2015 Château Lestage Simon Haut-Médoc Cru Bourgeois 750 ml

Those who truly love wine, especially Bordeaux, know that Cru Bourgeois delivers some of the very best values in the world for red wines under $50—and that’s before factoring in a 99-point Médoc vintage, a world-renowned winemaking consultant, and some formidable Left Bank terroir.

Beautifully balanced between black-fruited depth and earthy, aromatic elegance, Wine Advocate has called Lestage Simon’s Left Bank flagship “exactly what you want from a Haut-Médoc,” while Antonio Galloni summarized the 2015 in Vinous as “terrific.” It’s a textbook Bordeaux whose author is none other than superstar consultant Michel Rolland. 

Rolland is the winemaker who steered to greatness Bordeaux châteaux such as Angélus, Ausone, Pavie, and Pontet-Canet, as well as iconic Napa estates like BOND, Bryant Family, Harlan, and Staglin. The link between these incredible properties is not just their triple-digit price tags and scores, but the inimitable terroir that attracted Rolland in the first place. 

Château Lestage Simon shares that singularity of site. Situated in Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, a tiny Haut-Médoc village immediately north of the St.-Estèphe border, the estate’s Merlot and Cabernet grapes share much of the same outstanding terroir as its famous AOC neighbor, but the wine skirts the associated cost of its tony zip code. 

There, cool northern temperatures closer to the Atlantic and the diversity of the estate’s soils mirror the factors that define the classic structured profile found in St.-Estèphe’s most famous estates like Château Calon-Ségur ($130) and Cos d'Estournel ($220). 

Lestage Simon’s well-draining sandy terrain along the Gironde estuary likewise provides the wine’s herbal aromatic profile of rosemary, thyme, and licorice while grapes further inland derive their mineral complexity, firm tannins, and gorgeous length from their limestone and clay base. 

Under Rolland’s expert guidance, Lestage Simon’s chilly Haut-Médoc terroir found its ultimate expression in the superlative, and unusually warm, 2015 vintage. The growing season throughout Bordeaux produced internationally heralded wines considered among the region’s greatest of this century or last. 

Yet the Wine Enthusiast bestowed its highest overall vintage score—99 points—to the Médoc, demonstrating the value in this humble AOC that many of us consider home to some of the greatest deals in the wine world. 

In the Wine Advocate’s report, “Affordable Treasures,” Bordeaux critic Neal Martin dedicated an unusual amount of ink to the Médoc’s 2015 Cru Bourgeois, calling them, “Wines inclined to paste stupid big grins on your face, as their quality truly sparkles” even as they “cost a fraction of nearly every Grand Cru Classé.” 

It’s for this reason that most Cru Bourgeois stay in France to become the go-to bistro reds that define French wine culture. The rest get snapped up by savvy Bordeaux lovers who prefer to drink their wine rather than collect it—though the impressive way this 2015 Lestage Simon slowly unfurled after a 45-minute decant promises several more years of evolution yet.