Cabernet sauvignon is the most renowned grape variety in the world, the veritable king of grapes. It’s homeland and the apogee of its expression, invariably blended with a little merlot, has always, undeniably, indisputably been held to be on the left bank of the Bordeaux region, in France. Bordeaux’s right bank, in the notable appellations of Saint Emilion and Saint Emilion Grand Cru, focuses more on a blend of merlot and cabernet franc.

It was in 1855, when left bank châteaux were classified as part of the Paris Exposition of the same year.  Merchants took as their framework the price lists for the previous years and drew up a list of some 60-plus châteaux which were consistently getting the highest prices on the Bordeaux Place, the trading hub for Bordeaux wines.  Bordeaux has never looked back.

Château Margaux

At least, Bordeaux’s upper echelons.  Looking at the trading prices for the 2005s (in 2008) – Château Lafite-Rothschild was £9,200 a case (AUD$19,080).

But Bordeaux is not a singular place, and when a Bordeaux château-owner tells you Bordeaux is like a whole country, it pricks up your attention to reality check the statement.  With 123,000 hectares of vineyard in the Bordeaux appellation, that’s more than Chile, it’s more than South Africa, it’s more than Germany. Up until a few years ago, it was more than Australia. And this also reveals the fundamental dichotomy that is Bordeaux. The top end is aspirational and sublime.  The bottom end often struggles to be sold.

One of cabernet sauvignon’s assets is that it maintains good varietal definition and flavour under reasonably different production and climatic regimes. It’s a vigorous vine, it grows easily in a variety of different soils. Though ‘hot’ climate cabernet sauvignon does become distinctly different, taking on baked, jammy, hot attributes which overwhelm the normal varietal character, such as cassis, blackcurrant, cedar notes with French oak. 

cabernet sauvignon is now planted the world over

Because of its adaptability, and because any and all wine-producing regions have wanted to emulate the top, top wine producing region in the world, cabernet sauvignon is now planted the world over.  France has 59,000 ha, half of which is in Bordeaux; Australia has as much cabernet sauvignon as Bordeaux; California has 30,000 ha, Chile has 40,000ha.

In the face of all this ‘extra’ cabernet sauvignon out there, is the bottom end suffering from new world competition? If top end Bordeaux is about 3% of Bordeaux’s production, the bottom end is about 50% of the region’s production – about 3 million hectolitres, or one-quarter the total production of Australia.

Michael Cox, the UK director of Wines of Chile, the promotional agency for Chilean wines, said “cabernet sauvignon was taken to Chile in the 1850s and has thrived. One of reasons for Chile’s success in the 80s and 90s was because the style of cabernet sauvignon was a pure expression of ripe, vibrant fruit and soft tannins.”  It’s a rare (increasingly less so), warm vintage in Bordeaux that the fruit can make that particular claim. He added “the difference between top, top quality Chilean cabernet sauvignon and average quality Chilean cabernet sauvignon is relatively narrow. But in Bordeaux the difference is huge.”  The difference in Bordeaux is split by a chasm.

Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande

A general measure of ‘success’ for everyday Bordeaux is the price of a tonneau.  This is the traditional measurement of 900 litres (or 4 barriques of 225 litres each) by which quotidian wine is traded. When the price is up around the €1,000 mark (AUD$1,638), as it was in 2008, Bordeaux tends to be reasonably happy.  Back at the end of 2005, the tonneau price was about €750 (AUD1.36/litre), barely enough to live on. As a comparison, Australia’s 2008 statistics showed the average export value is AUD$3.85/litre. 2005 marked a low point for everyday Bordeaux wines, the stunning quality of the vintage notwithstanding. 

But Bordeaux’s, as France’s, main historic problem is a dramatically declining domestic consumption, which has halved over the course of a generation.  This, plus of course, declining exports in the face of new world competition and a consumer preference for ripe, soft-fruited, soft-tannin wines. 

