Buying Bordeaux to Drink Not Keep
France is one of the oldest wine producing regions in Europe and is the world's largest producer by value. Despite some small exports from Bordeaux, until about 1850 most wine in France was consumed locally. People in Paris drank wine from the local vineyards, people in Bordeaux drank Bordeaux, those in Burgundy drank Burgundy, and so on throughout the country.
Then, in 1855 at the request of Emperor Napoleon III in preparation for the Great International Exposition in Paris, a regional appellation system was developed for the Médoc. At the request of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce, the Union of Brokers attached to the Bordeaux market identified the Grands crus classés (Classified Great Growths) and organized them into five categories:
- four Premiers Crus (First Growths)
- 15 Deuxiemes Crus (Second Growths)
- 14 Troisiemes Crus (Third Growths),
- 10 Quatriemes Crus (Fourth Growths)
- 17 Cinquiemes Crus (Fifth Growths).
The rankings were based entirely on recent prices. Within two years of the classification system being published, wine sales by the classified producers increased by 250 percent.
Those who have been fortunate enough to have tasted any of the wines can attest to the fact that often they are outstanding and clearly a class above the rest but usually so rare or expensive that only the lucky few can experience them. They are traded, auctioned, cellared with care and rarely drunk! They still command ridiculous prices for outstanding vintages. So what of other properties that didn't make the cut in 1855? Well there were obviously a lot of disgruntled property owners who felt it unfair that their neighbours where given this new status while they, as far as they could see, had vineyards on virtually the same 'terroir' and were capable of making excellent wine. Many years passed before anything further was done but in 1932 the Cru Bourgeois classification was established, naming 444 estates in its rankings. Amendments in 2003 saw this reduced to 247*.
These wines offer consistently good quality and offer much better value for money and we tend to stock those that are ready to drink now rather than needing to be kept before they can be drunk, although most can be kept for a while too.