This drives me crazy. on a certain level, going out of your way to NOT drink bdx is like riding a bike with no gears or brakes (which all the cool kids are doing these days). Its intentional overthinking. young somms are trading bdx for burg? but in the same article the price of bdx is being assailed? Ill drink some of the lesser bdx over many village burgs all day long, and I LOVE burg. I have a former employee who would go out of his way to find and drink only the freakiest of wines. radicon and gravner were almost to pedestrian. sure, its fun, and definately different, but to dismiss a whole chunk of the wine world just seems silly.
How about a delicious bottle of 99 grand puy lacoste. everything bdx should be, and $45 on a retail shelf…
god help us if a whole generation of somms thinks they need to out-wierd each other to keep their jobs and progress in their careers. what will most of us drink on their lists?
The obnoxious “Hipster indie street cred” young somm is part of it - God knows I still laugh over this kid from Boston who seemed to think he had discovered Godello all by his lonesome sensitive self.
But it also has to do with horrible marketing by the petit chateaux. When I was on the restaurant side, it was a genuine struggle to find $20-$50 (restaurant price) Bordeaux I could use as an intro to the region for the less well off.
In addition to the various points made in the article, and above, I also think there has been a shift in what people eat, and consequently what people drink. When I first got into wine seriously, a much larger % of the dinners I attended featured red meat. The kind of meal that rewards a good, aged Bordeaux. These days, I rarely order steak when I’m out (I can grill a decent steak at home), so the likelihood of my ordering a Bordeaux while dining out has fallen drastically.
Au revoir! When I was in the business…mid 80’s, Bordeaux was still the cat’s meow. Collectors coveted the vintages and laid them down with the intention of letting them sit for 10 years before trying. I hope they are still sitting on a bunch of the 82…those are great wines. But there was some snobbism and little competition then, we didn’t really have alternatives. I remember when Opus One came out and people complained that it was priced like a Bordeaux. And now New Zealand and South Africa and Chile and so many other places give us a good glass of wine to have, not to mention Napa. With time, these will be come “established” wine areas and as Napa wineries get track records of thirty and forty years, they are the new vanguards of “delicious wines with pedigree” and will win the spot coveted by Bordeaux all these years because they are not nearly as unaffordable.
Bordeaux has evolved into a collector’s market/bubble, and “survival of the fittest” a la America has hit them via Robert Parker and the Wine Advocate scores, so unless Cru Bourgeois get on the radar with a score, they are not going to find a market in this country. His early intentions were to point out the bad or downright flawed wines that were being sold as “vintage Bordeaux” (and there were a lot of them…I can think of no fewer than 10 vintages of Mouton that should never have been sold under that label) But it evolved into something more competitive. And we are a fickle bunch, moving from one “hot” wine to the next…first Haut Brion 89 then Latour 90 and Montrose…and what of Valandraud or other one hit Melbas, and then Pavie and now Cos…it’s just a carousel arranged by the media to hold our attention. Frankly, I can get a whole year’s worth of drinking wines for the price of a case of Cos '09. And I hope that I’m reasonable in giving that frantic market a big raspberry…
As to the “sommeliers” of today’s world, many are worth their salt, but I’d say you need at least 10 years of experience to really know what you are doing. I can’t stand it when I get a 22 year old “sommelier” and they are telling me to drink 10 year old screwcap riesling from Alsace when what I really wanted was a 1er Cru White Burg. It’s not an age thing, it’s an experience thing. And until you’ve had several bottles of EACH of the great white producers of Burgundy (or Bordeaux or Napa) AND been in a state to remember them, can you speak intelligently about the differences in style and vintage, and what would match best a customer’s taste.
That said, as a final note, I think the sommelier’s job is to best match a particular customer’s taste preferences with wines available on their restaurant’s list. This is quite a different thing from a “connoisseur” or “amateur”, which is someone who knows the in depth history of a wine or winery, the differences in vintages and why, and what to pick with a particular dish. I think this board has a number of different “amateurs”, each with their specialty, and that is a prize indeed.
One way I feel lucky as a (relatively) young wine professional is that I was grounded in classic French regions in my first job. I was taught to both respect them in general and to question each wine individually. Many wine pros don’t get to experience those wines the way I did. Down the road, those experiences gave me access to great mature examples of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, etc.
Cuisine is certainly an issue. We don’t see a lot of traditional French haute cuisine these days that pairs classically with Bordeaux. The whole ‘new American’ locally-sourced organic style tends to lend itself to lighter more fruit forward wines and the influences are more Mediterranean favoring Pinot Noir, Provence, Spain and Italy. (I’m not sure who’s buying Loire reds, as much as I like them, you can’t give them away around here.)