One small trend that reflects this is a snail-like increase in plantings of merlot, by two percentage points over the last half a dozen or so years, at the expense of both cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. This is likely to be because merlot is (a) slightly earlier ripening than cabernet sauvignon, therefore ‘easier’ to grow in a cool, maritime climate and (b) reflecting the trend to ‘easier’ wines – merlot has lighter tannins, sweet alcoholic fruit, and the resulting wine needs less time in bottle. But the degree of change in plantings is so slight as to have no real discernible influence on the final wine style.

The latest figures from Bordeaux showed it was in recovery in 2008, before the recession really set in. Exports were starting to grow again. They were up 7% volume and 9% value to €1.38 bn (AUD2.27bn).  Just as Australia looks to China, Russia and other Asian markets for more export success, so does Bordeaux.  Exports to China were up 158% in 2007.

Château Mouton Rothschild

Top end Bordeaux is largely immune to the competitive market. It’s traded as a commodity these days; it might as well be lead, or copper, or concrete (or gold). If posh UK wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd can sell £60 million of the 2005 vintage, things are not too bad for top Bordeaux.

Changes are afoot though, in both the lower and middle sectors of the market.  Mark Walford, of Bordeaux negociant Richards Walford, said: “There was a period in Bordeaux’s history, when people were making wine to please Mr. [Robert] Parker. They are finding their vineyards are more suited to an accent on finesse than attack. There are many young châteaux owners making wine in this style rather than the Californian style.”

And at the bottom, Walford continued, appellations such as “Bordeaux Supérieur are having to stand on their own feet. They need to pick grapes properly ripe, not overproduce, and raise the wine with care. I think they’re still Bordeaux in style. They don’t get the sugar levels [of the new world] especially with cabernet sauvignon.  Certainly, wines have to be made better to appeal to the market” suggesting in part Australians, and other new world producers, may have passed technical lessons to Europe in how to make wine.  Walford cited Domaine de Chevalier, in the Graves, where the style of winemaking is getting finer, more refined and stylish as the team there gets into their stride, implying that this is the opposite of a new world style.

If new world competitivity has done anything, it’s make Bordeaux (and arguably the rest of the old world) realise that however typical wines are of their region, they must still appeal to consumers.

St. Emilion

A settlement was founded here by an 8th century monk, called Emilion, on the highest point of the limestone ridge, at around 100m above sea level. It’s a short, but gymnastically steep distance from the top at the Place du Clocher where the 15th century bell tower was built over the monolithic church, and the Place du Marché at the bottom of the slope.

Indeed the middle ages were the town’s heyday, after the golden age of pilgrimages in Europe had made the town a stopping place on the route to Santiago de Compostela, in the north western tip of Spain.

A long religious and political history surrounds the town and the vineyard culture, and a guided tour organised from the tourist office will furnish you with so much more than interesting stories of monks and nuns, the English rule during the 12^th century when responsibility for the quality of the wine was given to twelve men, who also had jurisdiction over the town and it environs.

An hour and a half’s guided tour, available from the tourist office, will take in the hermit’s cave, the catacombs, Trinity chapel and the monolithic church. This latter is carved out of the limestone escarpment, with perfect proportions as though it had been constructed rather than excavated. It was once lavishly decorated and embellished, but time and dampness have taken their toll.  Nonetheless two masses are held inside each year.

For anyone with a vinous bent, but not having made private appointments to visit wine properties, the tourist office also offers various wine tasting, visit and tour options.

If you want to stay in the vineyards rather than the town, Château Franc Mayne has nine rooms at its adjacent Le Relais de Franc Mayne. Each of the rooms is individually and uniquely designed: a blood-red and black Asian-theme; the muted browns and tans of the French country theme. I stayed in the richly decorated ‘British landscape’ room and felt like a welcome intruder into a plush country pile. The room looked out onto what they call a ‘natural swimming pool’ which the fluff said is ‘biologically purified using plants and micro-organisms”, with a regeneration zone and a filtration zone.  It looked pretty, and relaxing, with vineyard views.  

Franc Mayne limestone quarry

The Château has its own quarries on the property, dating from the 12^th and 13^th centuries, as do most of the quarries around St. Emilion, where barrels of the estate wine mature for 12 months. With a pretty constant 13°C and 80% relative humidity, these are decent natural conditions for wine maturation. And much like the monolithic church it looks as though the quarry walls have been constructed, with neat block lines, rather than deconstructed.

