Very good point(s), I do believe that Bordeaux as a region has the most to lose when they day comes that RMP stops reviewing though.
Jay is 100% correct, Bordeaux ruled NYC wine-wise in the 70’s. A difference is relative cost though. Back then HB Blanc was a wine that could be enjoyed regularly by regularly successful folks. Now it’s hedgefund-guys-on-a-splurge-night bottle.
Sucks.
Yep. Jay nailed it.
However -
I pretty much grew up drinking Bdx because of my father, but, the past several years, have materially shifted to Rioja and Burgundy*
OMG!!!
Does that mean you only see Rioja as a poor substitute? Please say it ain’t so! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Pretty much agree with him. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of ass … um gentlemen. Bordeaux will always have appeal to a certain number of wine drinkers. Almost exclusively built around style and image. But it will never be like it was for them 30-40 years ago. And with nowhere near enough buyers/drinkers to soak up their obscene production numbers they are drowning in their own juice.
Very well, it ain’t so.
That being said, Bordeaux was a disaster in the 1970s, and very few chateaux actually made money. 1970 was the first vintage that really attracted international attention, but never really got any traction after, and the oil crisis doomed Bordeaux for another decade (not to mention the reputation of the region, as a whole, suffered from some of the wines being doctored).
With Parker’s arrival, and the 1982 vintage, the Bordelais, for the first time, they able to make good money, and it is not altogether surprising they chased the biggest honey pots that were around. Chinese demand allowed them to charge unheard of prices, so they naturally looked to that market. If we felt that the US market was abandoned at the time, let’s realize that we had little loyalty to the estates buying only in great years or when the wines looked cheap. I doubt whether if we bought irrespective of the vintages, it would have made that much difference (Belgium, the most loyal customer for Bordeaux, had their allocations cut).
We tend to think of Bordeaux in the very short term, and frankly Bordeaux marketing is very short term. But things shift, and Bordeaux invariably over a period of time sells its wine. I wouldn’t worry too much that we will see the bottom fall out of the market, although the last few auctions, Bordeaux in particular looked soft, there is plenty of underlying demand when the wines look like good values.
Frank wrote “Interesting that KL was in Bordeaux at all; in his book Adventures on the Wine Route, he notes, almost in passing, that when he got to Bordeaux he didn’t see any hills, which he considered essential to growing top quality grapes, so promptly left the region.”
Shows how ignorant the man is… I’ll show him hills!
AR
St. Émillion (e.g.) IS a hill for goodness’ sake!
Funny – I just read Adventures on the Wine Route. Lynch had it against Bordeaux not just for the hills but for all the (mostly unnamed) producers who, he makes it seem, more or less backed up a tanker truck, held up bottles half-filled with C&H to a spigot, and slapped the names of houses on them depending on which market to which they were meant to be sold.
And as far as Parker goes, here’s KL in the epilogue. “…I received a letter from Robert Parker informing me that my monthly sales brochures were ‘colossal bullshit.’ Now, that hurts…I also remember when my staff showed ma a website in which one of Parker’s writers, Pierre Rovani, called me a weasel. I looked in the mirror and, indeed, beheld not only a weasel, but a weasel capable of colossal bullshit.”
But then he uses that phrase as a mock blurb on a book, and goes on to mention some good times they’ve had together, and to praise Parker’s integrity.
And Lynch does have a couple of Bordeaux in his shop.
His two substantive points (the problems posed by the collapse of the Chinese market will putting downward pressure on prices and the eventual retirement of Parker) are accurate but not terribly insightful. The surrounding verbiage is almost entirely bullshit.
True. My 1975 First Growths were $23.75 or $25 a bottle, which was a quantum leap from prior years. I think I paid about $8 for the 1973 Mouton. I still have it but there’s no price tag on it. I know that the 1974 Haut Brion cost me $6 when I got a case. However, could you even imagine an Italian wine that cost $10 at that time. All the prices are way up and I’m not sure that Bordeaux is the worst culprit. I used to be able to buy good aged CnDP in the late 60s for about $2.50.
Are we sure though? My sense is that we really won’t know until Bordeaux has another good vintage, but it’s quite possible that the Chinese market is mostly out. Three or possibly four vintages in a row of underperforming wines are problematic when wines are selling purely on “brand” prestige. What if Bordeaux only has a few “good” vintages without any more great ones this decade?
