WTN: This budget white from Bergerac beats the others.

[Tim York]

Montravel blanc 2007 – Château Moulin de Bel-Air, Vignobles Ley - http://www.vignobles-ley.com/anglais/presentation.htm - from Vélines near Bergerac – Alc. 12.5% - (€ 5), made from Sauvignon 70%, Sémillon 25%, Muscadelle 5%.

This is the most enjoyable right now of all the Bordeaux blends which I have noted this month, although I sense that Château Brown will reveal greater subtlety and depth once the wood has fully integrated in a few years.

C: Light yellow.
N: Boiled sweets with piquant mineral edge.
P: The wine merchant describes this as “sec et vif”. I agree 100% about “vif” (= lively) but I think there is RS, perhaps as much as 8g. This is most attractive; there are bright grapey fruit and minerals on the entry, then mid-palate broadens with a sensation of round grapey flesh and gentle sweetness and the finish leaves a very pretty after-taste of sweet fruit mixed with smooth lip-smacking acidity. Primary in its appeal and needing to be drunk in the next 12 months (in any case the synthetic stopper imposes this), but delightful; it went very well with mussels; 16/20 right now with no potential but great QPR.

(Montravel is one of the confusingly numerous and not particularly distinctive appellations of the Bergerac area, about 80km upstream from Bordeaux along the Dordogne river - http://www.pays-de-bergerac.com/english ... travel.asp . Grape varieties round Bergerac are similar to those of Bordeaux right bank.)

[Bob Parsons Alberta]

Nice one Tim. Like your gamay idea for April btw.