or set your country: United StatesArgentinaAustraliaAustriaBelgiumCanadaDenmarkEl SalvadorEstoniaFranceGermanyGreat BritainHong KongHungaryIrelandItalyJapanMalaysiaMaltaNetherlandsNew ZealandNorwayPolandPortugalPuerto RicoRussiaSingaporeSpainSwitzerlandUnited Kingdom1996 Bordeaux Wine Vintage Summary with harvest information, vintage characteristics, buying tips and links. 1996 Bordeaux wine is a year that celebrates Cabernet Sauvignon .  The vintage was picture perfect for the Medoc . The hot, sunny and dry conditions gave the vines the perfect amount of stress which allowed the Cabernet Sauvignon to achieve excellent phenolic ripeness. 1996 Bordeaux wine came out a growing season that started with a mild winter.  Bordeaux enjoyed warm weather starting from early March through April. In fact, March was sweltering with a heatwave that lasted close to two weeks! June was hot, with average temperatures hovering close to 90 degrees. Due to the high heat, flowering was quick and in some cases, uneven.

While July started off cool and moist, things quickly improved and the remainder of July, along with most of August was fine.  At the end of August, a large rainstorm struck, dropping 6 inches of water, which is more than three times the normal amount of rain the region usually experiences that time of year. Most of the rain was located in the Right Bank and Margaux . Very little rain fell in Pauillac , St. Julien and St. Estephe . With the drought, the water was exactly what the vines needed for the Cabernet Sauvignon. But it did not offer much help to the Merlot in Pomerol or St. Emilion . September once again saved the day for the Medoc. From August 31, until September 18, the weather cooperated with warm, sunny and dry conditions. The strong winds also helped dry the vineyards. It’s said, these winds shaped the vintage. The 1996 Bordeaux wine harvest got off to an official start, September 16 with the Merlot. Cabernet Sauvignon was picked from the end of September until mid October under picture perfect conditions.

The best 1996 Bordeaux wine from the Medoc offer intense purity. They are deep, concentrated, tannic and full bodied.  They have the stuffing to age for decades. The flavors are dark, fresh and clean. The tannins feel soft, sweet and caressing.  1996 Bordeaux wine continue aging perfectly.  As strong as  the 1998 Bordeaux vintage was for the Right Bank, 1996 Bordeaux wine is equally well crafted for the Left Bank . 1996 Bordeaux wine belongs in every Bordeaux wine lovers cellar. Every 1855 Classified Growth experienced massive price hikes over the past few years. This makes 1996 Bordeaux wine an expensive proposition.  Although, when compared to prices from 2009 and 2010, when you consider the benefit of bottle age, coupled with the drinkability of many of these wines, if you have the disposable income, these wines are stunning examples of Pauillac, St. Julien that are worth purchasing.  The vintage is less consistent in Margaux, St. Estephe and Pessac Leognan . There is no need to buy 1996 Bordeaux wine from the Right Bank.

Save your money and buy the much better 1998 wines. 1996 was the first successful vintage for the sweet, white Bordeaux wine of Sauternes since 1990. Because all the attention for the 1996 vintage is focused on the red wines, prices remain fair for Sauternes and Barsac . The following list of Bordeaux wines offer value and quality. They are not always the highest scoring wines, but they are all worth buying.  buy organic wine online1996 Best Bordeaux wine for the money todaywine for mac helpNon-vintage champagne may increasingly be regarded as a commodity to lure bargain hunters into unfamiliar supermarkets or reward assiduous salespersons, but vintage-dated champagne is different. best selling wine in 2014

By any standards it is a treat, the focus of interest for champagne connoisseurs, and the wine on which a disproportionate amount of care is lavished by winemakers in the Champagne region in north-east France. Connoisseurs of vintage champagne, champagnes made exclusively from grapes grown in a single growing season, are entering a golden period when they can pick and choose between two distinctly superior years, 1995 and 1996. best italian wine list new yorkAlthough some good vintage champagnes carry one of the years 1991-1994 inclusive (Bollinger 1992 was beautifully creamy and approachable the other day), things have generally been rather lean for lovers of vintage champagne since 1989 and 1990 vintage champagnes were widely available. turkey and best wineAs with the earlier pair, it is the later year that is usually the more impressive. best wine from paris

Just as 1990s tended to have more guts and depth than 1989s, so it is with 1996 compared with 1995, although there are some fine 1995s currently on sale. What was so extraordinary about the 1996 vintage in Champagne was that not only were the grapes exceptionally high in flavour and ripeness, they also managed to retain admirably high levels of acidity, the component that gives champagne its refreshment value and long life. Not since 1955 had such high levels of both acidity and grape sugars (enough to make base wines of nearly 11 per cent alcohol) been recorded in Champagne. The grapes were by no means as ripe in 1995, resulting in slightly more austere, less well balanced wines than in the succeeding year, but Chardonnay did particularly well, so 1995 Blanc de Blancs should, in theory at least, be worth looking out for. I recently tasted 51 current vintage-dated offerings from virtually all the well known producers and many of the more obscure - which provided a great opportunity to compare 1995s and 1996s.

My main conclusion was that 1996 really is a great, great year for champagne, full of bounce and depth. It may have just as much or more acidity than the 1995, but it has so much more fruit that the 1996s are generally more approachable than the 1995s which need a bit more time in bottle for their much more obvious high levels of green acidity to soften. Inconveniently, however, most champagne producers release their wines in strict chronological order. (An admirable exception is luxury house Krug which launched its fruity 1989 before the much more austere 1988; it is years away from releasing its 1996 and 1995.) What was particularly exciting about this tasting was the number of relatively reasonably priced wines that showed well. Perhaps the greatest bargain for British wine buyers is the 1996 from the modest house of H Blin in the Marne Valley. It is currently on sale at Oddbins for £18.99 but from Monday until 26 May there is a discount of 20 per cent on any two-bottle purchase, bringing the per-bottle price down to a ridiculously low £15.19.

Larmandier-Bernier's Cramant Grand Cru 1996 Vieilles Vignes is wonderfully dry and already shows an impressive spread of flavours (although it will be even better in a year or two). Vine Trail of Bristol (tel 0117 921 1770) which specialises in wines from small French domaines offers it at £18.75 a bottle. In the US, Garagiste of Seattle (tel 888 264 0053) offer it at $31.98 according to WineSearcher. Philippe Brugnon is another small-scale family champagne producer, based on the Montagne de Reims. His 1996 is broad and floral, very dense and satin-textured. It is about £19.99 a bottle from the Oxford Wine Company of Lechlade (tel 01367 253990) and Millets Farm, Frilford Heath near Abingdon (tel 01865 301144); Chateau Vintners of London, SW3 (tel 020 7376 8828); and Village Wines of Bexley (tel 01322 558772) who have it at just £17.59 as part of a mixed dozen. Wine-buyers resident in Switzerland should be able to find a relative bargain in René Geoffroy's dramatically aromatic Premier Cru 1996 which, according to WineSearcher, is available for just 39 Swiss francs from Veni, Vino, Vici 062 723 0979.