Northampton hurtled into the game, pouncing on a Bordeaux spill, ploughing upfield and crossing as Coles, who passed a late fitness test to start, threaded the ball through a tangle of limbs to ground inside two minutes.
Saints supporters were still in full cry though as their fruitful opening turned sour.
Wing James Ramm limped out of the fray as Fin Smith lined up the conversion.
Full-back George Furbank, playing only his second game since breaking his arm in December, followed shortly after on a stretcher after catching an accidental knee in the face as opposite number Romain Buros attempted to hurdle over him in pursuit of a loose ball.
Ollie Sleightholme and Tom Litchfield were summoned off the bench, but the subsequent rejig shunted England wing Tommy Freeman to full-back and scrambled some of Saints’ backline understanding.
Once play restarted following Furbank’s injury, Damian Penaud sauntered in for his 13th try of Bordeaux’s continental campaign to pull his side back within two points.
Shortly after, Louis Bielle-Biarrey looked to have put his fellow wing over again, only to have the score chalked off for a forward pass.
That call apart, Saints felt they were getting little from referee Nika Amashukeli with Smith called for a marginal knock-on and Freeman seemingly blocked off by second row Adam Coleman as he pursued a kick ahead.
There was no argument about Bordeaux’s second try however.
After the ball went to ground in Northampton’s 22m, Mathieu Jalibert’s twinkling feet evaded five Saints defenders before the France international pumped a basketball-style pass out of the tackle and Coleman crashed over in the corner for 12-7 to the French side after 20 minutes.
Saints slowly recovered from the onslaught with Smith moulding some shape into his reordered backline.
A couple of penalties from the fly-half edged Northampton back to 15-13.
Penaud continued to bristle with danger though and, after spilling forward close to the line on one occasion, he dived over amid the chaos of Jalibert’s botched and regathered grubber.
Northampton refused to be shifted from the contest and, with Freeman and Mahamadou Diaby both in the sin-bin and the game swinging wildly from end to end, Coles went over in the final play of the half after Sleightholme had bumped off a tackler.
That try, and Smith’s dead-eyed conversion, levelled the half-time scoreline at 20-20 after a breathless first period.
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