Ok, we have a new Bordeaux Superieur in the cheap seats. Long time readers know we love exploring these wines.
The cheap seats refer to the aisles of stacked wines, versus those in the wooden boxes. In the cheap seats you never know what you're going to find.
More than anything, the wines in the cheap seats are inexpensive, so it's a fun experiment that's easy on the pocketbook. Often these are Spanish, Italian or in this case, French bottles.
Sometimes you find a real gem under $10 that gets shuffled in the mix. This one wasn't that gem, although it wasn't a terrible wine either.
Coming in at $6.99, expectations weren't high, and we'd say they were moderately met. This is a decent Bordeaux bottle, simple and completely one dimensional so we're blown away by Suckling going 92 points on this wine.
Nose is actually nice and promising, decent fruit once you get into it, and pretty quick in the finish. For an inexpensive everyday table wine, you could do worse.
In the end, probably not a wine we'll go back to, but happy to have tasted.
CostcoWineBlog.com Rating: 85 points
Costco item number: 1797591
Purchased at Costco in: Atlanta, GA
Alc. 13.5%
Mike Flood says
Suckling's ratings are useless in my humble opinion.
GBH-ATL says
Yet another exhibit to the lack of any credibility to Suck-ling's ratings. Please do your part by simply avoiding any reference to him as in "do not encourage the child - simply ignore him...".
There are other rating-mongers that deserve the same treatment (I'm looking at you Maroni. Halladay etc. )
We come here for YOUR take on the wine, not affirmation of other critics rating.
Carl McLemore says
I read your blog regularly and find it very helpful. My Costco in Baton Rouge rarely has the wines you recommend.
Zeke says
Talk about grade-inflation and everybody gets a trophy; Suckling is to be ignored. Totally ignore his ratings. Paid influencer?
In the fifties they called this PAYOLA.
Calista Bruce says
Always subtract 5 from any Suckling score
Arthur H. Aske says
It's interesting that being on the West Coast and living where Costco got it's start, I probably get less than 10% of the wines you sample in my stores. Keep it up. I love this blog. Also, I appreciate your honest ratings. An 85 doesn't mean it's bad, just perhaps a drinkable table wine. I always tell friends if you like the wine, drink it. If not, pour it in the sink.
Steve P says
well, I was going to comment on Suckling, but seeing the comments below, he’s pretty well (and accurately) covered in those comments.
ATM says
Suckling sells his ratings.
Daniel says
Haha, came here for the comments. Glad to see I am not alone with the JS ratings. The last few years everything has gone up and now I feel as well you have to discount 2-3 points in many/most cases for JS. Watched his masterclass on the Masterclass course site and now I know why. 😉 It was entertaining and interesting, but also somewhat self discrediting, I thought.
But Bordeaux has so much overproduction and excellent quality with huge volume that you sometimes can get amazing wines for very reasonable money, compared to the small batch "we try to be boutique" and sell to you at a high margin Napa stuff. So, let's keep hunting for the great tasting discounted Bordeaux!
Louis D. says
Don’t waste your money on the Cht Picadis. I opened a bottle the other day and was quite disappointed with it.
Andrew McDonald says
Suckling does up score 2-4 points but he is a prolific taster. He goes to the small producers and brings us a lot of bargain everyday drinking wine to collectors looking for some value. Roger Voss with Wine Enthusiast also sources many bargain Bordeaux values too.