Bordelaise is the jewel of Bordeaux's culinary contribution to the sauce repertoire — a profound reduction of red wine and shallots finished with demi-glace and crowned with poached bone marrow rounds that melt into the sauce at the table. The wine must be from Bordeaux or of similar character: Merlot-dominant for softness, or Cabernet for structure, but never an aggressively tannic young wine whose tannins concentrate into bitterness during reduction. The shallots are sliced and sweated in butter without colour, then the wine is added — a full 500ml for 250ml of finished sauce — along with a sprig of thyme, a bay leaf, crushed peppercorns, and a shallot trimming. This reduces by three-quarters over moderate heat, a process that takes 20-25 minutes and fills the kitchen with the perfume of concentrated Bordeaux. The strained reduction is combined with demi-glace, simmered for 10 minutes, and finished with cold butter. The bone marrow — cut into 1cm rounds, soaked in salted ice water for 2 hours to purge blood, then poached in salted water for exactly 2 minutes until translucent but not melted — is placed on the sauced steak at the moment of plating. The marrow provides a richness that no amount of butter can replicate: a fatty, mineral, almost sweet unctuousness that is the defining element of the sauce. Without the marrow, it is merely a good red wine sauce. With it, it is Bordelaise.
Reduce wine by three-quarters — concentrates flavour, cooks out tannin. Use Bordeaux-style wine with moderate tannin — young, aggressive wines turn bitter. Bone marrow is essential, not optional — soak, purge, poach to translucent. Finish with cold butter for sheen. Shallots sweated without colour, then strained out.
Soak the marrow bones in ice water with a tablespoon of salt for 2-3 hours, changing the water twice — this draws out all blood and impurities, resulting in ivory-white marrow with no iron aftertaste. For the deepest colour, add a teaspoon of tomato paste to the shallot sweat and let it caramelise before the wine addition. If the finished sauce tastes slightly tannic despite proper reduction, swirl in a teaspoon of redcurrant jelly off heat — it bridges the tannin without adding obvious sweetness.
Using cheap, overly tannic wine — reduction concentrates bitterness beyond rescue. Under-reducing the wine — thin, alcoholic, astringent result. Skipping the marrow — the sauce loses its defining element. Over-poaching the marrow until it melts into fat — it should be warm, translucent, and intact.
Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire; Larousse Gastronomique