In Bordeaux this week it is a head turn: during the ‘week of the primeur’, traders and journalists from all over the world come together to taste the latest wine year 2023. “The entire wine region benefits from our world-famous event,” says Ronan Laborde proudly. He is the president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux (UCGB), the interest group of the most prestigious wine castles and organizer of the primeur week.
Not everyone in the region agrees with Laborde. The new generation of winemakers and enthusiasts believes that the top domains saddle Bordeaux with a conservative and expensive image and can therefore miss the primeur week like a toothache. “We want a more natural viticulture, with new methods, flavors and hipper labels, all things that are not currently associated with Bordeaux,” says winegrower Jean-Baptiste Duquesne. He believes that many of the young, smaller domains are left with large unsold stocks due to this incorrect image.
That is why Duquesne founded the interest group Bordeaux Pirate, for “des vins qui sortent des sentiers battus” (“wines that take a different tack”). The association now has about forty members, “vignerons pirates”who agree on one thing: Bordeaux must reinvent itself.
Other grapes
The top domains, which are often owned by wealthy investors and dominate communications in Bordeaux, see this very differently. They do not see the need for reinvention, because their wealthy customers continue to buy their wines. In fact, they made of French traditiontheir trademark. ‘Mouton ne change‘ (Mouton does not change) is literally the motto on the label of Château Mouton-Rothschild, a premier grand cru classé.
A vineyard of Château Mouton-Rothschild. — © Jean-Pierre Muller/afp
But Duquesne’s pirates are supported by other interest groups, such as the Conseil interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux (CIVB). His latest press release leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity: “The new generation is breaking the traditional rules in Bordeaux.”
Chairman Allan Sichel, himself the owner of a family wine company that operates several domains, encourages, among other things, the planting of new and previously unknown grape varieties: castets, marselan, arinarnoa, vidoc noir and even the Portuguese touriga nacional. “In addition to the traditional cabernet sauvignon and merlot, Bordeaux needs other grapes,” he says, “that are better adapted to the changing climate.”
Sichel does not consider the fact that these new grapes can change the taste profile of the classic Bordeaux wine as a disadvantage, but as a commercial opportunity. The new generation of wine drinkers craves new flavors, he says. “There is a reason why Bordeaux is underrepresented on restaurant wine lists today: you can’t surprise anyone with it anymore.”
More freshness
The CIVB also promotes new practices in the vineyard, which are more environmentally friendly, and new winemaking and maturing methods: gentler extractions of the grapes during fermentation, the use of the grape’s own yeasts instead of factory yeasts, fewer additives such as sulphite, larger foeders instead of small oak barrels and cement vats and amphorae of baked clay, so that the wines no longer taste so strongly of wood and vanilla. “New generation winegrowers strive for more suppleness, fruitiness, purity and freshness in their wines, more in line with what the contemporary wine drinker demands,” says Sichel. “And at prices that are significantly lower than what consumers expect from a Bordeaux.”
The Bordeaux Pirate wine growers are already putting these tips into practice. The battle cry is displayed in large letters on their site “A l’abordage!”: with fresh marketing and even different bottle shapes, winemakers are ready to enter the classic wine ship.
Good vintage due to warm months
Qualitatively, 2023 is a good wine year, mainly thanks to the drought and a warm and sunny harvest month of September. “Climate warming is playing to Bordeaux’s advantage today,” says Thomas Duclos, one of the leading Bordelian wine experts. “Due to the proximity of the cool Atlantic Ocean, it used to be difficult to extract the tannins from the grapes here (the bitter substances in the peel and kernels, ed.) to get it nice and ripe, which could cause the wines to taste a bit hard and bitter. Due to global warming, that problem has almost disappeared. Although climate change will cause other problems, especially in the longer term. For example, this year it was sometimes too warm during the harvest, which risked giving the wines aromas of cooked fruit.” Quantitatively, the harvest is smaller than normal, because the fungal disease mildew has affected a significant part of grape production (especially with the Merlot grape). It is therefore expected that, in combination with inflation, prices for Bordeaux wines will rise. (bsp)
Tags: Wine pirates fight conservative expensive image Bordeaux region reinvent
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