2023 Best of Show

2023 Competition Best of Show Bordeleau Petit Verdot Lot 3

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. 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.