There’s always Rudy and his cohort to ‘provide’ back vintages…
Trust me, China’s not going anywhere. It be back and beat the pants off its doomsayers.
For several years, when Bordeaux was something that still stirred the hearts of internet forums (such as eRP), many have argued that a reckoning was brewing: that Chateau had turned their back to their heritage; that Chateau had mortgaged their loyalties to appease an international style; that Chateau gouged their loyal base for conspicuous consumers treating dollar, ruble, ruppee, real, yuan ultimately as a fulcrum - not a connection with a wine lover.
We busybees were shouted out of the room by naysayers - largely those suckling at the teat or too economically or mentally engrossed to see the plain truth. The market bears what it bears! or 1st growths will sell for 10x what they do in 2005, just you wait! Laughable.
The cultural pendulum in the US, at least in pretentious and disconnected New York, is firmly anti-Bordeaux. There isn’t a hint of BDX as a trend that captivates any of my peers or friends in my limited scope of its wine scene. Just using the Loire as an example, the lack of dispersion in flavor profile and style, the absurdity of the pricing, and the palpable disconnect between farmer and product is anathema to this generation’s views towards degustation.
This coming from an unabashed Bordeaux lover. I used to write copious notes and organize many an event around the classic wines of Pauillac, Graves and the like. Not so much anymore.
The trembles are real ladies and gentleman. While styles and trends are generally cyclical, this most recent ride of irrational exuberance is about to correct heavily. It will do much good for the Bordelais in the long run.
Faryan - have to disagree. Some perspective is needed here. Sure, $500 plus on real ease young bdx is out of favor. But I’ve done a few tastings with “your generation” (which I hink is mine as well or barely younger). Put a 90 Bon Pasteur in a flight with $100 Loire wines (which are all selling for more than $100 bc only a few producers can charge $100 Etc) and see what happens.
Truth is in the bottle. I’m no Bordeaux apologist and the chateau have made their own beds for sure. But to suggest that younger collectors have abandoned the classics is not true either. There are plenty of bdx wines that are hand made, honest, delicious and avoid any hit of “spoof,” which seems to be the main issue people make these days.
Marc - I completely agree with you. In the last several years, I’ve bought almost exclusively older vintage wines from Calon Segur, Figeac, Bon Pasteur, Palmer, GPL, Gruaud Larose, Magdelaine, PLL, Cantemerle, Malescot etc… I too believe these wines are almost maligned unfairly due to the pendulum shifting so far anti-Bordeaux that they are neglected. All the better for those of us…
These wines can be found with 15-40 years of age selling at a fraction of their current release. There is still nothing like aged Bordeaux when you are talking about a wine which adds tenor and pitch. But you don’t see me, a spry 29 year old, buying Cos futures or stomaching the price increase in Figeac and Pichon Lalande.
I’ve definitely been one of the naysayers. I’ll have to see if I can get access to EBob for a couple of my posts talking about how I thought Top Bordeaux was in for a reckoning. I’ve posted similar things here, mostly when the 09 and 10 futures were being released (somehow I missed a Keith Levenberg joke riffing on one of my posts that I just caught while searching the archive - Keith, good one, I was only three of four years late on it!).
Marc may know young people collecting Bordeaux. I know virtually none. In 00 and 05, I had people lining up to buy mixed cases of quality estates. In 09 and 10, demand was non-existent.
That said, Bordeaux sold very well for me this Winter. Wines priced from $10-$35 were very popular with all age groups. I would love to see the Bordeaux trade really emphasize those wines.
Once again I’m going to call not true on this. A few minutes of W-S searching on good past vintages of some of the above confirms. If anything, they uniformly cost more the farther back you go (again, ruling out average and below vintages). The market is pretty darn efficient, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t touch any of the back vintages at any of the prices I just saw without knowing provenance.
Marc,
I agree with you.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the pronouncement of Bordeaux’s demise is definitely premature.
It is the touchstone, and people graduate to it, although it is understandable that young consumers find it hard to buy the great wines (and it’s not easy to find the good affordable ones in the US) and wait for them to come around. But they will in time. Trust me.
Also, there’s the pendulum thing…
Let me assure you that Bordeaux is alive and well. Thriving even. If the prices need to come down, they will. Simple as that.
Best regards,
Alex R.