BORDEAUX It’s the most renowned wine region in the world, its history a litany of legendary names, its classified growths the most coveted wines in any cellar. But who are today’s real Bordeaux powerbrokers? Which châteaux are on the rise? Where are the best spots for visitors to seek out? And does this sprawling yet exclusive vinous playground still hold the same cachet, and appeal, as in days gone by? For the answers to these questions, and exclusive tasting reports on some
PHOTO: MARTIN MORRELL
classic vintages and the promising new arrivals, read on.
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THE VITALS LE PAN analyzes what makes Bordeaux the world’s greatest wine region.
Bordeaux is arguably the world’s greatest finewine region, a touchstone for generations of wine lovers. More fine wine is produced here than anywhere else, and a case of a great vintage from a top château can cost as much as a family car. Recently, though, Bordeaux has been hit by waves of tumult. First, prices spiraled to unprecedented heights for the 2009 and 2010 vintages as Chinese buyers became enamored with its wines. Then, just as quickly, they became disenchanted and, at the end of 2011, prices plunged. Today, thousands of cases of unsold, young Bordeaux lie dormant in merchants’ warehouses. Not a major problem for the top 60 to 70 châteaux, but many of the remaining 7,000 struggle to find buyers. Price spikes linked to the buzz around different vintages have always affected Bordeaux,
but they have never been quite as steep as today. Expect to pay double the price for a first growth from the 2010 vintage as you would for the same wine from 2013. Meanwhile, the transformation in styles over the past several decades has been equally dramatic – from lean, moderate and restrained to full-bodied, ripe and powerful: testosterone-filled wines catering to critics’ rather than consumers’ palates. The maelstrom is mirrored in the hierarchy of classed growths, which is also less stable than in previous years. Bordeaux is the only French appellation where it is the producer – rather than the vineyard – that is ranked, and these producers’ holdings have changed hugely since they were first graded in 1855. A clutch of ambitious estates now consistently perform above their classification
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status, fetching significantly higher prices than their peers. Lynch Bages, Pontet-Canet and GrandPuy-Lacoste, all fifth growths, are tremendously successful, as is the well-deserving Palmer, surely misjudged as a third growth. Beychevelle, DuhartMilon and Branaire-Ducru also perform at least a notch or two above their fourth-growth status, in quality as well as in price. Some châteaux, on the other hand, seem to lag behind. Second growths Brane-Cantenac and Gruaud Larose should be achieving higher prices, while Dufort-Vivens, Rauzan-Gassies and Lascombes often under-deliver. Meanwhile, third growths such as Kirwan, Desmirail, Ferrière and Boyd-Cantenac seem to have lost their way. In such an unstable world, proven performers are welcome for their consistency.
P H OTO : 4 C O R N ER S I M AG E S / I N F O G R A P H I C S O U R C E : L I V- E X
The Palais de la Bourse in Bordeaux
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Vintage Price Fluctuations Not only has the price of Bordeaux's top wines come tumbling down in recent vintages, but the value of these wines has also fallen dramatically since they were first released, leaving many buyers staring at a loss on their investment.
（约￥83774）
TOP VINTAGES
Reds
$14,604
$13,644
（约￥89668） AT RELEASE
2010 Powerful, intense and long-lived
MARCH 2015
2009 Opulent, ripe, appealing 2005 Traditional, structured, with great aging potential 2001 Underrated, perfumed and harmonious 2000 Balanced, supple but over-
$6,288
（约￥38608）
$4,584
（约￥28145）
$4,284
（约￥26303）
hyped 1996 Robust, complex, starting to peak 1995 Balanced, supple, ready to drink 1990 Voluptuous, ripe, at its peak but with 20-plus years to go 1989 Structured, firm and less open
$9,037
$8,937
$4,659
$3,872
$3,333
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
（约￥59825） （约￥56303） （约￥29259） （约￥23619） （约￥20397） VINTAGE
First growth average yearly market prices in US$ per case (12 x 750 ml bottles)
12 x 12 The 12 BEST VINTAGES of the 12 BEST PRODUCERS Latour 1945
IN THEIR PRIME 1
Beychevelle 1961 2
Lafleur 1979 3
Ducru-Beaucaillou 1982
Pétrus 1982
4
Palmer 1983
Le Gay 1989
Haut-Brion 1989
5
Gruaud Larose 1990
La Conseillante 1990 Margaux 1996* Cheval Blanc 2001* Pavie 2005* Haut-Bailly 2009* Ausone 2010* *To cellar
harmonious 1982 A true legend that has stood the test of time 1970 Starting to fade 1961 An eternal wine, with the best still going strong
Ducru-Beaucaillou 1961
Montrose 1989
than the 1990 1986 Big, still powerful and
OVERPRICED 1. Pavie 2003 2. Cos d’Estournel 2009 3. Angélus 2011 4. Ausone 1999 5. Mouton Rothschild 1990
Dry Whites
Sweet Whites
2012 2010 2007 2006 2005 2002 2001 1998 1996 1994
2011 2010 2009 2007 2005 2003 2001 1997 1996 1990 1989 1988 1986 1983
Lively, balanced and elegant Great concentration, long-lived with great freshness Fresh, focused and pretty now Pure, balanced and lively Concentrated, intense, reaching its peak Wonderful intensity, ready to drink Detailed, vivacious and elegant Attractive, ready to enjoy now Crisp, lively, a pleasure to drink now Top wines are still going strong
Sumptuous, sweet and age-worthy with firm acidity Vivacious, detailed, lovely acidity Opulent, concentrated and rich Generous, intense, complex Balanced, focused and elegant Sweet, dense, unctuous Complex, harmonious, still youthful Attractive, intense, just opening up now Lacy, elegant, with fine detail Rich, generous, at its peak Exciting, layered flavors and ready now Elegant, balanced, drink now Beautifully expressive, ready to drink Pure pleasure
Living Up to Designations Though the 1855 classification has stood the test of time, some properties perform significantly above – or below – their official rank. Pontet-Canet, for example, a fifth-growth estate, regularly sells at higher prices than several third and fourth growths. DURFORT-VIVENS $283 $333 $433
2nd GROWTH
$479 $449
RAUZAN-GASSIES $324 $393 $557 $489 $543
BOYD-CANTENAC $393 $441 $484 $535 $495
3rd GROWTH
DESMIRAIL $317 $250 $252 $377 $396
FERRIÈRE $246
Château Latour has chosen to leave La Place
$274 $279 $495
CONTROVERSY Place de Bordeaux on the Edge
$401 $439 $495 $559
BEYCHEVELLE $566 $682 $722 $858 $894
DUHART-MILON $666
$686 $775 $850 $969
LYNCH BAGES 5th GROWTH
$859 $983 $1,014 $1,407 $1,643
PONTET-CANET $832 $862 $832 $2,087 $2,336
YEAR:
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
Yearly average market price in US$ per case (12 x 750 ml bottles)
SOURCE: LIVE-EX
system is antiquated when it is now so easy to identify customers and sell direct. Defenders point to the efficient distribution channel that can shift tens of thousands of cases around the world in a day. La Place is now at a precarious stage, having to prove its relevance in a new, transparent marketplace with customers fully aware of the various layers within the system and wary of tying up their money too early. Currently, the power rests firmly in the hands of the top châteaux. This is a golden age for them, with vintages like 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2010 helping them to amass huge financial reserves. The châteaux have little incentive to sell at a price that would undermine their long-term pricing strategy. Meanwhile, négociants and merchants are finding it challenging to sell wines that are unrealistically priced. If such a situation persists, say some, there will be casualties, with the whole system potentially heading for a crash. While La Place is likely to survive in the short term, its longevity depends upon the ability of the châteaux to read the market more accurately and adapt long-term rather than opportunistic pricing strategies.
$346
4th GROWTH
The majority of fine wines in Bordeaux sell through a multitiered distribution system called the Place de Bordeaux. The process starts in the April following the harvest, when thousands of trade buyers and critics gather to taste the young barrel samples on behalf of their customers and readers during the crucial en primeur week. As ratings and commentary are released, prices are set by the châteaux on ‘La Place’, merchants make their positions, and the wines are offered to consumers to buy as futures, two years before delivery of the bottled wines. The system has given rise to a well-oiled, multilayered, global distribution network, but recent disenchantment, particularly in China, reveals problems. Traditionally, buying early meant getting in at the lowest price. But prices can decline, as they have in the 2009 and 2010 vintages. The current oversupply means new releases should be appearing at lower prices, but this hasn't happened, with producers worried about devaluing unsold back vintages. Some châteaux like Latour are now leaving the system and choosing not to sell futures, creating a rift. Critics of La Place claim the
$559
BRANAIRE-DUCRU
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FINE BORDEAUX A GUIDE KEY ZONES L E F T BA N K The communes (villages) of Pauillac, Margaux, Saint-Julien and Saint-Estèphe
OTH ER N OTAB LE APPELL ATI O N S
are locked in eternal combat for the hearts, minds and wallets of the world’s fine-wine collectors. With first-growth prices still high, Cabernet Sauvignon-based ‘super second’ growths like Ducru-Beaucaillou, Cos d’Estournel and Léoville Las Cases are ever more in discerning consumers’ minds. These wines may have increased in concentration and alcohol over the past decade, but they are now coming back in balance and retain the essence of their respective commune terroir. Outliers such as Grand-Puy-Lacoste (Pauillac) and Lafon-Rochet (Saint-Estèphe) have been excellent buys in vintages like the 2009 and 2010, when their more celebrated peers have been overpriced; for great value in recent vintages, look for Calon-Ségur (Saint-Estèphe), Du Tertre (Margaux) and Clerc Milon (Pauillac).
R IGH T BA N K Recent years have seen the rise and fall of the garagiste winemakers in Pomerol and Saint-Émilion, where wines are dominated by Merlot and Cabernet Franc, respectively. For a period of time, these small producers made intense, powerful, highly extracted wines that are now fading from fashion, thankfully. As well as the great names such as Pétrus and Le Pin (Pomerol) and Cheval Blanc and Ausone (Saint-Émilion), look out for the balanced, beautiful wines from Troplong Mondot, Clos Fourtet and Canon-la-Gaffelière from Saint-Émilion, and La Conseillante, Trontanoy, Vieux Château Certan and Le Gay from Pomerol. Meanwhile excitement continues with many producers unhappy with the recent 2012 Saint-Émilion reclassification that saw Angélus and Pavie rise to Premier Grand Cru Classé A, joining Cheval Blanc and Ausone.
T H E R E ST Château Haut-Brion, the only first growth outside the Médoc, has shone consistently in recent great vintages without its prices hitting the hyped-up levels of some vintages of Lafite or Mouton Rothschild. La Mission Haut-Brion, its stablemate, is the only winery that sits between the first growths and the ‘super seconds’ – in vintages like 2010 and 2009, it proved on a par with the first growths. And a little further south are the increasingly fabulous dry whites and reds from Pessac-Léognan as well as the unloved (by the fine wine market) sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac. Other notable appellations include a handful in the north and east of the region, particularly around the satellite villages of Saint-Émilion.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTIN MORRELL
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HAND-LETTERING: PAUL ANTONIO SCRIBE
The backgrounds of Bordeaux luminaries Christian and Cherise Moueix couldn’t be more different: his forebears were French farmers; hers were Chinese diplomats. But, as JOHN CARLIN reports, a chance encounter 22 years ago led to a shared mission to nurture some of the world’s greatest wines, most notably Pétrus.
