Exceptional, indulgent, a bit hedonistic, a morsel of bon vivant life: this year’s Fete du Bordeaux. With a dynamic, young and entrepreneurial generation now running the wine trade.

Winemaker: Lilian Barton-Sartorius

The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York was the setting last Friday night for the annual Fete du Bordeaux, a lavish dinner accompanied by famous and important Bordeaux wines. A number of people from the East End were eating and drinking, including Michael Aaron, who as chairman of Sherry-Lehmann, the Madison Avenue wine merchant, hosted the dinner.

Bordeaux is so often the model for red wine blends produced all over the world, including many here on Long Island, that it is instructive to taste so many of these paradigmatic wines at one time—and, I might add, to talk with the proprietors of three major Bordeaux estates who attended the dinner and spoke to the sold-out crowd. The generational changes in the Bordeaux wine trade were apparent. Jean-Charles Cazes of Chateau Lynch-Bages, Jean-Guillaume Prats of Chateau Cos d’Estournel, and Lilian Barton-Sartorius of Chateau Leoville Barton are all dynamic, young and entrepreneurial, the successors to fathers who in the past attended the Fete du Bordeaux and New York trade tastings.

I sat with Ms. Barton-Sartorius, who represents not only the new generation, but could be a standard bearer for the global aspects of the French wine business. Born to a Danish mother and a father whose Anglo-Irish family has owned Leoville Barton for 200 years, she was educated in France and England, lived for a time in Hong Kong, now resides with her husband and children in Bordeaux, and travels the world promoting Leoville Barton and the lesser known but beautifully made wines of Langoa Barton. She speaks perfect British English.

Like her peers, and like everyone I know in the wine business, Ms. Barton-Sartorius, is not at all snobbish about drinking wine. At one point in the evening she pointed out that it is more enjoyable to have a light wine at the right time than to have a more consequential wine at the wrong time. Of course, having a lot of serious wines at one time is a terrific option, and that is exactly what we were doing at the dinner. The evening began with oysters and—what else?—champagne, an excusable departure from the Bordeaux region. In this case, it included an enormous bottle of champagne (a Methuselah, which holds six liters) from Gosset, a small, prestigious producer. The more manageable 750 ml. size of non-vintage Gosset sells for about $35.

Once seated, we began with poached Maine lobster and 2004 Blanc de Lynch-Bages, a delicious white with a stealthy past. It was produced only sub-rosa back when white wines were unlawful on classified Bordeaux estates. With roasted quail, foie gras and porcini, we had six 2004 Bordeaux reds, wines that are now bottled but some of which will not be officially released until spring of 2007. Since all were from prominent chateaux, and all high quality, the interest for me was really in the stylistic differences among them. These proprietary red blends, and others of the 2004 vintage, are young wines, but exhibit enough balance and harmony to make them ready, at least ready soon, to enjoy.

The next course was cote de boeuf with truffle sauce, and with that we had two wines from the excellent 2000 vintage—Chateau Langoa Barton and Chateau les Ormes de Pez, and one from 2001, a Chateau Marbuzet. All three were surpassingly good.

Moving on to older vintages we had three from 1995 with the cheese course of this seriously French, old guard meal: Chateau Lynch-Bages, Chateau Leoville Barton and Chateau Cos d’Estournel. A Premier Cru Sauternes, Chateau Suduiraut 1997, with wonderful texture and fruit, honeyed but balanced with acidity and a bit of chalky botrytis, accompanied the hazelnut tart.

The Fete du Bordeaux, which is priced at $275 per person, is a look—some would say a look back—at classic French food and wine. The evening was opulent, the dinner sumptuous, the wine a rare treat. And like any satisfying wine drinking experience, the people seated around the tables made it truly pleasurable. This is not everyday life—whose arteries could handle it?—but something exceptional, indulgent, a bit hedonistic, a morsel, a bite of the bon vivant life.

All the wines are available at Sherry Lehmann, in the store or on their website. Prices, excepting a few more expensive ones, range generally from about $30 to $80 per bottle.