What’s the difference between a wine cougar and an anna nicole smith? Ch. Beaumont 1995

One of my favourite winebloggers are the BrixChix out in my sunny California. I was reading a post of their’s the other day about a discussion regarding whether wines should be drunk young or not. Liza, one of the BrixChix likes her wines young and refers to herself as a “wine cougar”. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the term “cougar” used to describe older women who prefer younger men. Well, Liza likes her wines young, the younger the better as far as she’s concerned. Although, she’s no cradle robber!

I, on the other hand, would probably call myself, what Liza refers to as, an ‘Anna Nicole Smith’. The older the better as far as I’m concerned. Luckily, Borough Wines , where I work, agrees with me and they have managed to get their hands on some lovely clarets from the mid 1990’s. Now, many of you may like your wines young but good claret always needs time to mature, much like one half of the human race.

The majority are from the Haut Medoc but they also had a few St. Emilions in the mix. My favourite was the 1995 Ch. Beaumont. A cru bourgeois from the Haut Medoc, the chateau has been around since 1824 and they produce the quintessential claret. The ’95 is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc and spends between 12 – 18 months in oak.

When I opened this one, red licorice and lovely lifted blackberry fruit notes on the nose, followed by tobacco and leather jabs. I had this wine with a dinner of steak and chips and it was delicious. After decanting, fabulous blackcurrant flavours came to the fore with plenty of soft silky tannins. The wine finished off with a long black plum finish. Delicious. I could have savoured this one all night long but this oldie would only last so long and before I knew it, the bottle had given up the ghost. Oh well, on to the next, as Anna Nicole might have said….

The Chateau Beaumont 1995 is a steal at £30 in the market stall at Borough Wines in Borough Market.

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2 Comments

Denise, this is very funny. And Liza is great, one of my fav WBC peeps. I never thought I’d say it, but I, too am in the Anna Nicole Smith camp. That did feel really, really wrong to say.
Enjoy the old ones,
Diane

Thanks, Diane but I do have to give all props to the BrixChix. When I saw “wine cougar” I just knew I had to use it somewhere and Twitter just didn’t seem worthy of it (at least not on it’s own!) Maybe Anna Nicole was really onto something, just took us a while to sort it out! And long live the wine cougars!