I love to scoop up '99s and '01-'02 Bdx from good producers as they are lesser vintages drinking well now. Of course, a lot of Bdx drinkers are driven by Parker’s vintage ratings and wouldn’t realize that a '01 Leoville Barton is going to be a lot friendlier than the '05. There is a huge gap between the 1sts and super seconds to the rest of Bordeaux. Even 2nds like Brane-Cantenac or Gruaud-Larose can be overlooked while offering good value. I also buy a lot of seconds Bdx which sell very well because people know Cos d’Estournel or Palmer and the wines offer good terroir/winemaking and a known brand at a lesser price. As the selections for the Grand Vins get more severe the seconds get better and better.
What is lacking is a lot of somms buying quality value Bdx like Chasse Spleen, Fourcas-Hostens, Caronne Ste. Gemme, Charmail, Patache d’Aux, etc. that they can price on a list under $100. I have tried but don’t find a lot of these in distributors warehouses. These wines are excellent and can bring people to Bdx without having to jump all the way to more expensive classified wines that people used to go to like Lynch-Bages, Langoa Barton or Giscours. Here is where Bdx branding is terrible. It seems that the Chateau names are totally interchangeable to the public and it takes a lot of persistence to know the difference between Ch. Bourgneuf and Ch. de Bourgneuf (both Pomerols), for example. When the label is a generic white label with a crest and a Chateau they all blur together even worse on a wine list when you can’t even see the label. Most people just stick with the classified wines and find themselves priced out of the market.
Trends. Gotta love 'em. You can’t tell me for a second that BDX won’t be “the” trend again down the road. Wine is just like fashion. Did you notice the 80’s are back? [suicide.gif]
Unfortunately, great Bordeaux has become a luxury product. Some of my first wine purchases were treasured 1989 and 1990 first growths and “super-seconds.” The most expensive was the 1989 Haut-Brion, an eye-popping $125. Fortunately I was also lucky enough to buy a case of 1989 Haut Brion ($28 per bottle). I haven’t bought any Bordeaux since the 2002 vintage (Forts de Latour, $39, is awesome; haven’t opened the rest). The 2003 vintage hype, compounded by 2005 hype and pricing, simply killed it for me.
The same thing has happened to the top Burgundy producers, although it really didn’t go nuts until mid-way through the 2005 campaign (See, e.g., DRC, Rousseau, Mugnier, Ponsot, Cathiard, Dujac). With Burgundy, however, there is enough diversity and inefficiency that one can still find incredible wine at reasonable prices if one is willing to take the time to do the groundwork.
All these things move in cycles, some of them short-term and others long term. Bordeaux is one of the world’s greatest wines and it will be back.
Unfortunately, I ‘know’ more about the estates/chateaus than I do the wines. Bordeaux, on the whole, is far out of my reach/budget. The very best wines I’ve had are French and I believe the best wines are made there, but there are profound wines made in many places – places that are in price stratas I can reasonably afford.
Don’t get me started on uber-geek somms. The worst.
For a start, Asimov is talking about Bordeaux in the US, and many of his comments do not really apply to other markets.
I also find the title of the first article erroneous. It’s not that Bordeaux has lost prestige. It’s that the name wines are unreachably expensive and that there is, admittedly, an image problem. However, prestige is not an issue here.
Some points in the article are well made. However, what goes around comes around.
In other words, if Bordeaux is less fashionable, it is far from unlikely that it will come back into fashion, like so many things…
Remember when there was brief boycott of French wines because France did not support the war in Iraq? No more than a blip, really, when all is said and done.
I do not contest that demand has fallen off for Bordeaux in America. But I say that icons are always under attack, and I’ll bet my bottom dollar that I’ll read a New York Times article down the line saying something like “New Enthusiasm for the Wines of Bordeaux”…
This is journalism, which is only qualified to grab hold of the ephemeral.
Asimov is right when he mentions the somewhat stuffy image of fine Bordeaux. However, many of the young wine drinkers he mentions will settle down, make kids, and become stuffier themselves as time goes on! )).
I honestly think that a certain number of them will “graduate” to Bordeaux because, as the article says, the great wines are the benchmarks.
Asimov really misses the boat when he implies that it is easier to buy Burgundy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I agree that the Bordelais have work to do in the States. I am thinking less of the Union des Grands Crus tastings than promoting - and selling - the good value wines of Bordeaux which are not well known nor readily available in the US.
I can be somewhat happy with either intensity or fruit, if I can’t have both, but otherwise, the wine is boring - encompassing most aged Bordeaux I’ve had. Looking through your recent notes I found this wonderful quote:
“Friday, May 14, 2010 - “Boredom is one of the flattest, most self-evident, most self-justifying of all esthetic judgments. There is no appeal from boredom. Even when you tell yourself you like boredom, there the verdict is.” --Clement Greenberg”
Boring wine just sort of sits on the palate, doing nothing. Kind of like British food (which I suppose might go some ways toward explaining the infamous British love for limpid Bordeaux…)
Per your last paragraph, I have been surprised that there hasn’t been a “French Revolution” by Bordeaux’s “peasant” estates against the aristocracy. Over the past five years, I have begged for the Bordeaux satellites and cru Bourgeois to rebel against stuff like the UGC and venues that obsess over 1855, etc.
