Bordeaux bye-bye?

“I’m a fan and I’m not afraid to say it,” Ms. Chang said. “Who would not be excited to have a glass of Château Pétrus, if you’re not footing the bill?”

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I’ll drink Bordeaux all night if someone else is paying. But there’s wine made all over the world that’s as good if not better and cheaper.
Sure they may not have the prestige and history, but I’m damned if I’ll pay for that.

Regarding Sommerliers and hipsters rejecting BDX at bars: -it’s hard to have a BDX staple in your wine by the glass selection at a bar. You need to have a 5-7 dollar bottle that punches with weight, warm fruit. That’s not BDX’s calling card; it is Spain, Portugal, Loire and other emerging region’s wheelhouse. BDX is king in the 25-75 dollar range and it view with Burgundy over the 125 dollar per bottle range. These wines aren’t very profitable for restaurants beyond being prestige objects (who wants to order 2006 Pichon Lalande for a dinner??) and that to me accounts this “backlash.”

duh

its more than that Faryan, they have alienated a whole generation through their short sighted greed

I have been making this point for years. The next generation of wine professional almost never gets to taste high-end Bordeaux, because it is so expensive. The emphasis on the $10-$25 retail market is non-existent, so young pros drink and sell other regions. Classic Cadillacing of a “brand.”

although the author points to burgundy, he fails to illustrate the cost prohibitiveness of the region. sure there are more wallet friendly wines that come from there, but the same can be said of bordeaux. and then there is the consistency issue…

most of my cellar is cali, but about a third is bordeaux. i’m not old and i’m not rich drinking petrus either.

Eric has really outdone himself here. This is a fantastic article and I actually need a little time to digest it and think about it a little. On the one hand there is the pleasure of schaedenfreude after all the pricing bullshit. But I also find it a little sad because Bordeaux was my own introduction to wine and there is nothing that can replace what it used to be.

Jim’s Cadillac comparison is so true. An emblem of quality segueing to an emblem of luxury, and then to an emblem of dated stodginess… and more recently to an emblem of tasteless nouveau riche excess. The wines they make today are the Cadillac Escalades with tinted windows and neon, and they have nothing to do with the Bordeaux I used to know.

Keith,

I just blogged to your point about Bordeaux being my introduction to fine wine. Click below.

The size of the badge on the Escalade’s tailgate is ludicrous.

Not so long ago, young wine-loving Americans were practically weaned on Bordeaux, just as would-be connoisseurs had been for generations. It was the gateway to all that is wonderful about wine. Now that excitement has gone elsewhere, to Burgundy and the Loire, to Italy and Spain. Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass.

So true!

I have the same fond memories of being able to get a handful of people together and being able to split a Lafite or Haut-Brion for the price of an everyday bottle, and we didn’t even have an employee discount. But my fonder memories were the nameless crus bourgeois that you could buy for like $15 a bottle and offered everything you could want from a wine.

“For many younger sommeliers and wine lovers, the new standard of excellence is Burgundy.”

True dat. My personal palate has been drifting further and further from Bordeaux. I’ve found I don’t really like it aged, and while I do like many young Bordeaux, I like them only insofar as they resemble Napa Cab. So I’m selling a good portion of my Bordeaux collection and focusing my Cabernet dollars on Napa, while concentrating my French dollars on Burgundy (which, when aged, invariably has both intensity and fruit, qualities I find lacking in aged Bordeaux).

Yeah , Burgundy is the way to go – all those Roumier, Dujac, Leroy, and DRC wines are so affordable and easy to source. I just love Pinot - it is soooo cool - I am not drinking any F*&(%&^$ing Merlot!! You suck Petrus.

Scarcity is an undeniable factor in BDX and to lament the days of cheap Lafite is the same as lamenting the days of abject poverty in developing markets, or the value of information being destroyed by the internet. Surely there are some troubling trends in BDX with regards to the types of wines they are churning out, but to take a current snapshot as a long-term trend is a bit shortsighted.

Critics can champion a region or nurture a calling behind it, but in the end of the day, when those communities mature, they are looking for quality not nostalgia. If it is going to be in Portugal then so be it, but I find it hard to believe that BDX is unseating itself by displeasing hipster sommeliers even if its foundation may be noveau riche and WASP-ridden old money…

Along with California Cabs, I began my wine hobby with Bordeaux. Except for a handful of 01s and 05s (Costco), I’ve been out since 2000.

While I still consider dabbling with Burgs and Rhone, I have no intention of getting back into Bordeaux. I consider the wines I used to purchase to be terrible values in today’s market.

These wines still exist (OK, maybe $20 - $35 now) and I certainly agree. A few months ago after chatting over the winelist, the proprietor of a small Paris restaurant urged me to try an obscure off-vintage Bordeaux that she’d ferreted out specifically to pair with her duck dishes. Remarkably affordable and delicious with the food. There seems to be no love for these Bordeaux with hipsters seeking trendier options and the mega-healed focused on liquid investments.

RT

Wow. It’s been full circle for me. I went from Bordeaux to Cab to everything else in my wine journey. Count me as returning to the fold. Who needs 1st growths? Everything I’m finding today in Bordeaux Superieur and Cru Bourgeois at $15-30 just makes happy. I don’t see where you can get this kind of QPR in California. Spain would be 2nd on my hit list.

Can’t even begin to count the number of things I disagree with here…

Fruit is not a quality that I consider an important component of any mature red wine. Fruit is just one of the booster rockets necessary to get it there, jettisoned when no longer needed. I don’t find old Burgundy any more fruited than old Bordeaux, but I guess it’s fair to say it has a little more up-front sweetness which may simply reflect higher alcohol.

And intensity is just a question of style, not quality. Whether a wine is intense or subtle might be relevant to when I’m in the mood to drink it, but it’s not relevant to whether I’m interested in drinking it in the first place.

Although Bdx account for nearly half my stash, my real last en premiere was 2002. What did Bdx in for me was what I saw was the unscrupulous hype by the Bdx industry and therefore the price, the general hyperbole by ‘renowned’ critics, and the increasing all-taste-same pursuit by most just so to get the 90+ score. Of course some wines (esp. 1st growths etc.) consistently make good wines irrespective of vintages but all the rest have become boring and commercialized (IMHO). There is just so much more (variation and dedication) in Burgundy, traditional Italian and Spanish, other regions like Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence, Fruili, UMbria, Priorat, NZ Pinots…

At the same time, why should I pay $1,000 for a 2009 Lafite when for the same price, I can get 2 or maybe 3 2004 Rocche del Falletto. Even the more down to earth 1993 Santenots du Milieu was more sensual than the 2 dozen of so $85 - $150 Bdx that I tried in past year or so covering 95 to 05 vintages.

I wish every success to the 2009 en Premiere so that minions like me can still afford the rest.

Faryan,

I have been taking the long view. Young people, whether in or out of the trade, now (speaking generally) have fewer opportunities and less inclination to try Bordeaux than any time in the past 20 years.

I gave a Bordeaux class to some young wine professionals a few years ago in which the lack of basic knowledge about the reason was eye-opening.