2015 Nouvelle Ère Bordeaux

On a cold November night, I whipped up a batch of butternut squash soup to warm me up. To me, a thick butternut squash soup is hearty and filling, but can be easily overwhelmed by an intensely bold and complex wine. I wanted to pair it with a bright, fruit-forward wine that had strong tannins, and my fiancé helped me pick out this Nouvelle Ère Bordeaux.

This wine is a blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon from Chateau de Minvielle in the Entre-Deux-Mers sub-region of Bordeaux.

We had gone through several bottles of the 2014 vintage last year, and were excited to try to the 2015 vintage. It did not disappoint. Leading with strong blackberry and dark cherry notes, it gave me that brightness that I had been looking for, but it followed up with an earthiness on the back of the tongue, that made you stop, think, and truly appreciate the wine before taking another sip. While I continued enjoying the wine throughout my meal, I picked up additional notes of eucalyptus, red currant, over-ripe raspberries, violet, and cedar.

I wouldn’t describe this wine as “easy-drinking,” because the strong tannins made me stop and think about the wine as I drank it, but it was still a very approachable wine. It paired very nicely with my soup, but I think it would have been even better if I had made a risotto with the butternut squash, because there would have been more textures for the wine to play off of.

My fiancé and I only drank half the bottle with our soup, we saved the other half for the next night. I often like to stretch a bottle of red wine over two nights to see how it changes after being open for a full day. With this Bordeaux, I found that it mellowed out after a day. The tannins weren’t as strong the next day, and the berry notes were more subtle. It would have been fine to drink on its own the second day, without pairing it with any food, since it lost some of its complexity and was gentler on the palate.

I would certainly buy this wine again, however, I think I would pair it with a smoked chicken sausage or a tomato sauce based pasta dish, to give the wine more flavors and tougher textures to interact with.

I got this wine through my Winc subscription box. Last year I bought several bottles of the 2014 vintage through Winc as well, and next year I hope to try the 2016. The wine is currently sold out, but you can read Winc’s description of it here, and I suspect that the 2016 will be in stock late next summer or early next fall.


*This post was not sponsored by and is not affiliated with Winc.