Chateau Cantenac - Saint Emilion Grand Cru

Today we opened a bottle of Chateau Cantenac which is classified as a Saint Emilion Grand Cru. This wine was part of a set of 6 bottles that we got when we were 10 years married and was in fact the start of a real wine cellar in our basement.

At the time this 'Grand Cru' was seen as a real sign of superb quality, but having done some reading on the classification system in Saint Emilion I now know that Grand Cru is not that special, Grand Cru Classe is what starts getting special attention in wine circles.

Having said all that: the 2002 vintage (or millisime as they call it in France) is, although not classified as such between the super years of 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 still really good: Very soft taninnes and still containing a lot of fruit with enough body to fit with the excellent porc roast we cooked up.