There’s an old post house (for the post/mail) on the Franc Mayne property which has just been renovated to become a new, dedicated tasting room, so the tour now takes you all the way through their quarry, emerging at the post house, ready to taste.

After which, a delightful 20 minute walk/30 minute stroll through the vineyards, coming out at the back of Beauséjour-Bécot, will take you the 1 kilometre into St. Emilion town, where the restaurant L’Envers du Décors is undoubtedly one of the best-known, and characterful watering holes, where the tables are topped with the branded ends of wines’ wooden boxes. Food was tasty, too.

A bit further out of St. Emilion, across the Dordogne and into the Entre-Deux-Mers, is one of the most family-friendly winery properties in Bordeaux.  Château Cablanc lies in a protected nature reserve in the valley of the river Gamage, a tributary of the Dordogne. The reserve offers protection for such rare species as the European mink and four species of orchid. But dogs are still allowed, though not in the cellar.

Jean-Daniel Debart is the third generation to run the property. Since his grandfather bought the property 50 years ago, the vineyard has expanded to 60 ha, and the whole estate covers almost 120 ha of secluded farm and woodland. 

Cablanc activity trail

This surrounding restive woodland provides the terrain for Debart’s ‘secrets of the valley’ nature trail.  It is a fun discovery trail for children and the child in all of us. Kids are given quiz and activity sheets appropriate to their age, and the family can spend a couple of hours on the trail, learning about woodland, the vineyard and wine. There are a series of shuttered boxes on the trail as part of the activities.  At the top of the hill is a play and picnic area, and if you’ve forgotten to bring your own, picnics can be bought at the château.

Jean-Daniel, with three young boys of his own, has even managed to make the winery and cellar tour child-friendly and educational for all.  It includes the use of toy machines to explain harvest, and listening to a recording of fermenting wine as a red strobe light flickers inside an empty vat. Adults get to taste the finished product in a tasting room that includes a table and chairs with colouring equipment and word games for younger ones.

For all of this, Château Cablanc has won the Great Wine Capitals of the world ‘Best of’ award for Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices.

Heading back across the river Dordogne, into the right bank, and 45 km north of Bordeaux city, is Blaye, where the citadel just last year (2008) became another in the clutch of Unesco world heritage sites for the Bordeaux region. 

Blaye citadel fortifications

Blaye is not really a promontory, but more of a slight and strategic bulge into the Gironde estuary, and giving good enough reconnaissance for the Romans to have established a military base on the rocky protuberance.

The bulge narrows the estuary sufficiently for a more recent ferry service to be sited there, going to Lamarque (between Margaux and St. Julien communes), which avoids the long schlep into, through, and out again, of Bordeaux city to access the left bank.

The Roman base was replaced by a medieval fortress, and it was Vauban (Sébastien le Prestre, field marshall Vauban, b. 1633, d. 1707) who was the architect of the current imposing fortifications, one of 33 fortresses he created.

Blaye had evidently long been a key strategic defensive point for Bordeaux, and Vauban endeavoured to seal off the entire Gironde from marauding ships, by also constructing a fortress on the left bank – Fort Médoc – and on an island in between – Fort Paté.  The Blaye citadel alone covers 33 hectares, or ¾ of a kilometre at its longest and nearly ½ kilometre at its widest.

The citadel is free to enter, there’s even a campsite at its heart, but it’s well worth booking a guided tour, both for the wealth of information as well as access to otherwise locked labyrinthine underground parts of the citadel. For the knowledge-hungry, the tourist office has a comprehensive document, all in English, detailing the history of Blaye’s citadel and Vauban’s influence.

The Romans didn’t just build a military base, they also brought vines, as to other parts of Bordeaux, and Blaye’s vineyards now extend over some 10,000 hectares.  The region’s wines can be identified on the label by the appellation: Côtes de Bordeaux – Blaye.   

