By Mike Steinberger.
Some interesting comments in this interview. Gotta give him credit for not taking the fashionable viewpoint on some of the issues, although that’s likely to annoy some people.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2013/12/us-wine-culture-increasingly-confident-mike-steinberger
He does make some good points.
Yea, no doubt, especially on so-called natural wine.
This one will get some discussion as well:
He ends the book with an interesting speculation, comparing Bordeaux today with Madeira in the 18th century. At that time, Madeira was the world’s most prestigious wine.
“Madeira had a very quick and steep fall,” Steinberger says. “Now it’s an obscurity. Is Bordeaux going that way? Bordeaux has clearly lost some of its cachet. A generation of people are coming of age, thinking of Bordeaux as a drink for rich old fogeys. If I were the Bordelais, I’d be very concerned about this. Madeira is a cautionary tale for Bordeaux and in general. Tastes change. What is the grape of the day today might be in absolute obscurity tomorrow.”
I may wait for the HoseMaster’s review to come out… 
I doubt that Bordeaux will go the way of Madeira. There’s just too much of it. Even in it’s heyday, the amount of Madeira was quite small so it’s fall could be so precipitous. During the Odium and Phylloxera epidemics, production was close to zero. Today, one estate in Bordeaux can produce as much as the entire island.
Hey - maybe one day Manny Berk will own all the wine produced in Bordeaux!
It’s a stretch to suggest Bordeaux may go the way of Madeira, but I get his point and I think they also get it in Bordeaux. That’s no doubt why they’re making the wines riper and juicier, much to the dismay of many people who posted on that Bordeaux thread!
There’s a lot of good solid common sense in this interview, along with some silliness (no, Bordeaux is not going the way of Madeira). In general, I thought his huffing and puffing about Bordeaux was overdone. It’s one of the greatest wine regions in the world, has been for centuries and still is. I would love it if Bordeaux would truly drop in popularity, as it would make the wines more affordable for me (I am just about priced out of new purchases, except for the occasional splurge). Unfortunately, I’m trained as an economist and I find it difficult to conclude that something is declining in popularity when it costs five times as much as it did fifteen years ago.
Mike’s point seems to be that, while though Bordeaux is currently riding high, the next generation of wine buyers is dis-interested in the region and her wines. Which might mean trouble a few years down the road, when that demographic becomes the dominant one in the wine market.
Personally, I’m inclined to agree with you, Marcus.
I don’t see high-end Bordeaux losing market strength any time soon. It is the default wine of choice for (among others) people with lots of money and limited wine knowledge. Since there seems to be an endless supply of such people, they will continue to keep the demand for cru Bordeaux alive and healthy.
Great post, Bruce, both in terms of grasping Mike’s point and, in the second paragraph, eloquently accounting for what I believe to be the primary reason for Bordeaux’s success (and Parker’s as well)…
Mike Steinberger is undoubtedly a good journalist, but he is way of the mark with Bordeaux. I am getting sick of people knocking the Bordeaux wines and region.
He didn’t knock either the wines nor the region. Just pointed out what everyone in the business knows - the top end will sell for the reasons described above. Producers in the lower end are suffering because the top end gets all the press and new wine drinkers find Bordeaux to be like their grandpa’s Oldsmobile. The press and the prices for the top end have really hurt the smaller producers. Not to mention the fact that unlike some other places, Bordeaux is very vintage-dependent. How are the lower to mid priced 2006s and 2007s doing these days?
Madeira’s demise was precipitated first by oidium, followed by phylloxera. By the 1870s or so, the two diseases did in at least 90 percent of the island’s vineyards. The Madeira industry was unable to rebuild.
It is interesting to ask if Bordeaux by altering it’s style and going modern, is preventing it’s demise or insuring it. I am sure everyone will have an opinion. And time will tell who is correct. But to me Bordeaux is in trouble, no doubt. Not sure at this point how much trouble. But what I like is that he didn’t ignore it as if everything is fine.