There are so many good, unrecognized wines in Bordeaux.
Oh, and you’re wrong about Burgundy, but in the way a partisan is.
I’m with you Eric. I just don’t recognize the marketplace to which Asimov is referring. Yes, there are maybe 25-30 wines that I will never buy again. But there are oceans of extremely high quality, low priced wines available, relative to what bordeaux used to sell for and relative to the rest of the world.
Yes, I suppose that Chili and Argentina are producing better $10 wines than Bordeaux; I take this on faith because I rarely drink wines in this category. But in the $15-25 range – the wines I drink most every night – and in the $40-70 range (my weekend wines), Bordeaux offers more choice than any other region I know (at least among styles that appeal to me). Lanessan for $16/btl in a vintage-of-the-century like 2009? Forget the can-you-do-better-elsewhere challenge; can you really say that a wine like this doesn’t offer superb value vis a vis the rest of the planet?
I liked the article and learned a few things. But I think the basic premise is just flawed
Something does not compute. If bordeaux is unfashionable and has lost prestige as Eric suggests than pricing would be softer as demand ebbs. I certainly don’t see any signs of that happening much except in vintages viewed as less than good.
To prove his point he says that bordeaux makes up 0.46% of all still wines, domestic and foreign, distributed in the U.S. which is down from 1.69% in the mid-1980s. He fails to take into account the increase in wine drinkers in the U.S. in the last 25 years which is substantial. I’m not going to try to figure out the math but it’s intuitive that many of the newer wine consumers are drinking Yellow Tail and the like so I think on the face of it his numbers are meaningless.
From a personal viewpoint, I drank 10 great 1990 left bank bordeaux last night and I may not be buying newer vintages because of my age but I am certainly not bored by bordeaux.
Elaborating. If you have rejected the Bordeaux region because you have found another that meets your needs and see no reason to wade into a sometimes confusing and rapidly changing market, I completely understand. I think cellar diversity is a vastly overrated goal. If you have decided that bordeaux does not scratch your itch, again, congrats on becoming self-aware and being able to cross something off your list.
But if you like bordeaux wines but avoid it because of price, well, you just aren’t trying hard enough (the same can be said for burgundy too). These are some of my purchases this year. Mostly big names, well regarded wines, prices that are competitive with those offered anywhere in the world on a QPR basis:
Well said, Neal. My buying strategy is quite similar. I’m biased to be sure, given that my cellar is around 70% Bordeaux, but it never ceases to please me how high the quality across the board is at all price-points. I’m still picking up very quality 2005s at discounted prices (and some 2001s and 2004s), including everyday drinkers like Haut Bergey ($29.99), Reignac ($17.99), de Carles ($17.99), LVC ($25), etc. Comparing them to a similarly valued Cali Cab I had recently, Chappellet Mountain Cuvee 2007 ($22.99), and I remain a happy Bdx camper. I also hedged some bets recently on a few cases of 2008s in the 375 format that I like for everyday drinkers. While I doubt that the prices on some of these '08s will slide up that much on release, I wanted to lock in that format which is otherwise hard to find in Florida.
Although Asimov’s article is interesting, it mostly misses the point with regard to two things: 1) as mentioned by many above, the price of good Bordeaux at a restaurant is extremely high, marked up more than almost any other wine (with the possible exception of the highest end Burgundies, and 2) Bordeaux takes a while to come around in most cases, and yet most restaurants have very little in the way of older wines, or if they do, the markups become stratospheric.
I bought the 1996 a few years ago for $300 a bottle and now it is $1570 on the RN74 (as an example) list. Or the 1996 Pichon Lalande for just over $100, now $500 something on the same list. So the markups are 5 times the price of about 5-7 years ago, forget about the markup from release price. Even bottles that I got on release in the $20-30 range back in 2000 are now way over $100, maybe over $200. So there is not much surprise here about younger wine geeks in particular not going for these.
That, and yet add the dirty little secret (well, not a secret, since it is clear to see for all who look) that a) Bordeaux needs bottle age, and 2) restaurants don’t age wines. The same problem here applies to Burgundy, where almost everything on the list is 2005-2008 (we did find a 1985 Jarry Vouvray, however…). We went through the discussion with Quince Restaurant in San Francisco when we wanted to bring 3 older wines in for 3 couples. Practically the oldest wine they had on the list was 2004, but for some reason the sommelier claimed this was not true. Since I learned how to read in kindergarten, I have to assume the restaurant either had wines they were not showing, or the sommelier was suffering under some kind of delusion.
You would do well to consider the possibility that the article is not really about what it purports to be about - that in fact there is an alternate agenda at work here.
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