Asimov on the decline of Bordeaux wines in Bordeaux’s wine scene -
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/dining/drinks/bordeaux-wine.html
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Makes sense. This quote in particular is illuminating:
Mr. Goineau points to the high cost of most of the classified Bordeaux wines and the long aging they need to blossom as discouraging. “Only an extremely wealthy elite can now afford bottles of this kind,” he said. “Conversely, the inexpensive Bordeaux wines found in supermarkets, priced at three or five euros, are so dreadful to drink that they, too, have been shunned.”
The high end is too expensive and takes too long to cellar in order to be interesting. The low end is terrible mass-market dreck.
(and, yes, there is an interesting mid-range of wines, but they don’t interest the IG unicorn hunters who only care about the prestige of high-end wines and are still too expensive for people who just want an unpretentious drink with Sunday dinner)
And, as repeated constantly in this forum, the Bordelais did all of this to themselves.
Except that I’m not sure how true that impression really is. Yes, Petrus and Lafite are priced and marketed as luxury goods at prices any sane person would scoff at. And I will take their word that the 3-5€ plonk is dreadful. But wines like Capbern, Lillian Ladouys, up through Cantemerle and Ormes de Pez, up through classified growths like Brane Cantenac, all seem to me to be equal to places like the Loire and superior to places like Burgundy (to mention two of the alternatives mentioned in the article) in terms of delivering value for the buck, these days.
The aging thing may be more of a valid point, though certain folks have been beating the drums here for years that today’s Bdx, even the classified growths, are delicious young (I still age 'em).
Bordeaux just isn’t a region where you have to choose between dreadful plonk or wines priced in the stratosphere, even if t certainly offers both.
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I’m guessing a lot of it has to do with aging. Young natural wines from the Loire and Burgundy (not talking about the classic producers but the edgy, cheaper, natty producers making wines in the Haute Cotes and less exalted terroirs) are generally pretty accessible young in a way that even modern young Bordeaux are not (though they certainly are more drinkable young now than in yesteryears).
Also, marketing to young people, let’s be honest. They get most of their info from social media, and people aren’t putting up posts of Cantemerle on IG while there are plenty of natty producers who sell bottles under $50 that will get those IG and TikTok posts from influencers.
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If the good restaurants are choosing their wine lists based on marketing to young people who are trying to be influencers on IG and TT, then the terrorists have already won.
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Perhaps that says more about societal changes and maybe changing palatal preferences than changes in the wines.
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One of my favorite places we ate at during our visit to France in April was a Taiwanese restaurant in Bordeaux with a killer Bordeaux list. All is not lost!
*We had a bottle of '17 Siran.
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Many of the somms who buy wines for restaurants are young people themselves who post stuff on social media.
It’s not just people being susceptible to social media influences. It is also people who try the wines, happen to like them, and post on social media, which starts the cycle.
I’m sure people legitimately like the wines, it’s not just peer pressure and group think. Hell, I like the wines. (I also like classical Bordeaux).
But, I’m not naive to think that people are going to be excited about a Cantemerle, which has been around for a long time, as they are about some hipster wine made in the Auvergne with an interesting and new story to tell (as much as I like Cantemerle).
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You lost me at hipster.
The cool factor may well be the explanation, though - after all it must be something. That would be disappointing (especially in their own hometown), but it is what it is. People pay extra money to buy jeans with holes in them because they are “cooler” than Levi’s without holes, too. People are strange.
I’m just calling BS on the notion that it’s because all Bdx is either Petrus-priced or plonk, because that is demonstrably false.
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I mean a wine can be both cool (“trendy”) and good at the same time. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
I mean, Lafite was a trendy wine back in the 1800s among hipster London wool merchants.
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I am so glad I had really good people teach me about wine and that I never have been on Instagram or Tick-Tock.
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Or as I call my younger colleagues who are natty wine fans, “Mouseketeers.”
Teasing is my love language.
Now I’ll belt my pants up just under my chest and carry on.
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Online is how people meet today. All of the people I drink wine with are through wine boards like Berserkers (and occasionally IG).
I’m assuming its the same for most people on this forum; they didn’t just meet at a tasting at a local wine store.
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Sort of chuckling at this. Bordeaux is too expensive and luxurious but Burgundy passes the test?
“Burgundy and natural wine have captured the imagination of younger wine lovers everywhere. Bordeaux has come to be seen as stodgy and old-fashioned, a luxury object for status seekers and collectors.”
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I kind of understand. For better or worse, Bdx has gotten an image of a place that produces seas of industrial wine. The lionization of people like Rolland in the media hasn’t helped this.
Personally, I haven’t bought a bottle in years- the higher end ones have gotten ridiculous in price at the same time that they took a stylistic turn toward (for lack of a better word) internationalization. My own break with buying Bdx happened after the 2000s were released- I went to a tasting of all the top marques and found them by and large huge, alcoholic, and anonymous. The only one I really liked was the Cheval Blanc, but a bottle of that cost the same as a case of things I liked just as much. And the reality is that, in my experience, their food-friendliness is much more narrow than many other choices. So I stopped buying and turned my attention elsewhere.
So, yeah, like the hipsters of Bordeaux, I’d rather have a Loire. Or Georgian. Or FLX.
/asbestos underwear on
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The cavistes I’ve met here make no secret of the fact they are extremely reliant on international visitors. But wander into the Carrefour at Grands Hommes and you’ll find a wide variety of good crus bourgeois at less than 20 euros that put American table wine to shame. I’m not ashamed to drink it. I actually see more young people here scouting out craft beer, and oddly enough BrewDog Punk IPA is still widely available here.
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There are at least half a dozen Crus Bourgeois that sell wines with bottle age direct from the Chateau. These have to be the best values in the world for ready-to-drink Cab / Merlot based wines.
But…
you have to know about them
you have to care about them
you have to live somewhere where you have access to them
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I think it’s two separate (but related) things. It seems clear that Burgundy has the shine right now for prestige region, and then when spending less, some folks look for refreshing natural wine.
Come on, this is a non sequitur.
It’s great that you had good mentors. But how many people in the past suffered from not having access to good mentors, or not knowing how to pursue a nascent interest in wine. There were many more transaction costs in the past.
IG/Tick Tock are just platforms, but we’re all still the same humans. So on those platforms is the same range of good/bad advice that you had in the past in retail stores. It doesn’t make sense to equate them with a lack of good mentors. If anything, it’s easier to get good info. The standard story with the internet bringing practical information to your fingertips, etc..
If you’re searching for negative effects of the internet, maybe the speed at which information flows increases the rate of trends, which can be dizzying. But of course that’s not just a wine thing, it’s for all cultural phenomena.
And then for folks like us on this board, it decreases the value of our ‘insider’ knowledge earned through sweat equity. Because these days everyone is spilling secrets to the masses. But it helps when you want that info for something else!
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That seems like a contradiction to me. If people want to eschew Bordeaux for Burgundy, that’s fine. But it seems wild that the perception that Bordeaux is wine of luxury when you have some village wines hitting $250+ for top producers.
I’d also argue there’s much better value in Bordeaux and that’s coming from someone who has really enjoyed going down the Burgundy rabbit hole.
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