The ‘hipster’ move away from Bordeaux is in many cases not based on any deeper knowledge of wine than is possessed by a hedge fund guy who picks a Bordeaux off the top end of the wine list. It’s the same kind of thing that drives young people to like independent bands. Do you really think the average foodie ordering an orange wine (many of which are clunky, heavy, and have some alcohol that sticks out) is doing it because they have deeply explored their palate preferences across all regions and settled on this? Or because it’s the hot new thing? A lot of times wines fashionable for their obscurity zoom in price as soon as the hip sommeliers get hold of them. And don’t even get me started on the price-quality ratio in Burgundy.
I did think that Steinberger was knocking Bordeaux. In my opinion someone who is unfamiliar with the heights Bordeaux can reach is not qualified to be a professional wine writer – and when you do press people on that they rather quickly admit that Bordeaux has produced and likely still is producing great wines (although we have to wait on aging to see that). But Steinberger is a smart guy and to his credit he chalked up much of Bordeaux’s decline in popularity among the hipster crowd to image over substance. (Which is not to say that there aren’t real substantive issues at some Bordeaux chateau, just that the blanket rejection of the region is to a large degree driven by image).
They have just a “little” more Bordeaux to sell than “Orange” wine.
I’m not so sure the “hipster” crowd is really a significant portion of the wine buying public. Due to their own nature I don’t really imagine they’ll ever be major wine consumers either. I’m not sure they’ll be culturally relevant for very long anyways.
Now if we’re talking about the “Millennial” generation which the “hipster” crowd is a sub-set of, I think it’s pretty premature to assess their taste. I’ve heard some say that they’re interested in obscure wines and that may be true, but I don’t think it’s a matter of fashion, but rather curiosity. I guarantee you that they will not be drinking orange wines, but rather wines from South America, South Africa, New Zealand in addition to all the classic wine regions as well. Unlike the “hipster” subset and other generations, I do think they’re less interested in reputation and image than some believe.
I’ve talked about the “pendulum” swinging in the Modern Bordeaux thread. If anything I think that the coming generations in the next decade or more will be marked by matters of identity and authenticity. The homogenization of wine is not something that I believe the future generation is interested in. In this sense, it will be up to Bordeaux to determine what makes it “Bordeaux” and we may see more wines driven by typicite if they conform to future wine consumers. Future wine consumers likely won’t need Bordeaux to emulate modern, ripe styles because they’re willing to explore other regions like Australia and some California regions which may do that as part of their own identity. That may exist in contrast to previous generations who needed Bordeaux to become something else because they were only ever interested in drinking Bordeaux and were unwilling to leave that “brand” identity.
Marcus Stanley, whether or not I am qualified to be a professional wine writer is a matter of opinion, I guess. But I am curious to know: on what basis have you concluded that I am “unfamiliar with the heights Bordeaux can reach”?
This is a wine BB. So “basis” and “conclusion” have little or no relation. Or so it seem quite often.
After reading that article, I’m hard-pressed to find anything there that merits your interpretation of “knocking Bordeaux.”
While I strongly doubt Bordeaux will tumble into obscurity, in many ways it is irrelevant to young consumers. I have said for years about Bordeaux, and I am beginning to suspect that it may become the case with Burgundy, that prices will become so prohibitive that young consumers and wine professionals will turn elsewhere. From a purely anecdotal perspective (running a wine shop and a high end wine list), young people rarely order or show much interest in Bordeaux - and this has nothing to do with quality, but price and perception. I cannot predict what effect that will have in 40 years, but things will be different than we imagine.
Well, Jim…what about us old folks, too. Haven’t bought a red Bdx since the late '70’s. In fact, will be giving “Bordeaux’s Last Hurrah” tasting in January
to liquidate my last Bdx holdings from the '70’s, all high end stuff. Never to be seen again in my cellar. No tears shed or poignant goodbys.
Tom