WTN: 2005 Chateau Behere, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France

Labeled as 13% alcohol by volume. Dark purple color; opaque. Dark fruits (cassis, huckleberry) with hints of leather banquette. Feathery tannins. On the palate, a pleasant tart fruit going down easy with a fairly lengthy finish. This wine was fairly smooth drinking upon arrival on American shores and continues to be enjoyable although I don't know if I would cellar it much longer. Well matched to a broiled New York strip steak. Good QPR. I really enjoyed this as a quality non-classified Bordeaux.

I got a taste of this same wine when it was very young and was impressed. I would have given it a good 10 years development potential. It was also reasonably priced for Pauillac; in the early €20s. Unfortunately the merchant then selling it no longer does nor anyone else in Belgium, if Wine Searcher is to be believed.

I see that Ch. Béhèré is changing hands. If you read French, there is quite a lot about it here http://www.larvf.com/,vins-bordeaux-ach ... xtor=EPR-2 . The price seems to be €6.7m for under 5ha, which is quite steep.

Thanks for the link, Tim. My French is rusty but I was able to translate most of it. Took me awhile to figure out that the Camous were separating from their "baby" (the vineyard property) and not from each other, necessitating a sale. It seems that the husband is getting to the age of retirement or cutting back on activity and the wife could not handle it alone. I hope they continue to import the wine to the USA. I haven't seen it recently in North Carolina. Wine Searcher lists only one location for the 2009 vintage and nothing yet on 2010.

Thanks for the link, Tim. My French is rusty but I was able to translate most of it. Took me awhile to figure out that the Camous were separating from their "baby" (the vineyard property) and not from each other, necessitating a sale. It seems that the husband is getting to the age of retirement or cutting back on activity and the wife could not handle it alone. I hope they continue to import the wine to the USA. I haven't seen it recently in North Carolina. Wine Searcher lists only one location for the 2009 vintage and nothing yet on 2010.

It's a sad thing that families in Bordeaux are tending to sell out to corporate investors. In this case it does sound as if another family is taking the place of the Camous, even though their background is in another business. One of the causes of this is Napoleonic inheritance laws, which often mean that properties have be split between heirs or sold so that each heir can get his/her share. Crippling inheritance taxes aggravate the problem.

We heard the same thing from a Bordelais family member at the Nantucket Wine Festival in May in regard to Bordeaux vineyards. He mentioned that some of the properties near Chateau Angelus are owned by corporations like Chanel and LVMH and that the corporations get tax breaks not available to family estates which makes it hard to be competitive and to retain ownership of the estates. I think this is very unfortunate.