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ne day in 1993, Christian Moueix, one of the world’s most eminent winemakers, walked into an art gallery in Paris. Little did he know that an encounter lay ahead that would lead to the creation of his life’s richest blend. For it was here that he met Cherise Chen, an American of Chinese descent. A year later, they would be married. Twenty-two years on, still happily married, and sitting in the lounge of the elegant home the couple shares on the banks of the Dordogne river, in Bordeaux’s wine country, Cherise, tall and slender, recalls that first meeting. The chemistry, she smiles, came later. First, and critically, Christian was that rare thing: “A Frenchman who spoke English.” Cherise had been running the art gallery for a year, but her French was not yet up to the finer points of the conversation that ensued. “We hit it off because of our shared love of art.” What also did it for him, what led him to explore a deeper relationship, she explains, was that she did not have any idea that before her stood the man who made the finest, most worldrenowned Bordeaux wine. “I had never heard of Pétrus; I didn’t even know how to spell it,” says Cherise, chuckling at the recollection. “When I phoned my mother to tell her about this wonderful man I had met, I told her he was a farmer.” Far from being offended, Christian was charmed. Celebrated as he was at home and abroad, having stewarded one Pétrus harvest after another to magnificent fruition over the previous 22 years, he found before him an attractive and – in all respects but one – manifestly worldly woman who was utterly unimpressed by his achievements. As Cherise interprets it: “Christian thought, ‘She knows nothing about wine so that means she has to be interested in me’.” Cherise, 41 at the time and unlike Christian never before married, became keenly interested in him when she discovered he met a requirement she sought above all others in a man. “He had a big sense of
Top left and above: In the winery at Château La Fleur-Pétrus in Pomerol Top right: The vineyard at Château Bélair-Monange in Saint-Émilion Opposite: Christian and Cherise Moueix in the fields at Bélair-Monange
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“I had never heard of Pétrus. When I phoned my mother to tell her about this wonderful man I had met, I told her he was a farmer.” – CHERISE CHEN MOUEIX Top: 1995 Trotanoy at lunch: ‘let it caress you’ Right: Artwork by sculptor Richard Serra stands guard between the family home and the Dordogne river
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mission.” The mission, as longstanding as it was arduous, was to make the best wine possible. But now he found that a new mission had been unexpectedly thrust upon him, namely to win this intriguing woman’s love. It was one in which he also triumphed. This is no Cinderella and the prince story. If anything, it is the other way around, as Christian himself acknowledges with an amiable smile when he joins our conversation an hour after I have sat down with Cherise. “I have to accept that it is she who has the more impressive family pedigree.” She certainly has. Cherise regards herself as the classic American of immigrant stock who was fortunate enough to have fulfilled the American dream. Sometimes when she meets visitors from China they are awestruck, she says, at what they judge to be her aristocratic lineage. Her response is to make light of their comments, but I, too, am in awe when she runs through her family history. She starts in the mid-19th century with her maternal great-great-great-grandfather, Li Hanzhang, governor of Guangdong and Guanxi provinces, and his more formidable younger brother, Li Hongzhang, a viceroy, general and immensely powerful diplomat who opened up China’s foreign policy, steering it towards a previously unheard-of degree of rapprochement with the West. Cherise opens a family photo album to show portraits of her two illustrious ancestors posing impressively for the cameras, including one striking image of Li Hongzhang alongside the Russian tsar, Nicholas II. Among other relatives from that time was a tutor to the Chinese emperor as well as several who became wealthy bankers and factory owners. A strong streak of Anglophilia ran through the family (children were given English names such as Anna and David, and Li Hongzhang received, among many other awards, a medal from Britain’s Queen Victoria). Diplomacy ran through the line too, most notably in the case of her paternal grandfather, Chen Chieh, who was China’s ambassador to Germany in the 1930s. Cherise, who has a photograph of him standing next to Adolf Hitler, says he had to leave Germany in haste after the country signed a military pact with Japan – the two Asian powers were at war at the time. From there he went on to become China’s ambassador to Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, adding Spanish to his command of English. Yee-Chun Koo, her grandfather on her mother’s side, meanwhile, studied economics at Ohio State University in the United States. In 1944, he was a delegate at the Bretton Woods conference (which established the post-war monetary system) and later became treasurer of the International Monetary Fund. The family left China in 1946, amid the turmoil of the civil war, and Cherise’s parents followed in the footsteps of their respective forebears. Her mother, Clara Koo Chen, worked at the World Bank, while her father Chia-Poh Chen was a diplomat. The latter never reached the heights
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of his illustrious father, however, and was destined, as Cherise sees it, to live life in his shadow. Cherise was born in 1953 and, following her parents' divorce, was raised by her mother in Washington DC in circumstances which, though by no means poor, bore little relation to the opulent lifestyle enjoyed by their predecessors. A fine student, she majored in economics at Mount Holyoke College in Massachussetts. She took her mother’s advice and went into banking, where she rose high but never felt entirely at home, prompting her to move into the art world, where her passion lay. It was a move that took Cherise in turn to that fateful Parisian art gallery, where she came upon another passion that was to make her life complete. While Cherise’s family were living the high life and rubbing shoulders with tsars, queens and European and Latin American dictators, Christian’s were farmers living in homes with mud floors, and struggling to raise cattle in France’s rough, hilly and unglamorous Massif Central. It was not until the 1930s that the Moueix family’s fortunes turned, when Christian’s grandparents headed west towards Bordeaux. Christian’s father JeanPierre was a self-taught man with a talent for business – his son calls him a “visionary”. He established himself initially as a wine merchant in Libourne, and in 1937 founded the now world-renowned company, Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix. In the 1950s he began buying wine properties in the Pomerol region, which then enjoyed nothing of the reputation for wine production it does today. His acquisitions of Trotanoy and La Fleur-Pétrus, as well as Châteaux Magdelaine in neighboring Saint-Émilion, culminated in the purchase of the mighty Pétrus in the 1960s, a wine that came to world attention after it was served at the coronation of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Christian, the president of the company his father founded, ran Pétrus from 1970 to 2008, whereupon he handed over the reins to his elder brother, Jean-Francois. In the wine world he will forever be regarded as Monsieur Pétrus, but today he has nothing further to do with the family’s flagship brand and dedicates himself, at the age of 68, to a wider portfolio than he has ever overseen before. As well as striving with as much zeal as he invested in Pétrus to bring the best out of the grapes on the Trotanoy, La Fleur-Pétrus, Hosanna, Latour à Pomerol, La Grave Trigant de Boisset, Lafleur-Gazin and Lagrange properties, and Bélair-Monange in Saint-Émilion, Christian has expanded his family empire to California’s Napa Valley, where he owns the Dominus estate, producer of highly acclaimed Cabernet Sauvignon. The Moueix family story might seem one of rags to riches, while that of the Chen family, given its once-exalted status, more riches to rags, but sitting with Christian and Cherise first in their lounge and then in their dining room over lunch, you get the sense of a perfect fit. Although she had
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to learn a new language (Christian’s advice at the beginning was “Drink more!” she says, smiling) and acquire the sense of history, geography and culture necessary to become accepted as fully French, she has made the transition with the graceful ease to be expected of someone whose family has long had diplomacy and foreign travel in its blood. The couple is as comfortable with each other as they are with their surroundings, which are lavish – a grand mansion built to a subtly playful architectural design on the leafy fringes of the town of Libourne, just outside Bordeaux. Valuable works of contemporary art cover almost every available inside wall. The large grounds are peppered with tall trees alongside three imposingly monolithic slabs of corten steel, by renowned American sculptor Richard Serra, that stand guard over the wide estuary of the Dordogne river, racing in full flow down to the nearby Atlantic ocean. Cherise, who once worked in an art gallery, now lives in one. Yet their understated manner, even as lunch is served by domestic staff so serenely skilled they would be quite at home in a three-Michelin-starred restaurant, lends the opulent environment an ease and natural simplicity of mood. There is nothing forced or ostentatious about the couple. They are not show-offs; they are workers – hard workers – as befits both their family lines. The lunch conversation, encouraged along by a bottle of 1995 Trotanoy, ranges from Serra’s art, to literature (they both love poetry), to football (Christian’s secret passion) but gravitates inevitably to wine, the cause that today binds them both and on which they jointly toil. “Our goal is to make the most beautiful grapes possible so as to produce the most beautiful wine possible,” says Cherise. She concerns herself with some administration matters and with global marketing work, but prefers to describe herself, with an excess of modesty, as Christian’s “cheerleader”. He, undoubtedly, is the master spirit, the man of the terroir – the genius at one with the soil and climate he inhabits. But he would be the first to agree with the quote variously attributed to Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein that genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Is Christian obsessive about his work, I ask Cherise. “I’d say dogged, rather. He was born in the Year of the Dog and, yes, he is loyal, driven, industrious, always working away in the fields, pruning, pruning away.” Seizing my cue, I ask Christian to talk about pruning and his eyes light up. “Pruning a plant is an art. The whole future of the wine is there, and I don’t just mean the next vintage but the vintages to come. Each shoot, each bud is of vital importance. You must prune with the brain, you must prune with love.” Pruning, a task he both supervises and personally engages in with almost fanatical devotion, is done in winter. As summer looms, “canopy management” becomes of the essence: trimming the shoots to the right length and width to control the impact of the sun on the grapes, avoiding the perils of scorching. In August, a month before the harvest, there comes the no-less-delicate task of choosing which grapes to crop. “The grapes are still adolescents at that stage,” says Christian. “They need to be shaped, the coming harvest must be given equilibrium.” Where there were 10 clusters there are then seven, so the wind will run through them freely and the sun will shine on them. In September comes the big decision he must always make: the day on which the harvest should begin. What happened in 1998 stands out in Christian’s mind. It offers an example of his meticulousness, but also of his flexibility. He had assembled his team of 100 grape-pickers, each of them selected for their skill and devotion, and they were all ready to start work when he decided that the moment was not yet right. The weather forecast was excellent and he saw the opportunity to wait a little longer.
“My goal is perfection and with Pétrus I know that if I had to do it again I could not do it better.” – CHRISTIAN MOUEIX
Above and top: The wellappointed Moueix family home near Libourne on Bordeaux's Right Bank Opposite: Burning the canes at Bélair-Monange on a crisp winter's day
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Right: Li Hongzhang, younger brother of Cherise’s great-greatgreat grandfather, in Qing court ceremonial regalia Below: An old family photograph of Cherise’s grandmother (seated front right). Standing on the right is an uncle, Bien Po-Mei, the first Chinese graduate student at Brown University in the United States Opposite: Christian personally supervises all the pruning
So he made the decision to take the team to the beach for the day. On their return the forecast had changed, and they had to start harvesting right away. Such was the motivation of the team that it brought in the harvest in record time, finishing on September 30. On October 1, the rain came. 1998 turned out to be one of the great vintages for Pétrus. “Tending the vineyard with thought, precision and affection is everything,” explains Christian, who gives the impression when he talks of his plants that he relates to them as if they are human; that he nurtures them as if he is a doting teacher and they are his children. And what about the adult, finished product: the wine in the glass? How does he drink it? In response, he sniffs at his glass of 1995 Trotanoy. “You smell it first and you find that it is very ripe, but plum ripe, not prune. There is a fine line between plum and prune, but this is wonderfully plummy, round. The smell is so delightful you are not in a hurry to taste the wine.” Then he takes a sip and pauses for thought. I expect a poetic outpouring now; some talk of bouquets and roses, truffles and berries. But, save perhaps for the observation that it tasted better 15 minutes earlier, there is no pretentiousness. “It is so enjoyable. It is not an intellectual wine. You can skip the brain. Just enjoy it, let it caress you. It is among the best of Pomerol.”
“ Pruning a plant is an art. The whole future of the wine is there.” – CHRISTIAN MOUEIX As for Cherise, who started out “ignorant about wine”, as she puts it, but became demanding after meeting Christian, she now drinks wine with every meal. “What I like in a wine, if I am lucky, is complexity. If I am picky, I’d say I want length, that it should linger on in the memory as smells do. But I don’t need Picasso every time.” Pétrus is Picasso. How did Christian feel about losing a bond that had defined more than half his life? “If I had been older and had no time for other projects it would have been painful, but after 38 years I was short of new ideas to develop the wine. My goal is perfection and with Pétrus I know that if I had to do it again I could not do it better. It was as good as I could do. My good fortune is that I have enough dynamism at my age to engage in other projects, with other châteaux, to provoke my extra love, plus California, which excites me, especially as I can experiment more there and learn new things. I left Pétrus four years ago, but I am busier than ever, and I feel I have more freedom to pursue my mission.” There is the word ‘mission’ again; that drive and sense of purpose that won over the no-less-exacting Cherise 22 years ago. What does it consist of, in the end? How do they define it? For her it is about producing wines that deliver “magic moments”. He thinks much the same but, instead of answering me directly, reaches for a piece of paper on which he has set down the words – pruned, ripened, distilled, matured – that capture the essence of how he regards his life’s work. “Wine is a message that you send out to scores of individuals who you will never meet in places that you may never visit. And because we have this chance to send a message, possibly a powerful or a lasting one, the vineyards and the wines must be crafted with the utmost attention to quality and, dare I say, with love.”
CHRISTIAN’S D OMAIN Bordeaux: Bélair-Monange Hosanna La Fleur-Pétrus La Grave Lafleur-Gazin Lagrange Latour à Pomerol Trotanoy Napa Valley: Dominus
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IS IT OVER FOR BORDEAUX
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Five years ago, top Bordeaux was the only wine to be collecting and serving in new markets around the world. Now, the whirlwind romance has turned sour. JEANNIE CHO LEE asks whether it can ever be rekindled, or is it the end of a ‘golden era’.
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n a cold winter’s evening six months ago, I welcomed a group of wine merchants and opinion leaders for dinner in Shanghai. There was no specific agenda; it was a casual gathering of friends to swap stories, gossip and drink wine. I asked everyone to bring a bottle, and was astonished to find that among 16 people, not one brought a Bordeaux. I hosted a similar dinner for a dozen folk this spring, and again there was not a claret to be seen. This time, I was not surprised. Out of the twice-weekly, sometimes nightly, private wine dinners I attend, there have been only three Bordeauxthemed events over the past 12 months. The disenchantment with Bordeaux in China and Hong Kong runs deep. It is now well into its fourth year. From seasoned collectors to wine newbies, the sentiment is the same – Bordeaux wines are not something to flaunt or share. In Beijing it is even worse, with once much-coveted wines such as Lafite and Margaux now associated with excess and luxury, and avoided publicly. Instead, they gather dust in restaurant cellars and merchants’ warehouses.
