The Buzz About Bordeaux

The Buzz About Bordeaux

A quarter of a million acres; six and a half million hectoliters - over 850 million bottles. Bordeaux is the largest fine wine region in the world. It is currently in the news because the 2005 vintage, now being offered as futures, looks like being the best for a generation or so. Readers familiar with the Bordelais habitual hype might think of taking this statement with a large pinch of salt. Don’t we have rather too many “vintages of the century”? I can assure you that at least in this case the acclaim is not exaggerated. I’ve been there. I’ve tasted.

What is worrying is the price levels of the top 2005s. Not so long ago (1995) the first growths were offered at 250–200 Francs a bottle. Now it is the same or more—much more!—in Euros. That’s six and half times more expensive! When you consider that the 2005s will have to be stored in a temperature-controlled cellar for up to twenty years before they are ready to drink, the cost of insurance, the notional interest cost of the money laid out to purchase them and the risk (albeit small) that they are not as good as the hype says they should have been, you will have purchased some very expensive wine indeed. You can acquire a mature bottle of almost any fine vintage you care to name for less money and as those who have a vintage chart will see, many of these are ready and delightful to drink now.

It is notable that this alarming price escalation applies only to the top 40 or 50 very fashionable wines: the first growths (Latour, Lafite, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild and Haut Brion)—and what are known as the super-seconds (Pichon-Lalande, Cos d’Estournel, Léoville-Las-Cases and their Saint-Emilion and Pomerol counterparts). Go back down the hierarchy, to the sound crus bourgeois, and you will find excellent value from wines which in real terms are no more expensive than they were 20 years ago (and rather better made). One of the joys of drinking wine is to find a sleeper—a wine, or a vintage of one, which has been ignored by the experts—which turns out to be surprisingly good for its price. A chat with your friendly and knowledgeable wine merchant can be very rewarding.

Despite the potential brilliance of the 2005 vintage and the high quality of most of the rest of the recent years—there has not been a really bad vintage since 1984—Bordeaux suffers from a number of problems today. At the bottom end, possibly as much as a fifth of the production is wine of little interest or quality. Discerning buyers can acquire every-day drinking wines from Australia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, California and even the south of France which are just as pleasant, or even more so because they are grown in warmer climates and therefore produced from riper and richer grapes, at similar or lower prices. It is absurd that the French Government continues to subsidise the production of wines whose future is a distillery; this money would be much better used to ncourage farmers to rip up marginal vines and plant something the consumer might want.

In comparison to these “new” wine regions, the top-end chateaux of Bordeaux are increasingly seen as stuffy, out of date and elitist; full of jet-setting proprietors who are relating only to the rich and middle aged. In an effort to promote a younger and more dynamic image, a group of 20 and 30 year-old wine growers have formed an association which they call Bordeaux Oxygène. Their members generally produce wines which are fresher on the palate and can be drunk when relatively young. The group’s secretary is Sylvie Courselle of Château Thieuley in the Entre-Deux-Mers. This property produces one of my house wines, a delicious dry white. The president is Benoît Trocard of Clos Dubreuil in Saint-Emilion, Clos de la Vieille Eglise in Pomerol and Château Trocard in Les Artigues de Lussac (Bordeaux Supérieur). The Trocard family has been making wines in Bordeaux for many generations. Their wines are all reasonably priced and I can recommend them as good examples of the kinds of attractive, easy-drinking wines that the Bordeaux Oxygène group are becoming renowned for. A number of Trocard wines are available in Cayman at Vino Veritas.

If you are thinking of buying wine for investment, given the high prices currently being demanded for 2005, it might be a good idea to invest a little money in the last great vintage, that of 2000. These are safely in bottle, and the final article can be dispassionately assessed against its peers. The vintage is at its best in the Médoc and the Graves (in Saint-Emilion and Pomerol the 1998s are both better and cheaper). Prices seemed high at the time, up by as much as 50 percent on those of 1999 for, amongst other things, there was the Millennium hype. Interestingly, the top growths of 2000 can be bought 20-30% cheaper at auction than the 2005s are currently priced en primeur. As I write, the vendange in Bordeaux is in full swing and the vintage looks promising, although it is unlikely to be as exceptional as 2005. I doubt that the same prices can be maintained and it will be interesting to see how the 2006s are priced.

Clive Coates MW (Master of Wine) is one of the world’s leading wine authorities. His definitive books on the wines of France include An Encyclopedia of Wines of France, the Wines of Bordeaux and The Great Wines of France. He is currently working on a second edition of his prize-winning opus on the wines of Burgundy, Cote d’Or, A Celebration of the Great Wines of Burgundy. Clive Coates is a consultant to Vino Veritas. This article was written exclusively for Good Taste Magazine 2007.