The wine that will make President Duterte curse

Presidential wine? Chateau Du Tertre is a Grand Cru Classe Margaux.

Wondering what wine to give the President of the Philippines? Try Chateau Du Tertre, a Margaux grand cru classe from Bordeaux.

I can only imagine the number of bottles the President might have received by now of this label that sounds so similar to his name.  Note though that while the spelling is close to “Duterte,” the pronunciation is more like “daughter” in the French-Bisaya accent, as in “my du-ter Sara.” Or just imagine the late Senator Ernesto Herrera saying “my daughter (my doo-ter),” then add a soft T in the end.

The Commanderie de Bordeaux, an international organization of wine lovers founded in Bordeaux, France, with chapters in major cities of the world, now including Manila, featured Chateau Du Tertre at a gathering of commandeurs (and their commanders, aka wives) just last week at the Provençal restaurant Mireio in Raffles Makati.

To explain the intricacies of the wine and the various vintages in detail was no other than Chateau Du Tertre’s director general Alexander van Beek, who flew in all the way from Bordeaux.

After being introduced by Commanderie de Bordeaux’s Le Maitre (the Master) and founding commandeur Aurelio “Gigi” Montinola, van Beek shared this most interesting trivia: The chef at Chateau Du Tertre is Filipino and when the 2015 vintage was launched last year, he felt elated because he is a supporter of the President.

Making sipsip to the President notwithstanding, Chateau Du Tertre turned out to be, in fact, a good wine.

We had the pleasure of sampling the 2009 vintage, an excellent year in Bordeaux, which was easy to appreciate with its soft texture and good nose. There was also a hint of spiciness in the end and van Beek explained this was due to the higher content of Cabernet Franc generally found in blends for Chateau Du Tertre.

This was compared to a 2009 Chateau Giscours (Chateau Giscours is located beside Chateau Du Tertre. It is owned by a Dutch family—Eric and Louise Albada Jelgersma—who also purchased Chateau Du Tertre in 1995).

The Giscours, it turned out, was the more “intellectual” wine.

Compared to the easygoing Du Tertre, the Giscours is appreciated more for its complexity and depth. So the intellectual commandeurs—Montinola, Globe’s Ernest Cu and finance wizard Jaime Panganiban—were all more drawn to the Giscours. Proof that the gentlemen know their wines: the Giscours is a Third Growth Margaux (Troisièmes Crus) while the Du Tertre is a Fifth Growth (Cinquièmes Crus) in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, a ranking of the most important wines in Bordeaux that, while created in 1855 under the Emperor Napoleon III, is recognized and observed to this day.

Van Beek also made the commandeurs try the 2000 Du Tertre and the 1999 Giscours. The 2000 Du Tertre had the same definitive bouquet and spice notes that hit the roof of your mouth but, by virtue of vintage and maturity, it was more creamy and tannined than the 2009. Leading US wine critic Robert Parker has gone so far as to say that the 2000 “is the finest Du Tertre since their 1979,” with its “layers of concentrated blackberry fruit intertwined with damp earth, mushroom, and sweet, toasty barrique smells … ripe tannin, medium to full body, layered texture, and concentrated, impressively endowed finish.”

I imagine the President—if you give this to him as a gift—might smile at the description “impressively endowed.”

The 1999 Giscours, unfortunately, is not for sale. It is a special vintage that can only be appreciated if you go to Bordeaux and visit Chateau Giscours. But it is a truly premium wine with a beautiful balance, complex yet refined, and character that makes you pay attention.

Van Beek explained that 1999 was not as exceptional a year as 2000 so it is often overlooked compared to the millennium vintage. But for the Giscours, the 1999 is regarded as a “shadow vintage” because it is a wine with perfect harmony, a wine that exemplifies the beauty of Margaux, and through which one might understand what Margaux is all about.

With the ’99 Giscours, van Beek explained you would see the wine come to life.

“Wine is the only living organism created by nature, nurtured by man, put in a bottle … then when you open the bottle, this wine is alive,” he expounded. “There is no other product that has that, that we can consume.”

And so the commandeurs cheered and toasted and laughed and celebrated as the night went on, their joie de vivre awakened by the wines.

No cursing, though, in spite of the dawn of inebriation. Maybe guests consumed more of the intellectual Giscours than the impressively endowed Du Tertre!