RISE & FALL As recently as 2009, China represented a mere eight percent of Bordeaux exports. It was only the region’s fourth-biggest export market by volume and didn’t even rank among the top five by value. Within two years, China, together with Hong Kong, had become Bordeaux’s most important market by value and volume, importing about five million cases a year. By 2012, top châteaux were confiding to me that they calculated between a third and half of their production was destined for China. Lafite was the darling of the business elite; all the top châteaux including Pétrus, Mouton and Margaux were available only on allocation, and the young 2009 futures were trading for more than US$1,000 per bottle. Prices have come down by 40 to 60 percent from this peak, and demand has waned. To understand why, one needs
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to be familiar with guanxi, the social currency that lubricates business deals and forges relationships in China. In the past 15 years, generously pouring top Bordeaux wines became part of the business fabric, a way of ‘giving face’ and showing respect to important clients and officials. All of this changed in 2012. President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption, and the subsequent enforcement of frugal spending, had a direct impact on the demand for high-end Bordeaux. John Watkins Jr, former CEO of importer ASC Fine Wines, says as much as 50 percent of all premium wine in China was related to government spending. “The austerity measures meant that 80 or 90 percent or even more of these purchases were eliminated.” Gifting of fine wine has fallen off dramatically, says Marcus Ford, general manager of Pudao Wines, the retail arm of Summergate, one of China’s largest importers. “We have seen internal company memos from large multinationals which preclude their senior executives from using premium wines [defined as being more than US$25 per bottle] for entertainment or gift purposes.” Ford estimates that in the case of first-growth Bordeaux, this accounts for a fall in demand of up to 70 percent. “There is certainly a huge amount of these wines still in warehouses in China. What we are seeing is an increasing sophistication from wine buyers, with a greater emphasis on value.” The impact on the industry has been dramatic. Many importers have been forced to close or are being bought by larger companies with deeper pockets. Summergate is one such example; in September 2014, it was taken over by Australian retail giant Woolworths. Ford says about 1,000 out of the 6,000 or so importers in China exited the market in 2014. Those that remain are being forced to adjust their strategy, relying less on executives in the gifting and banqueting world, and more on true wine lovers. Many see this as a positive shift since merchants must now cater to genuine consumers and collectors. “The market will continue to expand, driven by nearly 40 million real wine consumers – people who buy imported wine and drink it,” says Watkins. It is not only the wine trade in China that is trying to weather the storm, but hotels, restaurants and all food-andbeverage outlets selling high-end wine. In the past several years, many restaurants reliant on government and private
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banqueting have shut their doors, shrinking the wholesale business. The official government banqueting budget has been slashed to about RMB 100 (US$16) per person, depending on the province. Ordering any expensive wine, spirit or food such as abalone or sea cucumber is frowned upon. The most popular items on the wine list these days, according to Kerry Qin, sommelier of the China Grill at the Park Hyatt Beijing, are moderately priced non-Bordeaux wines – he cites Cordero di Montezemolo Langhe Arneis DOC 2012 and Bodegas Maurodos San Román 2009, priced at US$135 and US$147, respectively. Bordeaux is moving much more slowly than in the past, with fourth and fifth growths being most in demand.
MONEY TALKS China’s crackdown on extravagant gift-giving is not the only factor behind Bordeaux’s woes, however. The increasing power of the châteaux and their need to maintain an upwardly moving pricing strategy is frustrating some traders. Eric Desgouttes, general manager of Hong Kong and China importer Kerry Wines’ Fine Wine Division, rolls his eyes with the exasperated look of a parent dealing with a spoiled child. “The last four vintages [2010 to 2013] have been a great challenge to sell en primeur because prices
In Beijing, once much-coveted wines such as Lafite and Margaux are now associated with excess and luxury, and avoided publicly.
were too high,” he says. “In most cases you can buy many of the same wines cheaper than when they were released. If en primeur prices remain out of line, my advice to our company and our customers will be not to buy futures.” Watkins adds: “The high-growth ‘bubble’ period for imported premium wines, fueled by government-funded purchases, is completely over. We do not foresee it returning.” Watkins believes interest in en primeur revolves more around the quality and buzz surrounding the vintage, and that none of the vintages since 2010 have been considered special. Overall, though, he is cautiously optimistic about the immediate future. “There was certainly oversupply of Bordeaux in China from 2011 to mid-2014. But based on the customs clearance statistics, imports from France began to increase in the second half of 2014. Bordeaux still represents 50 percent of our sales.” And China, it shouldn’t be forgotten, remains the number one destination for Bordeaux red wines. Supply of young Bordeaux remains plentiful in Asia, Europe and the United States. “I think there is pressure for some importers to reduce large [high value] stockholdings,” says Jeremy Stockman, general manager of Hong Kong and China retailer Watson’s Wine. “This is particularly true for some of the newer importers.” For consumers, then, this is the time to consider restocking cellars as importers slash prices and sacrifice margins to generate cash flow. Forty years ago, negociants wielded as much power as the châteaux, soaking up their inventory to give producers a steady income year after year despite vintage variation. Now, the power lies among the top 70 or so châteaux, which are reluctant to drop prices on en primeur wines even if consumers and trade alike bemoan rising prices and stockpiles of inventory. For the châteaux, lowering prices risks devaluing their young, unsold wines and can adversely affect the prices of older vintages. Clearing stock in this way has a cascading effect – and going down in price is always much easier than climbing back up the ladder. The quality of recent vintages has not helped. While 2014 is an improvement over 2011, 2012 and 2013, the market is still awash with young, unsold claret. But reducing prices on a vintage such as 2014 can send the signal that the wine is inferior to previously higher-priced vintages. The dilemma remains: reduce prices to meet over-
supply, lower demand and market conditions, or keep prices high to maintain brand and market position? Every château must make this decision and, as yet, there is no agreement on which is the ‘right’ approach. Prices are all over the place, some staying flat while the majority has increased from 2013. One key factor can sway how a château decides to set prices, however: high scores from critics such as Robert Parker. In 2011, while doling out high ratings to numerous châteaux for the 2010 vintage, Parker warned about exorbitant prices. The market took no heed and the 2010s were priced higher than the similarly wellreceived 2009 vintage. The price was too high for consumers and the trade to swallow; there are still plenty of 2010s on the market. Anyone who paid peak prices for them in 2011 will be kicking themself for tying up their money with little hope of any return. This year, though, marks a new era for the way in which ratings influence prices, since Parker announced his retirement from evaluating Bordeaux En Primeur [see our Grape Debate feature on Parker’s waning influence, page 112]. With his ratings no longer a key factor, market forces and economic sentiment will have a stronger influence in determining prices. For importers and retailers like Watson’s Wine’s Stockman, the main concern is diminishing demand and sales of Bordeaux’s top wines, the part of its portfolio that previously offered both volume and good margins. One London fine-wine merchant, who wanted to remain anonymous, confided: “The top châteaux are just too rich. And being rich makes you both complacent and arrogant. They don’t need to sell, so they don’t worry if their prices are out of line and no one will buy. Consumers are feeling this as much as we are, and they are not interested. Who can blame them? There are many other fine wine regions in the world and consumers are turning more towards Burgundy, Rhône, and top Italian and Spanish wines.”
VI E WP OINT
AMERICAN REBOUND At its peak, China and Hong Kong made up nearly half of many top châteaux’s young wine sales. Sales of older wines grew too, with Hong Kong’s auction sales in 2010 and 2011 surpassing New York and seeing the region, for a few years at least, crowned as the fine-wine auction capital of the world. While that crown has since slipped, Hong Kong remains an important auction market, just behind New York with London a distant third. Now, though, the Bordelais are eyeing the American market, with the weak euro and the rebounding of the US economy adding fuel to their hopes. Jeff Zacharia of Zachys, which has retail and auction businesses in New York and Hong Kong, is optimistic about US consumer demand, pointing out that during the 40 years of the firm’s existence, he has seen “a number of swings in the business”. “While we are certainly off the peaks of 2011 and 2012, as long as we find the right price there is still a lot of demand for the great wines of Bordeaux,” he says. “We had a good year for Bordeaux in 2014 and 2015 is starting out even stronger.” While retail looks hopeful, Bordeaux needs to overcome hurdles in restaurants, where American sommeliers’ constant search for the new and different – particularly in the trendsetting urban centers of the east and west coasts – sees the region left out in the cold. Fashionable restaurants, such as Slanted Door in San Francisco, hardly have any Bordeaux on their lists, a trend reflected in numerous restaurants on both coasts, where the lists are curated by savvy young sommeliers. In the Year of the Goat, February 2015 to February 2016, Bordeaux producers will rely more on traditional markets such as the US, United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany, to pull the region out of its slump, both in terms of sales and image. The changing economic environments in Europe and the US are helping to shift attention to the West. The austerity measures in China are likely to continue for the next several years and the prevailing Asian sentiment is that there is no reason to buy Bordeaux as futures. The question is, for how long will Bordeaux as a whole be
shunned by a public wary of being judged for excessive material outlay – an unwanted image that has become ingrained in people’s minds. Patricio de la Fuente Saez, managing director of Hong Kong-based distributor Links Concept, is hopeful that the mood will change. “The austerity measures are a correction in the market and Bordeaux will always be popular in China; I have no doubt about that whatsoever,” he says. “Bordeaux sales in Hong Kong have always been very strong and will continue to be strong; the richer people get, the more they will continue drinking Bordeaux because it is perceived to be the best that money can buy.”
THE FUTURE OF FUTURES Ultimately, the centuries-old Bordeaux distribution system will take more than a few missteps to crumble. Collectors in the US have always been finicky buyers, purchasing the ‘best’ vintages while passing on the mediocre ones. When there is a great vintage, another 2009 or 2010, I for one foresee the Americans coming back strong. However, as Zacharia of Zachys says, the en primeur system is “weakened and fragile”, and it will take the combination of a great vintage and a serious price correction for the Americans to return to the futures market en masse. What we have gone through in the past four years is a necessary price correction, a return to sanity and a welcome relief from spiraling prices. There is no doubt in my mind that despite the challenging times, Bordeaux will survive and win back the hearts of wine lovers, thereby allowing the trade to make enough margin to continue running a business. But how quickly can this be achieved? In China, the steady consumption growth
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“ The top châteaux are just too rich. And being rich makes you both complacent and arrogant.” rate of about 10 percent per annum for imported wines is healthy and reflects real wine interest rather than speculators driven to invest by a hyped-up trade. Moderately priced Bordeaux at US$30 or below offer both value and quality. Sadly though, the pricing and behavior of a handful of top châteaux continue to affect the perception of the entire region, meaning buyers are looking elsewhere, notably to Burgundy, Rhône, Spain and Italy. Ultimately, nearly all fine-wine businesses rely to some extent on Bordeaux, be it via futures or older vintages. There are too many stakeholders both in the production and trading of Bordeaux wine for the region not to rebound within five years. The most fragile part at present is whether the en primeur system will survive if the Bordelais get the pricing wrong with the 2014 vintage. The responsibility lies with the Bordeaux elite – châteaux such as Lafite, Margaux, Haut-Brion, Mouton, Cheval Blanc, Ausone and Pétrus – to get the prices right. Like China itself, Bordeaux’s image and prices are dictated from the top, and these decisions have a strong trickle down effect. If prices are reduced sufficiently, these elite players will win back the hearts of wine lovers and appease the trade; otherwise, they will disappoint everyone once again and create a serious fracture in the system. Bordeaux’s place on the tables of New York’s Upper East Side and the private clubs of Shanghai is not as assured as some châteaux might believe.
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Bordeaux’s hierarchy has long been set in stone. Yet recent surges in quality have propeled some estates beyond their official status. GREGORY CHARLES speaks to the men and women who are the region’s new movers and shakers. PHOTOGRAPHY BY GÉRARD UFÉRAS
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VÉRONIQUE SANDERS Château Haut-Bailly, Pessac-Léognan
Playing the Long Game
Wine, claims Véronique Sanders, has its own language. “It’s a language of time, of generations,” she says. “Of respect, perseverance, patience . . . and humility.” Château Haut-Bailly, the estate over which Sanders presides, has harnessed all of these qualities and more over the course of its 500-year history. Sanders proudly tells the story of how, by the start of the 20th century, the estate was a “regional reference point, sold at the same level as the first growths”. Ebbs and flows in the intervening decades brought it back down to earth, but those in the know say that today the château is close to reclaiming its former glories. There have been difficult times, however. When Sanders’ grandfather, Daniel, bought the property in 1955, he took on a rundown vineyard. A long replanting process followed, continued in 1979 when his son Jean took over. By 1998, the granddaughter had joined. That year, the property was bought by American banker Robert Wilmers, who retained Sanders as manager. His investment was much needed; the critic Robert Parker gave the 1999 a derisory 78
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Four hectares (about 10 acres) of plantings from the late 1800s – mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, but with a small proportion of Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot – still exist on the château grounds. Fondly referred to as the ‘grandes dames’, these prephylloxera vines never needed grafting to American vines.
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points. Sanders was devastated, and while she says there was resistance to altering the house style, changes to vinification were made. The winery underwent a complete renovation in 2000, allowing wines to be vinified individually by plot in 30 temperature-controlled cement vats of different sizes. The precision was matched in selection, with grapes sorted three times to streamline quality. Renowned consultant Denis Dubourdieu joined, followed in 2004 by Jean-Bernard Delmas, previously of first growth Haut-Brion. By 2005, the wines were showing much greater style, precision and quality. Today, they blend finesse with spice, ripe fruit with supple texture, and elegance with complexity. Sanders describes 2008, 2009 and 2010 as among the château’s most “precise” wines, “preserving the Haut-Bailly soul, but gaining in intensity”. For his part, Parker recently upgraded the 2009 to a perfect 100 points. Quite a turnaround.
+ STAR BOTTLE Château Haut-Bailly 2010
MÉLANIE TESSERON Château Pontet-Canet, Pauillac
New Kid on the Block
Horses are used to turn the earth at Pontet-Canet, adding oxygen to the soil but in a more gentle way than by tractor. The property currently has seven horses, which between them cover about half the vineyard. It plans to build stables for 14 horses to enable them to plow the remainder.
