Break for the Bordeaux

A few months ago, a respected British wine merchant said to me: "As the years go by,I stop wondering which Bordeaux wines I should buy, and start thinking whetherI need buy Bordeaux at all."

To the British wine trade, this is a shocking sentiment. Along with the Belgians, and more recently the Americans, we have worshipped Bordeaux.

Even today certain institutions - clubs, colleges, livery companies - put in their annual order with little concern for vintage quality or price. But less regimented consumers, whether personal customers or restaurants, don't feel the same compulsion. The Bordeaux producers are well aware that the world is full of good wine, but they act as though we are all obliged to purchase Bordeaux each year.

Cynical pricing policies are not new to Bordeaux.If the vintage is excellent, we are asked to pay a premium. If the vintage is poor, we are equally asked to pay a premium, as though the setbacks of nature are a joint responsibility. Merchants are told that if they fail to buy in modest vintages, they will be offered less or none of the wine next time a great year comes around. So they are gently blackmailed into purchasing mediocre wines and are then left with the unenviable task of persuading us to buy them. Some of the most extravagant price increases have been imposed, as in 1984, in the weakest years. It is said that supply and demand regulates this pricing, but it is hardly as simple as that.

This is an unfortunate if not unprecedented situation, since a fine Bordeaux remains a sumptuous and satisfying experience. In Bordeaux recently, generous hosts put bottles of 1989 and 1990 Pomerols and St Emilions on the table, and it is hard to beat such wines for pure hedonism. I love good Bordeaux, but, increasingly, can drink it only when someone else is footing the bill.

Rising prices

The rot - or the current invasion of rot - set in after 1995. Prices were raised for the 1995 vintage, but with some justification: excellent wines were produced in the Médoc and the right bank. Then in 1996 prices rose again, with Cos d'Estournel, to name one of the worst offenders, doubling its opening price. In the northern Médoc, where the Cabernet Sauvignon ripened beautifully, 1996 was a fine vintage, but it is arguable whether overall it was better than 1995. (When I returned from tasting the young 1996s in Bordeaux the following spring, I promptly bought a few cases of 1995).

There was worse to come. Prices rose again in 1997 - a weak vintage, badly affected by rain during the harvest. ChÆ'teau Margaux raised its opening price from Ffr300 to Ffr500 (£30 to £50), and many right bank properties imposed similar hikes.

Nobody in his right mind could argue that the 1997 vintage overall is superior to the 1996, especially in the Médoc. So why the price increases?

One reason was that demand for Bordeaux was still strong, especially from the Far East; another was that some chÆ'teaux, such as Cos d'Estournel, wished to increase their market valuation before the estate itself was put on the market.

Now the 1998s are being offered. Prices have certainly come down, by between 20% and 25%. It is a typical Bordeaux absurdity that 1998, far superior to 1997, especially in Pomerol and St Emilion, is cheaper than the lacklustre 1997. But prices had to come down, because merchants were stuck with high-priced and unsaleable 1997s and refused to allow the chÆ'teaux owners to get away with another hike.

It does seem that the Bordeaux market has lost touch with reality. When the wines are good, they can be among the great wines of the world, and consistent performers, such as most first growths and the super-seconds, can get away with high prices. Away from the classified growths there are a handful of crus bourgeois - Poujeaux, Chasse Spleen, Ormes de Pez, Angludet - that still offer quite good value. But petits chÆ'teaux are usually dreadful - or, at best, hit-and-miss - and rarely worth the price asked for them, while generic Bordeaux (Chairman's Claret, Jolly Good St Emilion, etc) is usually even worse. At this price any sensible consumer or restaurateur is going to look instead to Chile or Argentina or Australia.

It dismays me that Bordeaux is losing touch with its market. Fewer and fewer of my wine-loving friends buy the wines. The constant practice of increasing prices for duff vintages insults our intelligence, and most consumers respond by simply looking elsewhere. It is a great shame, as the overall quality of Bordeaux, at the top levels, has surely never been higher.

Within Bordeaux there is considerable debate about the long-term effects of techniques designed to make the young wines more palatable when the influential wine press comes to taste them in the spring after the vintage.

Many chÆ'teaux now encourage malolactic fermentation in barrel, which certainly achieves a more harmonious integration of oak with the wine, and doesn't appear to do the wine any harm. More controversial is micro-oxygenation, which injects small bubbles of oxygen into the wine, which both softens the tannins and allows the wine to be aged on its fine lees. It simply isn't known how, or if, this will affect the wine after, say, five years in bottle.

If red wines are made with increasing skill, there has been a stunning improvement in the quality of white wines too, both from the Graves region as a whole and from the super-appellation of Pessac-Léognan.

So the news from Bordeaux is not all bad. There is plenty left to enjoy even if, for the moment, many of the truly exciting wines must be struck off most of our shopping lists. The 1995s are beginning to look sensibly priced, and before too long, the Bordelais may well return to their senses, and then mere mortals, such as you and I, can begin to buy and drink their wines once again. n