2016 Chateau Venus Graves Bordeaux 750 ml

Under-$15 Bordeaux From a Top Vintage

We are first to market on this new vintage of one of the most delicious $14.99 Graves Rouge we have ever offered. The 2016 Château Venus Graves is from an “unequivocally a great vintage in Bordeaux,” according to Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, echoing universal acclaim. This notion brings to mind a sense of the unattainable, but Bordeaux from petit chateaux are enthusiastically approachable, some of the best red wine values on the planet at the moment. This medium-full bodied Château Venus bursts with sweet aromas of fresh currant and plum contrasted by complex cedar, leather, and fresh herbs with a hint of violet, showing tell-tale Bordelais grip. A definitive case-buy at $14.99 per bottle.  

Emmanuelle and Bertrand Amart’s 2016 Château Venus Graves Rouge is a fresh blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, true to the refined Graves profile—a rouge of elegance, laced with dark fruit and herbal complexity. Château Venus was recently adorned with a top honor—a gold medal from the Concours International de Lyon, a highly-renowned beverage competition set in France’s gastronomic capital. Knowing how selective and opinionated the French can be makes this accolade all the more impressive.

Graves is a riff on gravel, a nod to the soil which the appellation calls “true geological lace,” an amalgamation of pebbles, gravel both large and small, and alluvial sand and clay. The climatic elements of the Gironde, influenced by the Atlantic Ocean, fashion a softness to Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to nurture wines par excellence, such as this balanced blend from Château Venus.

The château and contiguous vineyards are located in the tiny hamlet of Illats, southeast of Bordeaux city. Château Venus is named after the Roman goddess of plowing—the same goddess we usually associate with finesse, elegance, and beauty. Bertrand’s intense work with the château’s 18.5-acre vineyard brings her to life through an instinctive slate of minimalist procedures balanced with a modern sensibility in the cellar. Sustainability is an Amart dictate and the purity of the superb vintage shines: pure fruit flavors, kissed by new French oak, with the structural complexity only possible from the gravel-rich terroir of Graves.