When the young Mélanie Tesseron came to Pontet-Canet to visit her grandparents, she would scramble through the vineyards collecting pebbles of Pauillac’s renowned quaternary gravel. Years later, her uncle Alfred invited her for dinner in London, and told her he wanted her to come and work at the family château. A graduate of graphic design at Central Saint Martins college, Tesseron was working in television in the United Kingdom at the time. Not long afterwards, she was top of her Masters in Wine Property Management class at Bordeaux University, and on her way to completing her wine-tasting diploma. Today, having spent two years in Hong Kong developing the Asian market, Tesseron oversees operations at the château, standing in for her uncle and traveling the world to promote the estate (and the family cognac range, Tesseron Cognac). “I pinch myself to make sure this is really happening,” says the general director of arguably the biggest success story in Bordeaux’s contemporary history. As powerful as the momentum behind it, Pontet-Canet continues to improve year after year. Although only a fifth growth, the château is being ranked by critics on a par with the best second growths, and for some vintages as good as firsts. Based on current prices, the market agrees. While many châteaux embrace new technology, Pontet-Canet has moved in the opposite direction, doing everything possible by hand. Instead of computers making harvesting or fermentation decisions, it consults astronomy charts. In 2010, Pontet-Canet became the first major Bordeaux producer to be certified both organic and biodynamic. “The moon and the seasons influence what we do,” says Tesseron. “We're aiming to harness the ultimate respect of the land. Nature is both strong and fragile, but incredibly well designed. Our actions are about bringing balance and protection.”
+ STAR BOTTLE Château Pontet-Canet 2009
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BRUNO BORIE Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, Saint-Julien
The Maverick
P H OTO : R I G H T: V I N C EN T T S A N G
Bruno Borie is not the typical owner of a Médoc second growth. Sleek in his black polo neck or open neck shirt, he is more Parisian advertising creative than Bordeaux aristocrat. It’s an image that is reflected at Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, where pop art dominates the walls and wine labels are designed by Jade Jagger. Approaching 60 but young in spirit, Borie took over the Saint-Julien estate in 2003, on the death of his father. He wasn’t the son most people expected to see at the helm. That was FrançoisXavier, who had spent 28 years working in their father’s office, learning and then running the business. Bruno was on the outside – “the black sheep” as he puts it – having spent 20 years managing French aperitif wine Lillet. It was a self-imposed exile that taught him all the things they don’t teach you at Bordeaux wine school – packaging, marketing, online skills – in short, how to create a brand.
Borie returned to Bordeaux with clear ideas about the path Ducru-Beaucaillou should follow. His brother didn’t share them. They soon decided they couldn’t work together, and it was Bruno who prevailed, as François-Xavier retreated to run Pauillac fifth growth Grand-Puy-Lacoste instead. That understanding of a brand has reaped practical benefits in how Borie splits his resources across the five labels the family owns. He knows how consumers think, that “for a special occasion you open a Ducru-Beaucaillou, while for more casual moments – a Sunday brunch, perhaps – you have a Listrac”. He put all his efforts into the grand vin, relentlessly pursuing quality to the extent that the amount produced today is about half of what it was 30 years ago, the rest being relegated to the estate’s second wine. The reduction of quantity has led to increased quality, with recent vintages harnessing that perfect balance of ripe but savory fruit and firm but polished tannins.
Borie produces four additional wines with the Ducru team: Croix de Beaucaillou, which made its debut in 1995; Lalande Borie, which comes from fruit grown in parcels purchased from SaintJulien's neighbor, Château Lagrange, in 1970; Château Hortevie, also in Saint-Julien, which was purchased by Borie in 2006; and Château Fourcas-Borie in nearby Listrac, which he bought in 2009.
+ STAR BOTTLE Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2005
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JEAN-VALMY NICOLAS Château La Conseillante, Pomerol
Man in the Shadows
A third of La Conseillante’s vines, backing on to those of Cheval Blanc, are actually in the appellation of Saint-Émilion, although the majority are in Pomerol.
On a good day, crystal-clear skies allow an unhindered view across the vineyards of Pomerol. In January 2004, however, when private-equity investor Jean-Valmy Nicolas took his place on the family council of Château La Conseillante, the rain fell. Nicolas wasn’t unduly concerned, and he didn’t take it personally. For while like many Bordeaux estates, La Conseillante is under family control, unlike many of its peers, the Nicolas family does not dictate its winemaking. The three family members on the council have other things to worry about, thanks to the stipulation that none of them should make their income from the property. And so it was that, after reigning over the estate for the best part of 150 years, the family appointed an outsider to run it the year before Nicolas took his place on the board. That outsider was winemaker Jean-Michel Laporte, who was given the goal of establishing La Conseillante as Pomerol’s uncontested number two behind Château Pétrus. Many believe that Laporte is well on the way to achieving the feat – and Nicolas is among them.
Similarly to Haut-Bailly, recent progress can be put down to the instillation of a state-of-theart vat room that allows for different vineyard plots to be vinified separately, a process that brings “more complexity and freshness” says Nicolas – qualities also realized by the decision to rein back on the use of new oak. The wines today display a pronounced fragrance of violets, and Nicolas speaks of a “distinct perfume”, as if emanating from a “bowl of truffles”. He may not be a winemaker, but his focus on the château is unwavering. “Each and every one of the 50,000 bottles that we produce each year is a calling card from our family.”
+ STAR BOTTLE Château La Conseillante 2009
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GÉRARD PERSE Château Pavie, Saint-Émilion
Finding the Right Track In his days as a Paris supermarket tycoon, Gérard Perse was a Left Bank man. Not in terms of his social life in the capital, but his drinking habits – for Perse, it was Médoc all the way. Even on his frequent business trips to Bordeaux, with the ringroad not yet complete, Perse rarely made it across the Gironde. Eventually, though, he succumbed to the many enticing descriptions he’d heard of Saint-Émilion, and enjoyed a drawn-out lunch in the pretty medieval village perched atop the limestone slopes. There, the combination of sun, good food and good wine convinced Perse that his next purchase should be a château. In 1993, he acquired Monbousquet. Since then, Perse has been very much a Right Bank man. Five years after his first purchase, he splashed out US$31 million on Château Pavie, also in Saint-Émilion. Working relentlessly since 1998, Perse and his team – bolstered by the appointment of renowned consultant Michel Rolland – went all out to make as big an impact as possible on the Bordeaux establishment. The wine became notorious for its dense concentration and was lauded in the United States. Perse achieved his ultimate goal when the property was promoted to Premier Grand Cru Classé ‘A’ in 2012, putting it on a par with Châteaux Cheval Blanc and Ausone. The secret to his success? “You have to really want it, to believe in your dreams. You must be courageous, pragmatic and visionary. And you must never give up.” So what’s next? “Olive orchards in Les Baux de Provence,” comes the surprising answer. And no, Perse has not become bored with wine – he’s already considering buying a neighboring vineyard so he can add a rosé to his portfolio.
+ STAR BOTTLE Château Pavie 2005
A spanking new cellar and winery were opened in 2013, complete with a 0.1-hectare (0.25-acre) plot in front, planted to a new clone and rootstock of Cabernet Franc.
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M IL L E NNI A L M AGIC ? It was hailed as the vintage of destiny, lauded by critics and loved by consumers. Yet 15 years on, is Bordeaux’s 2000 vintage all it’s reputed to be? JEANNIE CHO LEE decides after tasting more than 50 wines.
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have to confess, I have always felt that 2000 was an overrated vintage. I have had the opportunity to try it many times in bottle since its first release. At five years of age it was young and going through its dumb period; then at 10 it was balanced, harmonious, with ripe, soft tannins. Yet still I asked myself, “What is the fuss about this vintage? Where is the greatness?” Each time I had tasted more than 40 wines from this vintage which many critics labeled the best since 1982, I could not have disagreed more. In March this year, I decided to revisit the vintage again, with an open mind. In Hong Kong I gathered six wine lovers to taste 16 wines from 2000, including all the first growths. The wines were tasted non-blind, except for the first growths which were tasted blind, in one flight. And while it was a highly enjoyable experience, the results were mixed. The Right Bank wines were all very good, delicious and ready to drink now, including the plush, generous Cheval Blanc (although I could not help comparing it with the 2001, a much better vintage for the château). La Conseillante was lovely but definitely evolved and showing its age, as were Tertre Roteboeuf and Clos Fourtet. Angélus incited debate – with some, like myself, feeling the wine was trying too hard with its spicy oak, polished tannins and dense, modern style while others enjoyed exactly those flavors and that modern style. The wines from the Left Bank were good but not spectacular – Gruaud Larose was average, Pontet-Canet not up to its current high standards, while there were solid efforts from Lynch Bages and Haut-Bailly. All the wines were ready to drink, with an ability to cellar, although not as long as in the top vintages. The wine that really impressed me – and everyone else in this tasting – however, was the Pichon-Longueville Baron. I kept it to taste alongside the first growths and it was the wine I finished first. Exuberant and complex, it showed generosity, depth and a sensational array of flavors. Christian Seely, managing director of the estate, should be very proud of his decision to introduce strict selection in 2000. This was the first year in which Pichon Baron chose only the best barrels for the grand
vin, making 200,000 bottles rather than the 380,000 produced in previous years. The five first growths were impressive, with their clarity of flavors and unique personalities shining through. Mouton was the most open and accessible, with its usual flamboyant character, but not much depth and concentration in this vintage. But happily for Mouton, with its special black bottle etched with a gold ram and the magical three zeros at the end of the vintage, the wine sold extremely well. Margaux was seductive, and as usual the most accessible at this early stage. Behind the delicate perfume lies a wine with great intensity and minerality, giving it the ability to age for decades. Latour was the most backward, even after two hours of decanting. It finally started to show itself at the end of the evening, and what we could glimpse in this youthful wine was power, concentration and linear build – a wine to cellar for decades. Lafite was the most enigmatic, as usual, with subtle flavors, fine-grained tannins and wonderful restraint. But if you listen to its quiet tones, you begin to feel its intensity and presence – this is a beautiful Lafite with great potential to age. Haut-Brion was the only wine in the Hong Kong tasting that was corked. A few weeks later, I tasted it at the château and it was beautiful. A
he wines have T ripe tannins and their flavors are attractive, but the vintage lacks a certain tension and energy that the best years possess. THE
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harmonious wine that is classic Haut-Brion – cigar box, blackberry and savory spices with firm, velvety tannins. This is a wine to lay down and wait at least another five to seven years before enjoying. Still unconvinced, I arranged a second tasting of the 2000s, in Bordeaux, where I was able to retaste most of the first growths along with 33 more wines. Five of the wines, including four first growths, were tasted in Hong Kong as well as in Bordeaux and what struck me was that I consistently marked the wines tasted in Bordeaux one or two points higher. In Bordeaux, I found more freshness and lifted flavors, while the palate had more vibrancy and detail. At the end of the evening in Hong Kong, we concurred that 2000 Bordeaux is a very good vintage with some fabulous wines. There had been no bad wines, but neither had any – with the exception of the Pichon Baron – wowed us. As a whole, the vintage does not live up to the hype or the prices. The majority of the 2000s we tasted are ready now, with evolved, bottle-aged flavors starting to show. Overall, the potential to cellar the 2000s does not seem nearly as great as for the 1996s or the 2005s. The wines have ripe tannins and their flavors are attractive, but the vintage lacks a certain tension and energy that the very best years possess. The wines don’t vibrate on the palate. Prices have always been high for this vintage. In 2001, when the 2000 en primeurs were released, this vintage broke all records, with prices for most wines jumping 30 to 50 percent from the previous vintage. It was the most expensive vintage to date, a fact that was only intensified when critics on both sides of the Atlantic raved about it. Looking back, this was the year when prices started to escalate out of control, coming to a frenzy for the 2009 and 2010 vintages. Bordeaux 2000 is a solid, very good vintage with some fabulous wines at the top end and it’s definitely better than the three vintages preceding it. But if I had to bet long-term on a vintage from the 1990s and 2000s, this one would not be in my top three; indeed it would not even make my top five.
The tasting took place at Amuse Bouche restaurant, Hong Kong
BETTER THAN THE 2000 Jeannie Cho Lee’s top five vintages from the 1990s and 2000s: Médoc 1990, 1996, 2005, 2009, 2010
Right Bank 1990, 1998, 2005, 2009, 2010
TWO DECADES IN BORDEAUX How the 2000 vintage compares in price
PHOTOS: VINCENT TSANG
1990 1996 2000 2005 2009 2010
Château Margaux
$1,762
Château Latour
$1,117 $1,153 $1,769 $1,855 $1,752 $1,815
Château Laf ite
$1,734 $2,663 $2,279 $2,010 $1,650 $1,649
$1, 345 $1,482 $1, 301 $1, 395 $1,441
Château Haut-Brion
$851 $1,056 $1,172 $1, 364 $1,530 $1,256
Château Mouton Rothschild
$922
$842 $1,710 $1,248 $1,866 $1, 308
Château Pichon Longueville Baron
$372
$263 $305 $269 $260 $314
Average US$ retail price per bottle from wine-searcher.com, excluding highest and lowest prices; April 2015
THE R ANKING The best 2000s Château Margaux Château Tertre Roteboeuf Château Haut-Brion 98 95 96 Premier Cru, Margaux
Premier Cru, Pauillac
Saint-Émilion
Gorgeous wine with amazing layers of flavors – floral, lively, with mixed berry and sweet spices. Focused, precise and fresh with great linearity. Very long finish – this is one of the best 2000 wines.
Supple and beautiful with great intensity and depth. This Haut-Brion is still young and closed with dark
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decanting in bottle to show its true colors.
An intriguing nose of eucalyptus, mint and sweet spices followed by a supple palate of ripe plum, cassis and aged tobacco. There is an exuberance and richness that is balanced by freshness and firm, ripe tannins. A gorgeous Tertre Roteboeuf with the potential to age for decades.
Château Lafite
Premier Cru, Pauillac
A glorious rendition of the vintage that is expressive and beautiful after two hours of decanting. Lovely notes of violets, sweet spices and herbs with cedar. Lifted and giving now but still very young; it has many decades of life ahead. It was a better bottle at the château than the one tasted in Hong Kong.
