon Blanc has traditionally been blended with a percentage of Semillon and other grapes to create a special flavor profile all of its own. This stands in contrast to the 100% varietal offerings from France’s Loire Valley, most notably from Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, as well as from New World winemakers who mainly follow the Loire Valley’s lead in bottling Sauvignon Blanc as a single varietal. Sauvignon Blanc makes a particularly compelling companion to seafood, hors d’oeuvres, tapas, and warm sunny days, and unlike Chardonnay, which possesses an affinity for extensive oak barrel ageing, Sauvignon Blanc eschews oak. Instead, it shows best when its distinctive natural flavors do its bidding.