Bordeleau Vineyards and Winery PETIT VERDOT LOT 3 Takes Best of Show
August 28th – Reinforcing the idea that petit verdot is a very fine stand-alone grape, Bordeleau Vineyards and Winery PETIT VERDOT LOT 3 has taken Best of Show in the 18th Annual Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association Competition held on August 12 and 13, 2023 at the Marriott Tysons Corner, VA. This luscious wine outshone 455 of the East Coast’s best bottlings to take the competition’s top honor.
“Every wine I bottle has to be better than the one I just sold,” states Bordeleau co-owner/winemaker Thomas R. Shelton. He’s set a pretty high bar for himself and he backs up this guiding principle with a lot of hard work and pride in his craft.
Just south of the Delaware border in Maryland, Bordeleau is located on Wicomico Creek and is between the Cheasapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Climate conditions provided by these bodies of water mimic those of Bordeaux, ancestral home of the petit verdot grape. The 1100 acre farm produces corn, soy and wheat, but the vineyard – nearest Shelton’s home – is his baby. Petit verdot vines were planted in 2007/08 and all the fruit in the winning wine came from the estate.
Most unusual is that Tom is crafting a non-vintage blend. “The weather in California is pretty reliable,” he says, “But here in Maryland you can have a great vintage, a less-than-great vintage, and maybe even a poor vintage every now and then.” By combining vintages, he “takes out the swings” to create a consistent, high quality wine. As the name suggests, the winning wine, Bordeleau PETIT VERDOT LOT 3, is his third bottling of the single varietal.
The petit verdot vineyard at Bordeleau is carefully tended and is situated on a gentle slope. The VSP rows are north-south facing. Petit verdot is late-ripening, and in fact is the last variety to be harvested, as late as October. LOT THREE consists of fruit from 2016, 2017, and some from 2019.
In the winery, Tom destems and sorts the fruit and lets it chill for a day or two. Fermentation takes place over 10-12 days. He punches down – does not pump over – four times a day.
After pressing, the wine settles in stainless steel and malolactic fermentation takes about 21 days. The wine then ages in French and American oak, carefully balanced between new and used barrels to coax the best flavors from the grapes.
To create the final blend, Tom tastes through each individual barrel to determine the best lots. The lesser wines go into his sweet wine program. What flavors is he looking for in his wine?
“As I can’t predict each vintage, I look to produce ripe, sound fruit and let the grapes determine the flavor profile,” he says.
Bordeleau PETIT VERDOT LOT 3 aged for a total of fifty-four months. Good color and outstanding phenolics define the wine. A gentle, floral aroma is complemented by flavors of chocolate, blackberries, and dark cherries with a touch of smoke and leather on the palate. The extended aging contributes firm, but not harsh, tannin.
Atlantic Seaboard Winery Association President Grant Crandall states, “Petit verdot as a single varietal wine is becoming far more common on the East Coast and the example from Bordeleau is a particularly fine example. ”
A panel of sixteen judges from seven different states scored 455 wines made in the eastern US over the two day event. This year’s Best of Show Bordeleau Vineyards and Winery PETIT VERDOT LOT 3 was selected from among thirty-one Best of Category Winners. This year’s competition produced 72 gold medal winners. Eleven different states were represented in the competition with New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania being the top three.
ASWA’s mission is to promote the wines of the eastern US. To that end, “We can prepare to take these fine examples of East Coast winemaking around the country to a series of events to show off that quality to audiences who otherwise might not get to taste and appreciate the quality of wine being produced on the East Coast,” says Crandall.
ASWA hosts an awards ceremony on Capitol Hill every year after the completion of the competition under the auspices of the Congressional Wine Caucus. The sterling silver perpetual Jefferson Loving Cup, will be engraved with the winning winery’s name and presented to the Best of Show winner.
Winning wines also will be showcased at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento, CA, the leading wine industry convention typically drawing 15,000 attendees and are featured on several radio broadcasts during the course of the conference. Opportunities for increased exposure then continue throughout the year.
See the complete list of medal-winning wines here.
Mores info:
The Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association promotes American wine produced in the seventeen eastern states: all those that touch the Atlantic Ocean plus West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Vermont. This trade organization was founded in 1973 as the Vinifera Wine Growers Association, and renamed in 2008 to reflect an expanded regional focus.
ASWA’s mission is to increase awareness of the fine wines of the Atlantic seaboard through trade and consumer education. Members liaise with national, state, and regional wine organizations to identify opportunities to highlight the wines and winemakers working here.