Château Latour 97 Premier Cru, Pauillac
A big, concentrated Latour with dark fruits and earthy flavors that did not open up until three hours after decanting. Firm, structured tannins support flavors of blackberry, cassis and cedar on a long finish. The wine has the intensity and linear focus to cellar for decades. One of the more backward 2000s.
Château Cheval Blanc 97 Premier Grand Cru Classé A, Saint-Émilion
A gorgeous Cheval Blanc that is plush and ripe with a firm, structured backbone. It is still vibrant with some primary fruit of blackberry and cassis accented by mocha and cocoa on the finish. Tannins are ripe, velvety and beautifully textured. A seamless wine from beginning to end with great potential to age over the next two decades.
earthy notes and velvety firm tannins. Needs a few more years to open up or at least a few hours of
95 Château Brane-Cantenac Deuxième Cru, Margaux
Château Troplong Mondot 95 Premier Grand Cru Classé B, Saint-Émilion
Silky, subtle and layered with delicate flavors that linger on the palate. Brane-Cantenac is never about power but is always elegant and balanced with restraint and intensity. The 2000 has a long, delicate finish. Still youthful and able to age for a few decades easily.
Château Cos d’Estournel 95
Deuxième Cru, Pauillac The 2000 Pichon Baron was my greatest discovery in this vintage – an amazing wine that outshines all of its second-growth peers and is at the same level as the best first growths. While Latour and Lafite may surpass it in longevity, Pichon Baron makes up for it in its wider drinking window. This wine is at its glorious peak now – complex layers of cassis, blueberry and violets are accented by notes of cinnamon and licorice. A phenomenal wine that is a standout in this vintage.
Clos Fourtet 95 Premier Grand Cru Classé B, Saint-Émilion
Deuxième Cru, Saint-Estèphe
A gorgeous wine with seamless texture and
This is a gorgeous wine that has none of the tough Saint-Estèphe tannins one would expect. Open and accessible with attractive violets and a sweet cedar nose. The palate is supple and velvety with a beautiful array of flavors ranging from cassis and spices to aged tobacco. Just starting to peak, although it has a long life ahead.
wonderful, focused black fruits and spices with none of these characters out of balance. Amazing elegance
Château Haut-Bailly 95
Château Giscours 94 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste 94 Château La Mission Haut-Brion 94 Château Mouton Rothschild 94 Château Pape Clément 93 Château Montrose 93 Château d’Armailhac 92 Château Beychevelle 92 Château d’Issan 92 Château Rauzan-Ségla 92 Château Clinet 91 Château Durfort-Vivens 91 Château Lafon-Rochet 91 Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion 91 Château du Tertre 90 Château La Gaffelière 90 Château Lagrange 90 Château Cantemerle 89 Château La Tour Carnet 89 Château Léoville Barton (Half bottle) 89 Château Talbot 89 Château Clerc Milon 88 Château Lascombes 88 Château Langoa Barton 87 Château Tronquoy-Lalande 85
and effortless grace on a long finish.
THE REST
Grand Cru Classé de Graves, Pessac-Léognan Restrained, utterly Haut-Bailly in style with classic subtle notes of tobacco, tea leaves, black plum and savory spices. A beautifully textured, classy wine that is just opening up. At its peak, but will age well over the next decade.
Château Pichon-Longueville Château Léoville Poyferré 97 95 Baron
Lovely flavors of mocha and cocoa surrounded by dark fruits and plum. A beautiful wine at its peak that will keep for a few decades – the finish is long and the tannins are substantial and velvety.
Deuxième Cru, Saint-Julien
This is a gorgeous Léoville Poyferré with vibrant flavors of plum, cassis and sweet spices. This is delicious now, but the structure suggests it will age easily for at least decade or two. Well done!
Château Pichon Longueville 95 Comtesse de Lalande Deuxième Cru, Pauillac
A seductive Pichon Lalande with opulent, supple tannins and layered flavors. The wine is still youthful and fresh with violets, aged tobacco and blackcurrant. Delicious now but will age beautifully over time. Classic Pichon Lalande – elegant and silky with freshness.
Reviewed by Jeannie Cho Lee MW in Hong Kong and Bordeaux. For more reviews of the best Bordeaux vintages and 12,000 tasting notes, visit lepanmedia.com
PHOTO: OLIVER SCHWARZWALD. SET DESIGN: ELENA MORA
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BORDEAUX 2000 DECONSTRUCTED Red currant, plum and hints of violets, with tannins as smooth as fine cotton. Friendly and youthful, these wines call out and say, “Drink me! I am ready to party.” If this wine were a person, it would be a confident young woman, just turning 21, and realizing that life is about the here and now.
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R I G HT B A NK ROYA L T Y Cheval Blanc is one of the most revered names in the wine firmament, with certain vintages from the Saint-Émilion estate achieving near legendary status. JEANNIE CHO LEE chronicles their journey and tastes a broad selection, dating back to 1947.
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owards the end of July 1947, the temperature in Saint-Émilion hit 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). It stayed there for a week. Then, on August 1, the temperature rose above 40 degrees. Jacques FourcaudLaussac, the owner and winemaker at Cheval Blanc, was worried – not just about the heat, but the drought. Since spring, there had been hardly any rain, meaning the vines were having to deal with the double stress of intense heat and no water. Most châteaux in Bordeaux harvested from early- to mid-September in 1947 and as the grapes came in there was concern about the lack of freshness in the juice. In an era when chaptalization – the addition of sugar – was common in order to boost alcohol levels to 12 percent, 1947 was a freak vintage, with alcohol naturally reaching 14 percent. When the grapes were brought into Cheval Blanc in September, the temperature was still in the high 30s. There were no cooling rooms, temperature-controlled vats or any easy method of keeping the grapes cool. Fourcaud-Laussac, like many other vignerons in Bordeaux, was concerned that the wines would become faulty and undrinkable, with high volatile acidity or other microbial problems. As the heatwave continued, bringing the yeast to a frenzy and consuming the abundant sugars in the grape must, his first concern was cooling the vats. There was only one way to do so. Thus the legendary 1947 vintage of Cheval Blanc was made with plenty of large chunks of ice added to the fermentation. This now renowned wine, considered by many critics – this one included – as one of the finest clarets ever created, was a freak of nature. Initially Portlike in its luscious texture, it has evolved into a sensual, layered, intense wine, a symphony in a glass, even after almost 70 years in bottle. It is a jaw-dropping wine that walks that fine line of ultra-ripeness without going over the edge. Yet it was created almost by accident. In the years since 1947, there have been fewer accidental vintages at Cheval Blanc, but
several that are equally sublime. I have been fortunate to taste 28 assorted vintages, mostly in Bordeaux and in Hong Kong, over the past 12 months. This vertical overview, which includes the magnificent 1947, reveals the different facets of Cheval Blanc’s personality, as well as its exceptional terroir. In the early 1830s, the vineyard that makes up the core of Cheval Blanc was part of the larger Château Figeac estate, which stretched to about 200 hectares (about 500 acres) and was owned by Countess Félicité de Carle-Trajet. The countess decided to sell the estate, and part of it went to the Ducasse family, one of whose daughters married into the Laussac-Fourcaud family (whose surname subsquently evolved into Fourcaud-Laussac). Under this stewardship, Cheval Blanc’s boundaries were established, and the area under vine has remained at 37 hectares from the 1870s to today. Set on the border between Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, Cheval Blanc lays claim to a unique terroir. Some of its vineyards are planted
Nowhere in the world does Cabernet Franc express the kind of richness, depth and complexity that it does at Cheval Blanc. THE
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on similar soils to those that lend the likes of Pétrus and Le Pin their renowned opulence and lush texture. In these clay soils the Merlot does best, and 42 percent of the property is planted with this variety. The remainder is planted with Cabernet Franc on more complex soils that range from gravelly mounds to gravel over clay. Nowhere in the world does Cabernet Franc express the kind of richness, depth and complexity that it does at Cheval Blanc. This underrated variety, constantly in the shadow of Cabernet Sauvignon and used mainly as a blending grape, is the backbone of the wine here, adding dark earth and savory herb flavors while providing the structure for the wine to age gracefully for decades. In vintages such as 2014, it is the Cabernet Franc that “makes the vintage” according to CEO Pierre Lurton. The year 1998 was a propitious one for Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, and Belgian tycoon Baron Albert Frère. It was then that they were able to purchase Cheval Blanc from the Fourcaud-Laussac family, and by pure chance it turned out to be one of the best vintages in many years for Saint-Émilion producers, outshining even 1996 and 1995, which are considered better across Bordeaux as a whole. By then, Lurton had been at Cheval Blanc for seven years. “I didn’t have such good timing,” he admits. “I arrived in 1991 and I was there throughout that most challenging growing season. My first tough call was to decide that we should not make any Cheval Blanc that year. So no 1991 Cheval Blanc was made.” With Lurton at the helm, and the deep pockets of LVMH to hand, the estate has gone from strength to strength. It is not only the grand vin that has improved in consistency, however. Petit Cheval, its second wine, has made huge leaps in recent years, and is much higher in quality today than when it was created in 1988. The wines are in the capable hands of the young, dynamic technical director Pierre-Olivier Clouet, while continual investments have been made, most notably the opening of a new US$18.5million winery in 2011.
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In September 2012, Cheval Blanc and Ausone were joined by two newly elevated neighbors, Pavie and Angélus, in a very elite group – the only four Saint-Émilion wineries classified as Premier Grand Cru Classé A. Since then, representatives of both Cheval Blanc and Ausone have gone on record to express dissatisfaction with the classification, with Pauline Vaulthier of Ausone telling The Drinks Business: “I don’t even use the Premier
reverted back to the 1996 version, which remained in effect until 2012 when it was again reviewed (the exercise should occur every 10 years). While there is dissatisfaction in some quarters with the system, with many critics arguing it revolves around politics and money rather than wine quality, there is no doubt that it can make a difference – both Pavie and Angélus have enjoyed significant price rises since their elevation.
Left: Cheval Blanc's Pierre Lurton with Jeannie Cho Lee at the tasting in Bordeaux
The aristocrat
Few estates share the majesty and repute of Cheval Blanc, a château steeped in history. Its
Above left: The recently built cellar at Cheval Blanc
wine paints a picture as vivid as its distinctive setting on the exclusive fringes of SaintÉmilion. In its youth, it tends to be rather rigid and stern, redolent of the new, dark leather of a gentleman’s study filled with the aroma of strong tobacco and cedar from the humidor. Imagine the best Cuban cigars surrounded by young, fresh blackberry and black currant. The texture of the wine is equally plush, like a velvet smoking jacket. Devoid of rough edges, it simply glides across the tongue. With time the wine opens up, as if the
PHOTOS: GÉRARD UFÉRAS
Grand Cru Classé A title on our marketing material any more – I’m keen to distance myself from the situation.” Vauthier is referring to the aftermath of the 2006 controversy when four producers successfully petitioned against the results of the classification, accusing several members of the judging panel of having a vested interest in some of the châteaux. In July 2008, a court ruled that the 2006 process had not been impartial, and the classification
previously dark study were bathed in light, to reveal its trappings: beautiful paintings from old masters of the 17th century gracing the walls, and leather-bound tomes with gilded edges lining the bookshelves. Like the wine, the room is flooded with the bouquet of violets and lavender. In the same way, after about 15 to 20 years, Cheval Blanc becomes fascinating, its flavors ranging from flowers and sweet spices to plum, dark earth and black truffle. Now the owner of the study comes into view: a man with class and royal lineage, an ageless European aristocrat, slim and tall with great posture and a face that is kind yet aloof. This is the grandeur of Cheval Blanc.
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THE R ANKING Top 10 Cheval Blanc Vintages In the best years, Cheval Blanc is pure hedonistic pleasure – opulent, exuberant and joyful. The obvious vintage to represent the best of Cheval Blanc is 1947, but 1961, 1964, 1982, 1990, 2001 and 2005 all exemplify its depth, complexity and long aging potential. There were some wonderful surprises among the wines
1947
I tasted – vintages considered weak, such as the 1972 and 2002, were delicious – and there were also a few disappointments, such as the 1988 and the 2007, both falling below the expected standard. Overall, though, the 28 vintages, spanning six decades, reveal the glory of a truly great terroir.
100 2005
98
This most legendary of wines, the subject of primitive winemaking, sings in a glorious voice with a range of
Classic Cheval Blanc with notes of dark earth and black tea supported by ripe, velvety tannins and
flavors that is simply mind-boggling. Sweet, supple and layered, with great length, this is pure sensuality
plenty of dark berry fruit. One can detect black truffle and great structure behind the balanced flavors,
in a glass.
hinting at a complex evolution to come. One of the best vintages of the decade.
1964
100
A perfect Cheval Blanc that is beyond words. Gorgeous, complex flavors with evolved, bottle-aged
1961
97
A wonderful 1961 showing very little sign of
notes of black truffle, forest floor and leather. Silky tannins with all the elements in balance; supple,
evolution. Astonishingly, at more than 50 years old, the wine is just peaking, displaying an array
gorgeous with a very long finish.
of flavors encompassing truffle, cedar, earth and
1982
100
If a wine can be hedonistic and seductive at the same time, it would be the Cheval Blanc 1982. I have had the privilege of tasting this wine twice over the past six months and on both occasions I fell in love with it on the first sip. It has the maturity and depth of a
Pu’er tea. Wonderful concentration, excellent, ripe tannins and the silky texture of a well-matured fine Bordeaux. It should keep for another decade or two in the right conditions.
