This mammoth tome — nearly 400 pages and over six pounds in heft — is a tome in two parts. The two parts celebrate the companionship of food and wine: Each section offers information about a Grand Cru Bordeaux winery, its production, grape varietals, and a bit of history, plus copious, gorgeous photographs of that winery — generally one page of text and one page (or more) of pictures.

Then you flip the page and get… a recipe, usually from some megastar chef like Thomas Keller, Ferran Adria, or Joel Robuchon. Each recipe is paired with the wine it follows.

Now this is a drinking website and not a cooking site, so it’s not really my place to judge this tome as a cookbook. That said, I do cook a lot, and I can’t see myself putting many of these recipes into practice in the kitchen. As inspiration, though, they sure do look good.

As for the wines, remember these are, as the title suggests, Grand Cru wineries only. Only left-bank Medoc and Sauternes/Barsac wines are covered here, so you won’t get anything from the rest of Bordeaux, including wines like Petrus. That said, it is a comprehensive look at all of the Grands Crus, including more dessert wines than you might have realized existed. The information provided about each chateau is usually interesting, even if the writing is as dry as the font is small. The pictures tend to tell the stories far better.

Better for the coffee table than the library or the kitchen, Grands Crus Classes is an interesting experiment that, unfortunately, didn’t really pay off for my reading style.

B- / $47 / [BUY IT FROM AMAZON]

Grands Crus Classes: The Great Wines of Bordeaux

$47

7

Rating

7.0/10

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