2014 Château Arnauton Fronsac 750 ml

Five years ago, we were blown away by a then-unknown bottle of Bordeaux at a BYOB Peking Duck dinner. There, amidst a bevy of starry names, Château Arnauton stole the show—and we’ve been thinking about it ever since. The 92-point 2014 is possibly the “best ever from here,” according to James Suckling: a high bar, given that Arnauton is one of the stars of Fronsac, long one of Bordeaux’s must-know appellations for value-seekers. 

The château sits at the highest point in Fronsac, where their Pomerol-like mixture of Merlot and Cabernet Franc ripens to impressive concentration in limestone-rich, clay soils. The altitude gives the grapes a longer hang time, allowing them to develop rich flavor and maintain freshness, and in fantastic vintages like 2014—which Vinous called “the finest Bordeaux vintage since 2010”—the resulting wines are a Bordeaux no-brainer. 

We’ve secured a tiny quantity of their 2014, directly from the château. It’s a bold, classically styled knockout, priced to open on any (and every) whim. It’s hitting its stride after a few years of bottle age, which makes it a perfect go-to whenever you’re looking to make a Tuesday night feel like a special-occasion Saturday.

Since that first illuminating taste, Arnauton’s been on our radar as a value Bordeaux star—but securing it for our members wasn’t quite as simple. The winery is so quality-focused they don’t even have a website, and we’ve had to use every string we could pull in Bordeaux to make this deal happen. But this 2014 is worth all that effort and more.

The second we poured it, we were convinced this could have been from one of the Right Bank’s pricier appellations. Bold aromas of cocoa-dusted black cherries, black currants, pipe tobacco, and hints of cedar waft up from the glass, previewing the utterly classic Bordeaux to come. The palate vastly over-delivers, with impressive concentration and power along the lines of $45 Pomerol. Time has been this wine’s friend, and the tannins have softened into velvet, making the long finish feel like pure luxury—exactly what we want to drink with a steak au poivre... or the finest, wood-oven-roasted bird we can find.

Add Château Arnauton's single-minded focus on quality and you have the architecture for one of the most intriguing wines from Bordeaux we’ve recently tasted. As you might expect of a bottle-aged beauty like this, though, there’s a finite supply. We grabbed all that we could, but once our stock runs out, that’s it.