1990
97
Dark garnet with slight fade. Plummy, ripe dark
beautifully aged 30-year-old wine, yet maintains the freshness and structure of a wine at least 10 years
berry flavors overlaid with spices. Rich, generous and velvety texture, with luscious fruit. A wine still in its
younger. A perfect Cheval Blanc.
youthful prime.
2001
100 2000
97
A powerful, intense, voluptuous Cheval Blanc that is the best Bordeaux red of the vintage. The wine is
A gorgeous Cheval Blanc that is plush and ripe, with a firm, structured backbone. It is still vibrant with
complete, with a mix of herbs, blackberry, plum and a hint of black truffle. The palate explodes with flavor
some primary fruit notes of blackberry and cassis accented by mocha and cocoa on the finish. The
without any heaviness or effort – seamless from beginning to end, with a persistent, lingering finish.
tannins are ripe, velvety and beautifully textured. All in all, this is a seamless wine from beginning to
One can still enjoy its youthful exuberance, but this will be at its best in five to eight years.
end, offering great potential for aging over the next two decades.
1998
98 1985
A fabulous nose of exotic spices, cocoa, ripe violets and sweet, dried dark berries. This is a gorgeous, seductive, silky Cheval Blanc with a long finish. In 1998, the Merlots were beautiful and here they make up a higher-than-average proportion of the blend – 60 percent. The first vintage under the auspices of the LVMH group.
96
Incredibly perfumed, with supple, silky tannins. This was a warm vintage and the wine displays lovely ripeness and sweetness as a result, married with red flowers and sweet spices, and a very long length. Hints of violets, licorice and dried currants make this an elegant, perfectly mature Cheval Blanc at its peak.
Reviewed by Jeannie Cho Lee MW. For tasting notes of all 28 vintages of Cheval Blanc, visit lepanmedia.com
PHOTO: OLIVER SCHWARZWALD. SET DESIGN: ELENA MORA
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CHEVAL BLANC DECONSTRUCTED The dense black currant and blackberry of its early years give way over time to a lifted bouquet of violets and lavender, plum and sweet spices such as nutmeg. In its maturity, it evokes an 18th-century aristocrat’s study, smoky and clad in leather with gold edges. A Cheval Blanc's texture is always plush, like velvet – it is a wine that just glides across the tongue.
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The Wine Whisperer For all the history, the terroir and the magnificence of the Médoc châteaux, there is one man who shapes a huge proportion of the output of the Left Bank’s classed growths. LE PAN meets Eric Boissenot, who is continuing his father’s legacy as chief adviser to Bordeaux’s top vignerons. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CYRILLE GEORGE JERUSALMI
O
n a cold, wet winter’s morning in January, we traveled up Bordeaux’s D2, the 50-kilometer strip of tarmac that traverses the Médoc’s gravelly plain and takes in some of the most mythical names in wine. The villages connected by the road have come to define French wine – Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac, SaintEstèphe. At each junction is another signpost bearing the name of one revered château or another – Brane-Cantenac, Lascombes, Talbot, Latour, Mouton Rothschild. The vineyards stretching away towards the distant pine forests on one side and the gray waters of the estuary on the other are among the world’s most revered – and valuable. We were not, though, bound for any of Bordeaux’s renowned classed growths that day. Instead, we were searching for the unassuming settlement of Lamarque, a name virtually unknown even in wine circles. Yet from a modest stone building on the village’s main street, the style of some of the world’s most famous wines take shape. Here, over the past 40 years, Jacques Boissenot and his son Eric have turned a small business into one of the most respected centers of oenology in France – and the world. There was little activity in the surrounding vineyards as we approached. Now and again a solitary figure could be seen through the rain, crouched in the mud beside a row of vines, pruning knife in hand. When we eventually arrived at Lamarque, it was deserted. We entered the village via a nondescript road as understated as the man who was waiting for us. The Boissenot laboratory, too, was silent, but there was Eric Boissenot, at work in his office, typing up his notes from the previous day’s tastings. As we sat down to hear his story, we found a modest, quiet man, reluctant to talk about himself but who came alive when he spoke of his work. Boissenot is today in sole charge of the laboratory, which employs just five staff. His father Jacques died in September last year, but in his office next door, the papers remain neatly piled on his desk. His presence is still keenly felt –
inevitably for a man who came to dominate the Left Bank of Bordeaux in a ubiquitous yet invisible manner. “My father intended to become a vet, but he was not successful so he switched to oenology,” says Boissenot. “He studied at Bordeaux University under Professor [Emile] Peynaud, completed his degree in 1964 and then took a job helping to set up the Chambre d’Agriculture laboratory in Pauillac.” By 1971, Boissenot Sr had become restless and decided to open his own laboratory, from where he hoped to advise producers on a more professional approach to winemaking. “He started out with only a handful of clients, and bought a half-share in a bottling lorry which he drove around small vineyards, bottling the owners’ wine for them,” recalls the son. The sideline kept him going while he built up the business, and was a useful way to meet prospective clients. But it wasn’t easy. “In those days, if a wine-grower wanted his wine analysed he took it to the local pharmacy. They knew nothing about malolactic fermentation [the secondary fermentation, which happens in the barrel]. Some thought it was a disease, others would say, ‘Ah, the wine has woken up, it’s getting busy’. Explaining this
“ Technically, winemaking is easy, like putting gas in your car. What is difficult is knowing clearly where you want to go.” THE
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to them was a big advance, because between the first, alcoholic fermentation and the second, malolactic fermentation, the wine is fragile; afterwards it is stable. It’s important to reduce the interval between the two processes. But if my father pointed out an error, the old growers always said, ‘But that’s the way we’ve always done it’. They distrusted men in white coats. You had to be very diplomatic with them.” Through his work as a university professor, Peynaud became a valuable sounding board for top estates. In 1965, his analysis solved a major problem at one of the grands crus classés estates, launching his reputation as an adviser. At the time, many châteaux were struggling financially, with wine being sold cheaply and only a few good vintages emerging every decade. Faced with this crisis, winemaking consultants became more widely accepted. As Eric Boissenot puts it today: “We finally became respectable.” Peynaud’s client list grew as the big châteaux started to pursue a more thorough approach to oenology. He needed assistance, and he turned to his old pupil. From 1977 to 1990, Jacques Boissenot and Peynaud worked in friendly collaboration. Their clients mushroomed during the 1980s and the quality of the region’s wines increased at a similar rate. “Peynaud used to say that, before then, it was hit and miss; that the great vintages were more or less made by chance.” The younger Boissenot is generous in his praise for his father’s mentor. “Peynaud was a remarkable man. He was the first person to insist that vignerons should use only the best grapes. He encouraged them to clean up their cellars and to throw away old barrels. He effectively established a new method; he was charismatic, a great teacher, a fine researcher and a populariser. He taught my father a lot.” If Peynaud was considered the king of modern oenology, though, Jacques Boissenot was his obvious heir. “When Peynaud retired, he recommended my father to all his clients. As a result I have some clients today whose records date back to 1964.”
Eric Boissenot shapes many of Bordeaux's top wines, but adopts a low-key approach
Right: Many of the Left Bank's top wines are subject to intense analysis at Boissenot's small laboratory in the village of Lamarque Below and far right Boissenot's own cellar, where he makes his family wine, is a less technical environment
About that time, while still at Pauillac’s Chambre d’Agriculture Gironde laboratory, Jacques Boissenot met Anna-Marie Miguel, the woman who was to become his wife; they married in 1966. Eric, the only boy of three children, was born in 1969 and like all the youngsters in the village entered le cours préparatoire (CP) – the reception class in the local primary school – where his mother was the form teacher. In the French school system, CP is a challenging experience where the headmaster places his or her best, and often strictest, teachers. It was here that Boissenot learned the importance of hard work and discipline, qualities that have stayed with him for life. And just as in the winery, some methods used in the 1970s would not be indulged
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today. Boissenot smiles at the memory. “It was normal; nobody died, after all. It was part of school life.” In those days, more than half of Lamarque’s population worked in the wine industry. “Every family had some vines. Except for my father. All the other boys could say that their fathers were proprietaires (owners). They used to go and help on their family plots. In 1983, when my father bought a small vineyard, it was the greatest present he could have given me. After that, I too could go to our property and work beside him on our vines.” The site remains in family hands today, and Boissenot continues to tend the vines. Anna-Marie – long since retired – still lives in the family house beside the laboratory, and
the village primary school is still there, near the church. Lamarque is about a kilometer from the Gironde river, and as we drive to the estuary, Boissenot points out the deep muddy creek where as a small boy, unbeknown to his parents, he and his school friends would lower each other into the water, attached to a rope, and bathe. The current appears rather strong today, but it transpires that this was not the main problem. “We had to watch out for the shrimps on the river bed,” he recalls. “If you didn’t keep moving, they tickled your feet.” In 1989, Boissenot went to university, where his primary interests were geology and palaeontology, subjects that still fascinate him. But after some hesitation, he put his preferences aside and took a degree in oenology. Two years
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later, he started to work for his father. When, in 1997, he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on the wine-producing soils of the Médoc, his career path was set. For a Bordeaux oenologist, the busiest time of the year is winter. For three months from early November, Boissenot’s diary reads like that of a doctor on call, starting at 8am, ending at 10pm, and taking in 20 or more properties. Despite having 150 clients, he is remarkably hands-on. His work starts in the vineyard, advising on soil and vine management, and extends to selecting the ideal harvest date. This is followed by monitoring the wine during and after fermentation; helping to decide barrel treatments, and then, crucially, advising on the all-important blends through the
WHA T THEY SAY
Boissenot’s clients include four of the five first growths and many others. “I have known him since he was a student when he worked as a trainee at Château Margaux. He is a talented, lovely guy who worked with his father for over 20 years. He is one of the few people that I would call if I had doubts about what we were doing; he is among the small circle of people that I really trust. And he is absolutely charming, a very nice guy, just like his father.”
Paul Pontallier Managing director, Château Margaux “I have been working with him since I arrived at Mouton [in 2004] and I am extremely happy to be working with him. He is a skilful, thoughtful taster. But most importantly, he is really lowkey and a very sweet person.”
Philippe Dhalluin Managing director, Château Mouton Rothschild “I always say that Eric is like the curé, the old-fashioned parish priest, hearing everyone’s confession. He goes everywhere; he knows everything – about all of us, about all our rivals – but he is wonderfully discreet. He advises us throughout the year, but it is with the assemblage, the blend, that he comes into his own. He is an artist, a great artist – of the palate.”
Nathalie Schyler Director, Château Kirwan
CONSULTING TO THE TOP TIER First Growth Château Lafite Rothschild \ Pauillac Châteaux Latour \ Pauillac Château Margaux \ Margaux Château Mouton Rothschild \ Pauillac Second Growth Château Brane-Cantenac \ Margaux Château Cos d’Estournel \ Saint-Estèphe Château Ducru-Beaucaillou \ Saint-Julien Château Gruaud Larose \ Saint-Julien Château Léoville Barton \ Saint-Julien Château Léoville Las Cases \ Saint-Julien Château Montrose \ Saint-Estèphe Château Pichon-Longueville Baron \ Pauillac Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande \ Pauillac Château Rauzan Ségla \ Margaux Third Growth Château Calon-Ségur \ Saint-Estèphe Château Cantenac Brown \ Margaux Château d’Issan \ Margaux Château Kirwan \ Margaux Château Palmer \ Margaux
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Right: At his mother's home, next door to his laboratory, Boissenot holds a portrait of his late father Far right: The Boissenot family vineyard
choice of different vats and grape varieties that shape the style and personality of the wine. For Boissenot, this assemblage involves tasting every barrel. At each property he works through three or four different grape varieties, from vines of different ages, grown on different types of soil, all of which are fermented separately. “There is an old saying among vignerons: ‘The earth changes with every step’. And it’s true,” he says. “One Margaux is not the same as another. Newcomers do not always realise how complex the business is.” When it comes to blending, Boissenot works with pen, paper and wine glass. The science of analysis gives way to the physical senses – the eye, the nose and the palate. He compares the work to that of a perfumer. “It is a very special métier. Technically, winemaking is easy, like putting gas in your car. What is difficult is knowing clearly where you want to go. It takes experience and a lot of hard work. There are a lot of small details we need to pay attention to if we want to make great wine.” Perhaps surprisingly, Boissenot says great vintages such as 2009 make his job harder. “Blending the 2009s was difficult. All the plots were good and the differences were so nuanced, I needed to pay even closer attention and listen to the terroir to taste the details and choose the very best. There is so much generosity in this vintage that details can get lost.” In 2010, on the other hand, the differences were more evident, and choosing the most appropriate lots to make the best blend was much easier, he says. Boissenot is clearly driven by the value of the terroir. “I don’t guide the wines, it is the terroir that guides us,” he insists. His low-key, modest approach stands in refreshing contrast to higher profile consultants. The likes of Michel Rolland, Stéphane Derenoncourt and Hubert de Boüard jet from continent to continent, often issuing their instructions by email. By contrast, almost all of Boissenot’s clients are within an hour’s drive of Lamarque (he has a dozen overseas). The role of the consultant has become somewhat controversial in recent years, with some accused of leading a movement towards a more uniform, multinational style of wine that places as much emphasis on grape variety and oak as it does on place. Upon speaking to Boissenot, however, it becomes apparent that he sees himself not as a winemaker but as a guardian of terroir. “There have been several changes of fashion,” he says. “First we had fruitier wine; then it had to be smoother; then less acidic. For 10 years there was a passion for oak, so everyone was urged to buy new barrels. Then it had to be oaked and sweetened.” He smiles. None of this interested the Boissenots. “I will always remain true to the convictions of Peynaud. He taught my father the culture of wine, to make use of ‘the
“There’s not much sentiment in this business. You have to possess complete confidence in your own judgment.” genius of the terroir’, to practice humility, not to push oneself forward, not to be influenced by fashion or hierarchy, and above all to remain true to the wine.” Boissenot, along with his father, has done all of this and more. Asked if he wants his own son, now 12, to follow in his footsteps, he reveals that the boy had recently asked him the same question. “I wouldn’t influence him either way. My father left the choice up to me, and I will do the same.” Then he adds a telling reflection. “It’s not easy to work with your father. And it’s not an easy profession. You can’t make mistakes – if you do, the clients notice immediately. And they only want the best advice. There’s not much
sentiment in this business. You have to possess complete confidence in your own judgment. My father never retired. He died working. Until last year I had spent my entire working life with him. We did 30 vintages together, and I am determined to carry on.” When Jacques Boissenot died, an immense burden fell on Eric’s shoulders. Suddenly he had to double his workload, rely entirely on his own judgment, deal with his personal loss and all the time maintain the confidence of his clients. Despite learning from his father and boasting decades of experience, Boissenot admits that every year he feels like he is taking an examination.
