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Pick of the week

3 De Valandraud 2003 ($56.95, product No. 045997) is full-bodied and lush with pure blackberry-like fruit. This merlot-dominated blend also has hints of cigarette tobacco, roast beef and, quite conspicuously, toasty oak.

Of all the amusing terms associated with wine, few are more colourful than "garagiste." It's a recent coinage, French for a new class of winemaker who runs a makeshift operation so small it could fit into a garage.

It usually also implies an oenological outlaw, somebody who flouts local conventions - mostly European ones - to produce modern, highly concentrated, fruit-forward wines that show their beauty right away and don't need years of cellaring to soften up.

The term is French for a reason. The garagiste movement, which is about 15 years old, started in Bordeaux, land of impeccably landscaped chateaux and hierarchies so rigid they make the deposed French monarchy seem like a democracy. As you might have guessed, the chateaux owners use the term garagiste as a pejorative - a sort of wine-snob analogue to "trailer trash."

One of the first garagistes to storm the winemaking Bastille was Jean-Luc Thunevin. With his wife, Murielle Andraud, he owns Chateau de Valandraud in St. Emilion. (Guess whom it was named after.)

Barely 17 years old, the couple's little winemaking operation, which did start in a building that could have been called a garage, got cocky with pricing from the get-go - another garagiste hallmark. Valandraud now sells some of the most expensive wine in the world, along with its famous garagiste neighbour on Bordeaux's so-called right bank, Le Pin.

Valandraud regularly captures much higher prices at auction, (considerably more than $1,000 a bottle) than such established names as Mouton and Lafite.

One of the big secrets to winemaker Thunevin's success has been to pick grapes only at their peak of ripeness. It sounds pretty basic, but it was something of a revolutionary notion in 1990 for Bordeaux, where many winemakers don't like to wait for full ripeness because October rains can hit fast and hard, swelling the fruit and, particularly in humid Bordeaux, promoting rot.

Another ace up his sleeve has been Michel Rolland, the great wine consultant, whom they hired from the beginning and who is famous for fruit-forward, creamy-smooth, oaky wines that hold special appeal for American wine critics and new wine consumers. It's a big contrast from traditional red Bordeaux, which tends to be firm and astringent in its youth, qualities that diminish as the wine is cellared.

The name Thunevin is pronounced, by the way, TU-nuh-vin, leading his traditionalist neighbours to dub him "Tue-le-vin," or "kill the wine."

Ontario consumers can get a taste of the Thunevin killer style in a relatively inexpensive (with emphasis on "relatively") offering that is part of today's big rollout of Bordeaux wines at Vintages stores.

3 De Valandraud 2003 ($56.95, product No. 045997) is a secondary wine from the chateau and, while not as elegant as the top wine, it hits all the Thunevin notes. Full-bodied and lush with pure blackberry-like fruit, this merlot-dominated blend also has hints of cigarette tobacco, roast beef and, quite conspicuously, toasty oak. There's a dollop of fine tannins here that give it structure and the ability to improve with age, likely for as much as 10 years.

3 De Valandraud may be the most impressive wine of today's Bordeaux release, but there are a few bargains that you may find much more attractive from a value standpoint.

My favourite is Chateau Haut-Colombier 2005 ($17.95, No. 043802). A lowly Côtes de Blaye, this is part of the first big wave of red Bordeaux from the vaunted 2005 vintage (the big chateaux wines spend longer time in barrel and thus won't arrive for a while).

It's rich, at a remarkably high 14.5-per-cent alcohol, with plenty of spice and warmth, with notes of blackberry and bitter herbs.

Also a good value is Chateau Cote Montpezat 2001 ($19.95, No. 045658). From the Côtes de Castillon, it's more herbal than the Haut-Colombier, but delivers pure cassis-like fruit as well as nice, classic Bordeaux notes of mineral and pencil shavings and juicy acid.

Other stars of the release include Chateau Lynch-Moussas 2003 ($53.95, No. 963256), a classified fifth-growth from Pauillac that's chunky and chewy, a hallmark of the hot, ripe 2003 vintage.

Velvety and almost Californian in style, it's laced with plum and cassis, licorice and tobacco, finishing with some dry, tannic firmness.

And from one of the most affordable auction-worthy houses, Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste 2004 ($65, No. 669622), full-bodied and juicy, with silky tannins and hints of mineral and smoke.