One More Week of Summer: Meet Bordeaux Clairet
Every summer, a few wines seem to make their way into the Gordon’s Fine Wine team’s unofficial rotation, the bottles we keep reaching for, talking about, and bringing home ourselves. Château Carbonneau Le Nouveau Souffle Clairet 2025 is one of them.
It was Damian Brown who first brought this one to the team’s attention as one of his favorite summer values. We opened it, passed it around, and pretty quickly came to the same conclusion: this is really good. It’s refreshing enough to drink chilled on its own, but has considerably more substance and character than your average rosé. Bright red fruit, strawberry and a little savory freshness, with just enough structure to make you want another sip & let’s be real, another glass.
A little Clairet history: The English word claret actually comes from clairet, the name once used for the lighter, fresh-drinking wines shipped from Bordeaux to England during the Middle Ages. Those wines helped establish Bordeaux’s reputation in England. Today, Clairet remains a distinctive Bordeaux style, sitting somewhere between rosé and light red: deeper in color and more vinous than rosé, but fresh, juicy and wonderfully chillable.
Carbonneau’s Le Nouveau Souffle is made from 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Malbec, with only 48 hours of skin maceration. The château farms organically and biodynamically, and 2025 is all about freshness and immediate enjoyment. Chill it well and drink it now through about 2028 (at the latest!)
Because we’re not quite ready to let summer go, we went looking for the perfect food match. Our pick? Salmon with the last of the season’s vegetables. We particularly like the idea of pairing it with a recipe from start New York chef Ed Szymanski, whose approach to salmon is simple, crisp and intensely flavorful, the kind of dish that lets a fresh, lively wine like this shine.
Watch Ed Szymanski make perfect salmon here:
Bon Appétit: Ed Szymanski’s 10-Minute Salmon
So, if you’re looking for something a little different for these last days of summer, take Damian’s advice. Clairet is one of those wonderfully under-the-radar Bordeaux styles that deserves a much bigger audience and at this price, it’s an especially easy one to bring home.