2006 The Winemakers' Collection Cuvee No. 2 Denis Dubourdieu

The Winemakers’ Collection is a high-concept winemaking project that each year matches the terroir of Château d’Arsac with a high-profile winemaker of international renown. Starting with the 2005 vintage, the estate’s owner, Philippe Raoux, has each year invited a star winemaker to select specific vines on the estate, then to oversee their growth, harvest, vinification and aging. The idea, according to Château d’Arsac, is that from “the hillsides of Bordeaux to the valleys of California, great wines are made by the same great winemakers.” French star winemaking consultant Michel Rolland was the first winemaker involved with the project, and Robert M. Parker Jr. called the 2005 “sensational wine.” Since 2005 participating winemakers have included the luminaries Andrei Franchetti of Tuscany and Sicily, Stéphane Derenoncourt of Bordeaux, Zelma Long of Napa Valley, and Ntsiki Biyela of South Africa. Each vintage features a label with the image of the winemaker and his or her name.

Bordeaux is the world’s most famous fine-wine producing region. Even non-wine drinkers recognize the names of Bordeaux’s celebrated wines, such as Margaux and Lafite-Rothschild. Located near the Atlantic coast in southwest France, the region takes its name from the seaport city of Bordeaux, a wine trading center with an outstanding site on the Garonne River and easy access to the Atlantic. Like most French wine regions, Bordeaux’s first vineyards were planted by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago, then tended by medieval monks. Aristocrats and nobility later owned the region’s best estates and today estates are owned by everyone from non-French business conglomerates to families who have been proprietors for generations. Bordeaux has nearly 280,000 acres of vineyards, 57 appellations and 10,000 wine-producing châteaux. Bordeaux is bifurcated by the Gironde Estuary into so-called “right bank” and “left bank” appellations. Bordeaux’s red wines are blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec. It also makes white wines of Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle. There are several classification systems in Bordeaux. All are attempts to rank the estates based on the historic quality of the wines.