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“We cannot just repeat or reproduce the same thing, because each vintage is different.” He looks pensive for a moment. “My father told me that in this job you can never know every mistake you make. But when I am in doubt about anything, I start again quickly; I don’t compromise. And if I make a mistake, I correct it immediately.” Today, the mistakes are rare. The owners who have worked with father and son and now work with Eric alone were often struck by the rapport between them. “When they worked together, one could see how they respected each other’s opinion,” says Jean-Hubert Delon of Château Léoville-Las Cases. “There was no sense of rivalry. It was a memorable lesson for all of us.”
Boissenot, like his father before him, gives an impression of immense reserve and tact. He has strong opinions, but he would never offer them unless asked to do so. He is an adviser, not a director. Above all, he is determined to retain the humility he learned from his father and from Emile Peynaud. He leaves the posturing, the jet-setting and the fashionable innovations to others. At lunch at Le Lion d’Or, a small, simple restaurant in the tiny village of Arcins that has long been something of an institution among winemakers, we ask Boissenot what other wine regions he likes to visit, or where he likes to go on holiday. For a moment he looks somewhat
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startled at the idea. Then he recalls a week last year spent with his wife in the Basque country, near the Spanish border. They had needed a complete break, but it was a rare luxury. For now, he is too busy even to organize his second love – photography. Boissenot is often seen around Bordeaux with his camera, and has a huge archive of photographs he has taken around the various estates, that remain unprocessed. A smile crosses his face. “When I have more time I would like to take more,” he says. If his approach to photography is half as diligent and comprehensive as his approach to winemaking, it will make for quite a portfolio.
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f the 2014 growing season had occurred in the 1980s, it would have made for a modest vintage to be consumed young. If 2014 had come in the 1990s, it would have been a good vintage, perfect for restaurants and shortterm aging. Today though, the 2014 harvest has yielded a very-good-to-excellent vintage, with the top wines worthy of cellaring for 20 to 30 years. What has happened in the space of three decades to transform a relatively modest vintage from acceptable to excellent? The answer, in short, is the growing wealth of the top châteaux, accompanied by much greater experience and understanding of viticulture and winemaking, and a much stricter selection process. Those with the means in 2014 employed precision viticulture, marking out rows and even specific vines to nurture throughout the year, which were then separately harvested and vinified in small lots. Only the best made the final cut. At Château Montrose, 285 barrels were classified into seven different quality tiers. Only a fraction made it into Montrose 2014, with the remainder making up the second wine, La Dame de Montrose. Christian Seely of Château Pichon-Longueville Baron remembers the 2000 vintage as the first time strict selection reduced the quantity of the grand vin – from 380,000 bottles to about 200,000. When I ask if such drastic reduction makes business sense, Seely smiles. “I was taking a gamble, but since then I think the wines speak for themselves. We have to increase quality to increase price.” For the past 15 years, Pichon Baron has been on the up, surpassing its former sister property Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande in some years.
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In the vineyard, having the best equipment, along with a skilled team able to respond to such adverse conditions as excessive rain or rot, can make all the difference between a mediocre vintage and a good one. A wet and damp May in 2014 meant that oidium and mildew pressure was high. Constant work was required to deal with mostly wet, cool conditions along with a few heat spikes and even hail thrown in. Only at the end of August did the weather turn. Staying vigilant throughout the growing season is a costly affair – from labor to equipment and sprays. Without sufficient warmth or sun, more work needed to be carried out in the vineyard during the summer – trying to maximize photosynthesis, encouraging even ripening, aerating bunches and removing leaves. All of these undertakings come at a price. The harvest date was critical, with different plots picked at different stages to match variety and site with their ideal maturation date. Those who could afford to had hundreds of pickers on standby for weeks, ready to harvest at just the right moment. In 2014, the harvest was especially drawn out, from late September to late October, with some producers such as Tertre Roteboeuf even picking in November. These small details all made a difference to final quality. Apart from viticultural advances and increased understanding, the most visible difference between Bordeaux in the 1990s and Bordeaux today is the amount of spanking new, multimillion-dollar wineries. These new cellars house huge oak or cement vats that look more like art pieces than functional containers. Nearly all the top châteaux have built a spacious, state-
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ILLUSTRATION: STEVEN NOBLE
After a difficult growing season and an understated build-up to the en primeur tastings, the fine quality of Bordeaux 2014 came as a pleasant surprise. JEANNIE CHO LEE explains how the châteaux pulled it off, and picks her top performers.
of-the-art, gravity-flow winery, with Cos d’Estournel, Cheval Blanc and Margaux among the most impressive. Within these space-age edifices, there is a much greater number of vats of varying sizes to reflect the smaller parcels in the vineyards. Grapes are treated gently, moved by gravity in smaller containers, and exposed to strict selection by bunch and by berry. Sorting machines have become sophisticated, no longer just relying on the human eye. Today’s machines boast optical sorting and vibrating tables to eliminate berries that fail to meet set parameters. The result is that only the best lots are selected for the top wines. Most producers who were successful in 2014 handled their grapes gently. With both alcohol and acidity naturally high, the tannins were easy to extract. Olivier Berrouet of Château Pétrus says it was tempting to go too far in Pomerol, where a high level of tannin, along with high acidity and alcohol, meant it was easy to push extraction. “[The danger is that] you can get raw tannins, especially in this type of vintage where you have good acidity and high alcohol,” he explains. “We need balance to make great wines, not big concentration. I try to make wines with balance and finesse.” Pétrus certainly has both in 2014. Ultimately, the key difference between the 1990s and now is that, despite a lull in sales over the past few years, the top châteaux have money. This makes a
Ultimately, the key difference between the 1990s and now is that, despite a lull in sales over the past few years, the top châteaux have money. huge difference in transforming a good-but-not-great vintage into a good-to-excellent one. And overall, 2014 is just that – a good-to-excellent vintage; not in the same league as 2005 or 2010, but one that has produced satisfying, balanced wines with delicious fruitiness. Consistency across different classifications and price points was evident, with the majority of generic Bordeaux AOC or Bordeaux Supérieur wines being balanced and juicy. The Côtes de Bordeaux and Fronsac were especially successful, and very few petit châteaux made bitter wines with unripe tannins. Most of the 2014s display ripe fruit, charm and great drinkability. At the top end, with strict selection and greater resources at their disposal, some fantastic wines were crafted. For the top 40 to 50 châteaux, 2014 was an excellent vintage.
2014 BY COMMUNE SA I N T-E ST È PH E With its Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant vineyards, the Northern Médoc shines in 2014, and Saint-Estèphe is one of the two most successful communes on the Left Bank (Pauillac being the other). Wines at every price point possess excellent balance, ripe, dense tannins and good concentration. Compared to previous vintages, 2014 is rounder and more supple than 2013, exhibits more liveliness than 2012, and has greater concentration than 2011. Highlights: Cos d’Estournel, Montrose, Calon-Ségur, Lilian Ladouys, Phélan Ségur, Lafon-Rochet, La Dame de Montrose, Tronquoy-Lalande, Meyney, Ormes de Pez
Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is among the star performers in Pauillac
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There is impressive consistency in Pauillac, with ripe, fruity reds that have opulent, ripe tannins. At the top end, the three first growths here are extremely successful, as are the numerous second growths. What I love about this vintage is the fresh, vibrant character, no doubt from the cool summer, combined with the firm tannins and approachable flavors. The technical analysis does not indicate much higher acidity or tannin levels than normal, but there is a coolness to the fruit, and tannins that are structured and firm. Terroir definition is very distinct in 2014 and the best Pauillacs express their breeding and personality very clearly.
The 2014 Saint-Juliens are delicious. The wines shine with fruity approachability and ripe, balanced tannins. Léoville Las Cases is stunning, with incredible consistency across all of its wines including Clos du Marquis and Le Petit Lion – these are sumptuous, age-worthy wines. Ducru-Beaucaillou is terrific, more generous and concentrated than the past three years.
Highlights: Latour, Mouton Rothschild, Lafite Rothschild, Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pichon-Longueville Baron, Lynch Bages, Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Pontet-Canet
Margaux is not as consistent as Pauillac and SaintJulien, but at the top end, the wines are terrific. The cool vintage helped to lift the attractive aromatics that are the hallmark of Margaux wines. In this vintage, the wines are sinewy and focused, with wonderful
Other successes: Léoville Poyferré, Gruaud Larose, Beychevelle, Talbot, Léoville Barton, Saint-Pierre
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The sweet wines of Sauternes yielded the most consistent overall performance of the 2014s, with wonderful clarity in their flavor expression
intensity on the mid-palate and finish. Château Margaux is very successful, with a lot of grace, elegance and a persistent finish. Other standouts: Palmer, Malescot St-Exupéry, Rauzan-Ségla, Giscours, Brane-Cantenac
PE S SAC-L É O GNA N Pessac-Léognan has produced wonderful reds that are forward and approachable. The tannins are generally ripe and there are very few extracted, tough reds. What prevents 2014 from being in the top rank is that there are no really outstanding wines. All have managed to hit a relatively high note, making balanced, elegant wines, but the very best do not reach the intensity and depth of flavor that are possible in a great vintage. Look out for: Haut-Brion, Haut-Bailly, Smith Haut Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier, La Tour Haut-Brion
depth and power combined with finesse and elegance. The top wines combine the best of the vintage – the freshness of a cool July and August with the sweet ripeness of an Indian summer. Other standouts: Troplong Mondot, Valandraud, Clos Fourtet, Pavie, Figeac, Beau-Séjour Bécot
DRY W H I T E S This is a very good, but not great year for whites – while there is good acidity and freshness as well as sugar levels, there isn’t an immense amount of concentration. Most of the summer was wet and too cold to obtain maximum flavor ripeness. There is plenty of freshness in both the Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, but the midpalate lacks the depth and intensity of the best white wine vintages. This is a delicious vintage, one that will age fairly well given its high acid levels, but not a vintage for long-term aging. -
The 2014 Pomerols are consistently good, with generosity, fruity plum expression and sweet floral notes. These are not big wines and there is less opulence and flesh here than in 2009 or 2005, but there is plenty of precision and persistence for long-term aging. Merlot on clay soil helped to weather the September storms and that month’s warmth provided just enough sunshine to ripen the grapes fully, with good alcohol levels. In this vintage, the wines are structured as much around their acidity as their tannins. Best wines: Lafleur, Pétrus, L'Église-Clinet,
La Conseillante, La Fleur-Pétrus, La Violette, Le Pin, Le Gay, Vieux Chateau Certan
SA I N T-É M I L ION In Saint-Emilion there is much wider variation of quality, and buyers must be wary of hollow, astringent wines. The best wines are superb – Ausone and Cheval Blanc do not disappoint and Tertre Roteboeuf is my choice of the vintage, a glorious wine with incredible
Best whites include: Haut-Brion Blanc, La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, Margaux Pavillon Blanc, Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc, Domaine de Chevalier Blanc, Bouscaut Blanc, Carbonnieux Blanc, de Fieuzal Blanc, Latour-Martillac Blanc
SWEET WHITES Compared with the reds and dry whites, the sweet-wine category is the most consistent and highest in quality in 2014. In terms of balance, purity and elegance, this is definitely one of the best vintages of the past decade. The 2014 has wonderful clarity in its flavor expression – floral notes are finely etched, and the dried fruit notes are lifted and detailed with a freshness on the palate and a lingering finish. If not quite as great as the 2001 or the 2003, this is a wonderful vintage for sweet-wine lovers who prefer linear rather than fat, dense styles. Best wines: d’Yquem, Clos Haut-Peyraguey, de Fargues, Guiraud, Doisy-Daëne, La Tour Blanche, Raymond-Lafon, Rayne Vigneau, Coutet, Climens, Rieussec, Suduiraut, Lafaurie-Peyraguey
For Jeannie Cho Lee MW’s tasting notes on the top 2014 wines, see this issue's LP GUIDE. And for all 460 tasting notes and a full report on Bordeaux 2014 En Primeur, visit lepanmedia.com
PHOTO: VINCENT TSANG
P OM E ROL
CON N ECTION S
PARTNERS IN WINE
Cross-ownership between top Bordeaux châteaux and luxury brands BERNARD ARNAULT
MARTIN AND OLIVIER BOUYGUES
Louis Vuitton, Berluti, Céline, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, Edun, Emilio Pucci, Fendi, Givenchy, Kenzo, Loewe, Loro Piana, Marc Jacobs, Nicholas Kirkwood, Thomas Pink
Princess Yachts
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Château Montrose
Groupe Arnault SAS
Bulgari, Chaumet, De Beers, Fred, Hublot, TAG Heuer, Zenith
(Champagne)
Ardberg, Belvedere, Glenmorangie, Hennessy
LVMH
Christian Dior
(Total ownership by Arnault: 46.4%)
Has a 40.9% stake in
Dom Pérignon, Krug, Mercier, Moët & Chandon, Ruinart, Veuve Clicquot
(spirits)
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Château La Tour du Pin*
Château Quinault l'Enclos*
Château Cheval Blanc
(hotel and restaurant)
Araujo Estate Wines, Château Grillet, Domaine d’Eugénie
Palazzo Grassi (exhibition venue)
Punta della Dogana
(non-Bordeaux wines)
Champagne Pommery
Taillevent (restaurant)
(bought and sold)
Girard-Perregaux, Jeanrichard, Ulysse Nardin
Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Brioni, Gucci, Qeelin, Pomellato, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Sergio Rossi
(co-owners)
Château Canon
Has
PHOTOS: AFP. CENTER LEFT: AP IMAGES
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PINAULT (Son)
Château Le Prieuré
Baronne Guichard
FRANÇOIS PINAULT
Boucheron
Château Siaurac
Château de Chambrun Château Cap de Faugères
Château LafauriePeyraguey
Holland & Holland (gunmaker)
Jaguar Fragrances
Art & Fragrance SA
Vignobles Silvio Denz
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(horseracing and breeding)
Château Vray Croix de Gay
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FRANCOIS-HENRI
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Wertheimer et Frère
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Château Rocheyron Château Rauzan-Ségla
(lingerie)
Christie’s auction house
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Kering
ALAIN AND GERARD WERTHEIMER
(leather goods)
Groupe Artémis Ha
Chanel
Tanner Krolle
(art museum)
Château Latour
THIERRY GARDINIER (with brothers Laurent and Stéphane)
(non-Bordeaux wines)
*Co-owned by Arnault and LVMH
Domaine Les Crayères
Château Phélan Ségur
Cape Mentelle, Cheval des Andres, Cloudy Bay, Domaine Chandon, Newton Vineyard, Numanthia, Terrazas de Los Andes, Wenjun
sta
SILVIO DENZ Château Faugères
Clos d’Agon Montepeloso (non-Bordeaux wines)
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Bentley Fragrances
Lalique
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A TASTE OF BORDEAUX With a proliferation of vibrant wine bars, France’s highest number of restaurants per capita and some chic boutique hotels, it’s no surprise that Bordeaux is the hottest European city destination this year. BY LINDA WATKINS
There is an aura of growing confidence about Bordeaux. The city, which straddles a crescentshaped bend in the Garonne river, has nurtured its historic center and the so-called Port of the Moon to the status of Unesco Heritage Site. It is looking to consolidate its position as the world’s wine capital with the opening next year of the ambitious Cité des Civilisations du Vin crosscultural center.
