2015 Chateau La Garde Pessac-Leognan 750 ml

A French Secret No More

Bordeaux lovers, we’re letting you in on a French local’s secret.

This 2015 Château La Garde Pessac-Léognan is normally snatched up by the Bordelais and British enthusiasts, but thanks to our relationship with Château La Garde, we are able to offer an exclusive allocation at $34 a bottle, a ripe price for stashing in our own American cellars.

Michel Rolland’s opulent winemaking signature is scrawled all over this bottle, via his role as a consultant to the red wine program at Château la Garde. Packed with succulent cassis and blackberry riding high on poised tannins and pitch-perfect acidity, the 2015 La Garde is a “precise and beautiful, serious young red,” according to James Suckling.

When we walked the vineyards situated a scoot south of Latour Martillac, we couldn’t help picking up a few of the smooth gravel pebbles to feel for ourselves this geological prism of quartz gravel, the origin story of fine red Bordeaux that started with local legends such as Château Haut-Brion and Château Pape Clément.

Vineyards extend from the classic limestone château winery along gentle slopes that seduced the famed Dourthe group, owners of Château La Garde since 1990. Our tasting at the sun-dappled property was redolent with terroir-driven Pessac flavors of dark fruit and stone aromatics from vines accustomed to one of the deepest—and arguably one of the finest—gravel mounds in Pessac-Léognan.

If you’ve been following the emerging history of the 2015 Bordeaux vintage like we have, you are well aware that collectors will part with triple-digit investments for Pessac-Léognan bottles from properties only a short walk from Château La Garde like Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte ($108) as well as for iconic Pessac properties that do break the bank, like Château Haut-Brion ($652). Staring down those prices, La Garde is a value-driven, over-delivering piece of the history at just $34 a bottle.

This wine wraps up our passion for Bordeaux: a historic vintage from a decidedly precise terroir—a Michel Rolland bottle that the French would prefer to keep to themselves. If you’d like to crack the code on this treasure chest, here’s your single opportunity outside of that five-hour car trip from Paris to visit the estate.