We don’t know a lot about French wine, but we know a little. Thanks to our late, great neighbor Ralph Wells, we know there are five “first-growth wines” in France, and there will always be only five — Chateau Haut-Brion, Chateau Latour, 
Chateau Lafite, Chateau Mouton, Chateau Margaux. We know that we like Bordeaux reds, and that we don’t care for Beaujolais Nouveau. And we know that the greatest of all French wines (Ralph’s opinion) is Chateau Pétrus.
Having said all that, French red wine always catches our attention, especially if any of the buzzwords in that first paragraph are mentioned.
Royal Caribbean is expanding its taste test to its entire fleet of 22 ships. The taste test is called the Lafite Wine Experience. The key word…Lafite.
It has our attention.
This is a wine-tasting program Royal Caribbean launched (ship terminology here) last month. Only for passengers on the Allure of the Seas. The five hours we spent visiting the Allure one day was dry…well it did rain. It was November, too soon for the wine tasting.
It sounds like we missed the boat, so to speak.
Since mid-December, the Lafite Wine Experience has been successful enough to offer it to all Royal Caribbean customers by the end of March. What is it? A taste of four Lafite wines for $29. What a deal! One of them is a white Bordeaux, which is too bad, but maybe a white Bordeaux from Lafite 
would surprise us.
The reds aren’t first-growths but, being Lafites, there’s brand excellence to protect. They’re from the winemaker’s Reserve Speciale series and they’re being presented by a company cellar master (sommelier?). And anybody willing to spend an hour — and $29 — to taste four wines probably knows something about French wine.
Even if it’s just a little.