WHERE
The salon and library of La Grande Maison (lagrandemaison-bordeaux.com), an exclusive six-room hotel, house a restaurant by Joël Robuchon, holder of the world’s most Michelin stars, whose haute cuisine does justice to a cellar boasting 259 Bordeaux grands crus classés. On the chic Allées du Tourny since 1894, the quietly sophisticated Dubern (dubern.fr) is enjoying something of a revival. Scottish chef Daniel Gallacher (formerly at Spoon) adds a personal twist to French classics and excels at fish and seafood dishes such as a creamy squid carbonara. Add in a well-structured wine list and it’s a recipe for success. La Tupiña (latupina.com), which means ‘the cauldron’ in Basque), is a Bordeaux institution in a different mold. Owner Jean-Pierre Xiradakis prides himself on preserving southwest culinary
traditions, and here you feast on robust domestic classics. Staples such as melt-in-the-mouth lamb shank, accompanied by excellent wines, are served in an auberge-style setting. In contrast one of the hottest bistronomique tickets for lunch is Garopapilles (garopapilles. com), a wine shop-cum-restaurant with a soothing Scandinavian-meets-industrial décor and a herb-lined courtyard. Leave all the menu decisions to the amiable Tanguy Laviale, formerly the private chef at Château Haut-Bailly.
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In an inventive repertoire, his complex ravioli dishes stand out. Gaël Morand will suggest wine pairings from his eclectic selection of small, often organic, French and overseas producers. Former négociant (wine merchant) Patrick Herreyre has a novel proposition for his Nama ‘wine restaurant’ (namawinerestaurant.com): charge an entrance fee and then offer fine wine and cuisine at reduced prices. Tapas include Wagyu charcuterie, while the dinner menu is regional with Japanese influences, for example foie gras with yuzu confit. A regularly-rotated wine list features exclusive wines by the glass. For the best Chinese food, it’s worth tracking down Au Bonheur du Palais (abdp.free.fr) – a favorite of Parisian chef Thierry Marx, no less. Tommy Shan advises on menu and wine choices (and explains the Chinese poetry adorning the walls), while brother Andy wields the wok. The flavorful food is Cantonese and Sichuan; order sesame chicken to balance fiery dishes heightened with spices sourced in China.
Clockwise from top: Dusk falls on the Garonne river in Bordeaux on a summer evening; La Tupiña; La Grande Maison
PHOTOS: TOP: ISTOCK. MIDDLE: CHÂTEAUX ET HÔTELS COLLECTION. NEXT PAGE BOTTOM: CIVB CALMETTES
TO DINE
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TO DRINK Those in the know converge on the Bar à Vin du CIVB (baravin.bordeaux.com) for drinks after work in magisterial surroundings. The waiters are sommeliers-in-training, and the vast and ever-changing choice of regional wines by the glass includes grands crus classés. Fittingly, the old wine merchants’ district of Chartrons is brimming with wine bars. Verre ô Vin (le-vov.com), in a vaulted stone cellar, is a good place to imbibe the atmosphere and some varied wines, accompanied by sushi (eating is obligatory in most wine bars). One of the most convivial spots in the historic Quartier St Pierre is Le Wine Bar (lewinebar-bordeaux. com), where cheese and meat platters reflect its Italian ownership and the wine list extends well beyond Bordeaux boundaries. Beside the Cailhau gateway, La Ligne Rouge (laligne-rouge.com) wine shop and bar offers a selection of international and small-scale local wines, compiled and properly presented by a former estate manager. Similarly doubling as wine seller and bodega-style bar, Wine More Time (winemoretime.fr) works directly with independent wineries throughout France. Out of the city center, l’Univerre (univerrerestaurant.com) is a neighborhood bistro-cumbar where fresh and tasty food plays understudy to a spectacular cellar (1,300 references) that includes few Bordeaux but many gems, reserving a special place for Burgundy.
Clockwise from top: La Maison Bord’eaux; La Grande Maison; Bar à Vin du CIVB
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TO STAY In the heart of the city, Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux (ghbordeaux.com) has wooed the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Barbara Hendricks. Its 18th-century façade forms a harmonious ensemble with the Grand Théâtre, while sumptuous interiors bear the inimitable signature of Jacques Garcia. The flagship restaurant, Le Pressoir d’Argent, has recruited Gordon Ramsay to oversee its kitchen, and the rooftop bar is a must on summer evenings. All the world passes by the terrasse of Le Bordeaux, the hotel’s Belle Epoque-style brasserie, where Michelin-starred chef Stéphane Carrade prepares regional fare, and glasses of local vintages are served from magnums, double magnums and jeroboams. Another five-star hotel, the Burdigala (burdigala.com), compensates for its unpromising location with an ambience of sophistication. The bar offers grand cru wines by the glass. Several small hotels have set up recently in historic townhouses. Le Boutique Hotel (hotelbordeauxcentre.com) mixes quirky Philippe Starck furnishings with relaxing hot tubs. A major attraction is The Wine Bar, with a wellconsidered list (70 percent Bordeaux) and a head sommelier whose wine list and blind tastings are widely appreciated.
Another little gem is the five-star Yndo boutique hotel (yndohotelbordeaux.fr), which tastefully blends traditional architecture with modern funky designer furnishings and avantgarde artworks. Its highly individual and personalized approach (24-hour room service, customized breakfasts) is proving so popular that one smitten celebrity booked the whole hotel for a month. Nearby, you’ll find La Maison Bord’eaux (lamaisonbord-eaux.com), a former relay post refurbished with contemporary décor by owner Pierre Lurton, managing director of Cheval Blanc and d'Yquem estates. Just outside the city center, wine magnate Bernard Magrez has opened La Grande Maison. Its six rooms are luxuriously furnished in the style of Napoleon III (circa 1855). Opposite, his L’Institut Culturel gallery juxtaposes a historic château with a fascinating collection of modern and urban art.
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TO BUY Wine, of course! Traditional merchants include Badie (badie.com), with one outlet dedicated to Champagne, and L’Intendant (intendant.com) with its spiral stairway ascending to the heaven of exceptional wines and large formats (100 percent Bordeaux). At the ultra-modern Max Bordeaux (maxbordeaux.com), wine-dispensing machines enable you to taste grands crus classés among others, before buying. Near Place de la Victoire, sommelier Christopher Laforêt runs Be The Wine (bethewine.com), selling a more international selection of wines. In the same area, La CUV’s (la-cuv.com) wine selection is strong on organic, and pairing classes cover cheese, chocolate or purchases from a trip to the Capucins market (marchedescapucins.com), a must for foodies.
On Sunday mornings, the waterfront throngs at the Marché des Quais, where you can sample fresh oysters or buy small-production cheeses. Cheese connoisseurs should also sniff out the Jean d’Alos shops (jean-dalos.com), or Fromagerie Deruelle in the Quartier St Pierre. Comtesse du Barry (comtessedubarry. com) is known for its southwestern products, while Dock des Epices (dockdesepices.com) features Seldevin’s wine-infused condiments. The Rue des Remparts is a gourmet shopper’s paradise. Try a tasting at Oliviers & Co (olive oils; oliviers-co.com), tea at La Boutique du Thé (laboutiqueduthe.fr), or a local sweet hazelnut specialty at Noisettines du Médoc (noisettines.fr). Designer boutiques dominate the socalled Triangle, but one of the best-dressed windows belongs to classy chocolatier CadiotBadie (cadiot-badie.com), where the truffles are outstanding. Chocolate-maker Darricau (darricau.com) seduces with surprising flavors and confit de vin, and Baillardran (baillardran. com) sells Bordeaux’s famous canelés cakes.
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TO DO
Pessac-Léognan, or at Suduiraut (suduiraut. com) for Sauternes, to name some of the best. If you need someone to help you navigate the maze of vineyards and prize open the doors to exclusive tastings, well-connected local experts include Frédéric Borliachon (Rendez-vous au Château; rendezvousauchateau.com), who has worked as a cellar master and vineyard manager; Nicolle Croft (Bordeaux SIP Wine Tours; wineguidebordeaux.com), who penned the book Winetasting, and Bruno Delmas (BD Tours; bdtours.fr), who is the grandson of a former Cos d’Estournel cellar master and can also organize horse-riding excursions.
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To tour the vineyards in style, why not hire a chauffeur-driven luxury car from Atlantiques Berlines (atlantiqueberlines.com) or a classic convertible from Gentleman Classic Car (gentlemanclassiccar.com)? Alternatively, let Gourmet Touring create a bespoke package that can be chauffeur-guided or self-drive in small, convertible, luxury or sports cars with a slick pre-programmed GPS display taking care of your itinerary. For Grand Hotel guests, a personalized wine concierge service provides private visits to prestigious châteaux, by helicopter or chauffeurdriven vintage car if desired, with an optional gourmet picnic on fine Limoges porcelain served by uniformed waiters. The hotel’s newest tour is by luxury speedboat and car to Pauillac’s superb 1855 vineyards.
Clockwise from top: Max Bordeaux; Siaurac; Gentleman Classic Car
PHOTOS: TOP: JULIE REY
L’École du Vin (bordeaux.com) offers professionally-taught wine courses, ranging from a two-hour introduction to in-depth twoday workshops and a three-day grands crus workshop. Activities include dinner with a château cellar manager and blending wine, as well as horizontal and vertical tastings. If a horizontal tasting of great 1990 vintages or a classified first-growth tasting are more to your fancy, Millésima (event.millesima.fr) will oblige, together with a tour of its cellars and 11,000 oversized formats of fine Bordeaux wines. To learn about cheese, and the fundamentals of pairing it with wine, attend a two-hour workshop at L’Atelier du Fromage (atelierdufromage.fr). Then test your newfound knowledge at Baud et Millet (bsadiffusion.fr), a restaurant where you can assemble a cheese selection from the cellar and skillfully choose your wine to match. For the ultimate food-and-wine pairing experience, however, what could surpass a private lunch or dinner in the surroundings of a historic château? Château Haut-Bailly (chateau-hautbailly.com), which pioneered the concept, employs its own chef to cater for collectors’ and business lunches (four to six people) or tables privées (slightly larger groups). Other châteaux, such as Siaurac (Pomerol and Saint-Emilion) or Pichon Baron (Pauillac; pichonbaron.com) will tailor-make meals for individuals. Private-dining options are available for various appellations, for example at Lagrange (chateau-lagrange.com) or Gruaud Larose (gruaud-larose.com) for Saint-Julien, at PhélanSégur (phelansegur.com) for Saint-Estèphe, at Pape Clément (bernard-magrez.com) for
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