Bastille Day approaches – a fine time of celebration in Bordeaux and a midpoint in the growing season.
A Good Bordeaux Overview: If you are in the Detroit area, visit the Elie Wine Company in Birmingham. The owner is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to French wines. His emails are informative deep dives for various regions. This month, it was a good lesson in what second labels are for Bordeaux chateaux and why they can be an excellent value. From Elie:
| Rather than shedding tears, Bordeaux adds tiers—and classification is what Bordeaux is all about. While the Grand Vin is expected to be the A-game of any château, with technological advancements and an increasingly warm climate, the price of these top-shelf wines has risen with the temperature, and quality is ensured by an ever more rigorous selection of grapes on the sorting table. Second wines—a tradition begun by Château Margaux in the 17th century—were the logical place to establish grapes deemed unfit for inclusion in the Grand Vin. And since the terroir in which they were grown was often similar, and occasionally identical to the first wines (and generally made by the same vigneron), it stands to reason that the great estates would release these ‘little brother wines’ under some version of their famous name. This name-game association has a downside, of course: As the prices for a château’s main bottling rose, they found that they could easily command more for second wines as well, and inexorably, these began to be priced beyond the reach of many consumers as well. Especially in the Médoc, the cost of second wines crept up to a price point once paid for the first. Some châteaux found a solution in producing third wines, and although fourth wines are not unheard of, the bulk of a harvest that does end up in one of the three is generally declassified and sold to négociants. |
| Price Pressure: Any viable business must weigh the needs of customers with their ability to pay, and the cachet associated with First Growths in Bordeaux is so encompassing that maintaining quality outweighs any need for quantity. It’s fair to suggest that for Bordeaux’s most heralded names, second wines are not a bid for publicity, but exist as a vital—and growing—revenue source. In 2010, for example (one of the best years for quality in decades) only 40% of the harvest went into Lafite’s first wine while a full 55% went into Carruades. In contrast is Château Léoville Barton, who uses about 80% of their grapes for their Grand Vin, a Deuxième Cru. It’s a somewhat unique philosophy, says proprietor Anthony Barton: “We produced some jolly good wines doing things that in the current era would make our oenologist scream. Grapes into one big wooden barrel, crushed by foot in the field. But we made vintages such as 1945 and 1947. The other day I found an invoice for a fiddler who played while we stomped. Now you need velvet gloves for touching the grapes.” |
| Precise Vinification: Other estates, like Château Pontet-Canet, express a goal of vinifying 100% Grand Vin—a once unreachable star brought closer to earth by advancing technology and better land management. Beyond the biodynamic movement which is sweeping most winemaking regions in the world, Picovale weather stations are increasingly allowing vineyard managers to be proactive in the face of incipient bad weather, especially the dreaded springtime frosts. Experience, formerly the sole means of measuring phenolic ripeness and knowing when to harvest, has guided winemakers in Bordeaux since Roman times, but technology can remove the last traces of guesswork. Brimrose Le Vigneron AOTF-NIR Analyzer calculates and levels of sugar and acidity, bringing groundbreaking insight to the exact time winemakers should be harvesting. These innovations allow a much more precise product to be bottled, and with the increasing quest for perfection, they are becoming increasingly indispensable, even in a region where tradition is sacred. |
| Harnessing Young Vines: Older vines are a legacy among wine growers, and when they reach a certain age, it becomes a point of pride. With an expansive root system and substantial permanent wood, these vines have adapted to their environment and are more resilient to drought and extreme weather. At the same time, they are more prone to disease and damage and produce increasingly smaller yields, and at some point, it no longer makes sense to keep them in commercial production. Maintaining a sustainable economic vineyard means replanting, and in Bordeaux, mature vines are often replaced after about 35 years. After that, it takes between ten and twenty years for a vine’s fruit to reach potential, and a natural outlet for grapes from younger vines is an estate’s second and third wines, where it is expected that the tannins will be a bit coarser and less integrated, but which will mature more quickly than Grand Vin bottlings. |
| Access to Quality: In fact, the idea that second wines can be enjoyed earlier than their big brothers is one of their main selling points. Great wines may take twenty years to reach their apex; a lesser version may deliver its entire package upon release, or at least, within a few years. Second wines may come from the same winemaker who makes the first, and even the same plots of ground, but the philosophy is different. By using slightly less newsworthy fruit in the second wine rather than the first, the quality of the Grand Vin is expected to remain high; the alternative may to produce more Grand Vin with lesser grapes, but which would consequentially, be available at a lower price. It’s an endless balance, well summarized by Anthony Barton: “While I don’t believe that you can go too far in the search for perfection in wine, you can certainly go too far in search for profits.” |
Weather Watch: Speaking of weather, it’s the time of year where vigneron begin watching summer storms carefully. There was localized hail on June 3 in Entre Deux Mers. Damage seems light – although they’ve had a lot of rain. More on the storm from French site Vitosphere.
RIP Jean-Michel Cazes: Cazes was a formidible figure in Bordeaux as a co-owner of Lynch Bages and a businessman who oversaw massive growth of his own holdings and others in the wine business in Bordeaux. He was a major figure in the past 20 years overseeing massive expansion in a number countries for his own, AXA’s, and his family’s holdings. Wine Spectator has more.
The Best of Bordeaux White – An excellent review of a recent vertical of Domaine de Chevelier’s Pessac-Leogne white Bordeaux from wine writer Michael Apstein. He has a great overview plus wine tasting notes on vintages from the past 40 years including the 2017, 2010, 2001, 2000, 1993, 1990, 1989, 1983, and 1980.
The Definitive 2022 Overview: Simon Field MW wraps up his summaries of the 2022 vintage and en primeurs with an overview report at World of Fine Wines.
Price Watch for 2022: Everyone seems to be watching whether prices for 2022 Bordeaux have reached a ceiling. First growths raised prices by 20%, but others seem to be holding steady. The question will be what the market has to say about it. LivEx reports there may be buyer hesitancy following En Primeur release pricing. Additionally, prices in the secondary market seem to be falling across the board. We may be settling into a trend of prices skyrocketing on first growths only, while the lane for Bordeaux which sells at its value widens throughout the region. If you’re not married to the labels and know what you feel is a good value for the money, you’ll do fine.
Mouton Rothschild: If you follow Mouton at all, you’ll know they are famous for featuring labels from a notable artist each year. Here’s a lineup of the artwork since 1945! Jane Anson drops the tidbit that they’ll announce the 2022 label artist on December 1 (and do it each year on that date annually.)
Drone Show at Wine Festival! Everyone’s posting videos of the spectacular wine-themed drone show at Bordeaux Wine Festival. Take a look and enjoy the lightshow for yourself!
Connecting. Creating. 
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