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What Price Bordeaux
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This is a very interesting book about one of France’s fine winegrowing areas and the ways its wines are priced and marketed. If you are a romantic about wine and want to remain one, this is not for you. However, nothing man-made is perfect; and if you want to truly understood the way Bordeaux is sold, this is a great read.
The author, a molecular biologist, provides a backgrounder both on France’s traditions and wine laws in general and Bordeaux’s in particular and then discusses their “peculiarities” especially with respect to Bordeaux and its wine trade.
All that leads to a description of the pivotal 1855 Classification which was done at the request of the Emperor Napoléon III as part of the Universal Exposition in Paris.
It was pivotal not only in the sense of making France’s hallowed “terroir” concept secondary to the classification, but also in the unintentional but ultimately acknowledged creation of the “brand system”, i.e. the Chateaux, in how these great and less great estates were perceived.
There is plenty of dish and insider commentary and there are enough statistical charts and graphs to put you to sleep plus almost 600 footnotes to show you he means business. Note: the author is British and often goes a long way around the barn to get to his point; but have patience and you’ll get his meaning.
What Price Bordeaux by Benjamin Lewin, MW (Vendange Press), $34.95. It is available through the Wine Appreciation Guild: 1-800-231-9463.
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