La Rose Bellevue

It is in this appellation that another touristic gem lies, right up in the top corner of the right bank, 20km north of Blaye, before the land heads off into Cognac territory. This is the poetically named Château La Rose Bellevue, where there is a pink and purple theme that’s close to my heart. Even the winery doors and several unused barrels are painted nearly-purple.

Winemaker Jérôme Eymas, fourth generation at the property, has a clutch of high profile work on his CV, including with Pfeiffer in Australia’s Rutherglen and Domaine Michel and Stéphane Ogier in Côte-Rôtie.   

Aside from the refreshing wines, both of which whites – the Cuvee Tradition, and the barrel fermented Prestige – were really rather nice, it is for organising boat trips on the Gironde estuary that this enterprising property has more recently made its name, winning the Great Wine Capitals’ ‘Best of’ award for Innovative Wine Tourism Experiences in 2009.

Jérôme Eymas in the secret garden

Leaving from Blaye port floating dock, the three hour tour includes wine tasting, a seafood lunch of oysters, langoustines, mussels, shrimps etc., and the ebullient Jérôme regaling you with his wines and quirky sense of humour.

If that’s enough to entice an exploration to the property itself, their ‘secret garden’, with a bring-your-own food barbecue, and pétanque, offers a more laid back way to enjoy a visit, and taste the wines.  The ‘secret garden’ is more akin to ‘living alcoves’ of pink roses, evergreen bushes and a cherry tree planted by Jérôme’s grandfather.  And if you’ve arrived sans picnic, you can buy one made up of local produce from the château. The secret garden creates a lovely image, the vineyard is right there, and Jérôme is a full-on friendly cellar guide. 

Having had your fill of winery visits extra cases can be added at Planète Bordeaux.  Or if you don’t have time to spend a luxurious day or two exploring the picturesque, rolling, mixed countryside of the right bank, you can pop the 30 minutes or so out of Bordeaux city and make a selection from the more than 1,000 producers of Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur, that are stocked at this maison du vin. The wines are sold at the same price as at the Châteaux.

In addition to a well stocked cellar Planète Bordeaux offers visitors a listen, read and sniff exploration of wine and winemaking. There are loads of sniff and learn aromas: blackcurrant, oak, citrus, grapefruit, the whole spectrum of flavours in the glass. And there’s a series of educational spaces which take the visitor through grape growing, harvest and winemaking. It needs a bit of updating, but if you’re short of time or an enthusiastic oeno-neophyte, this could be a good starting point to get a feel for the basics.

This article was inspired by a visit to the region in May 2009 sponsored by the CIVB. 

Bordeaux wine region

Bordeaux is the most prestigious and the finest wine producing area in the world. The eponymous region in south west France is the home of some of the most sought-after “collectors’ items” in the world, as well much good value everyday wine. It produces 14% of all French wines, 65-70 million cases, which is more than Romania.

HISTORY

The region is one of the oldest wine growing regions, and there is a long trading history with England. A 12^th century royal marriage gave to England much territory in south west France, and favourable trading terms.  

During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, long after the land reverted to French ownership, entrepreneurs from several countries such as Ireland, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany moved to Bordeaux to trade and export wine to their home countries.   

It was the Dutch, with their excellent land-drainage skills who, by draining the marshy land of the Médoc in the mid 17^th century, exposed their beautifully draining gravels, laying the foundation for the modern Bordeaux wine region – the left bank -  and its top quality wines. 

Bordeaux reds are often called claret in the UK as a linguistic artefact of our centuries-long historical trading association. 

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE

The Bordeaux region covers over 120,000 hectares (300,000 acres). The climate is similar, but a bit warmer to southern England: temperate, with mild winters, damp springs and rainy autumns.    

The region is sliced into three big chunks by the Gironde estuary, which is fed by the rivers Dordogne and Garonne.  The Entre-deux-mers is akin to the bread-basket of Bordeaux producing much everyday red and white wine.  But it is the left bank of the Médoc that lays claim to the finest red wines of Margaux, St. Estephe, St Julien and Pauillac, and the right bank to the highly-prized reds of Pomerol and St. Emilion. 

The best dry whites come from the Graves, immediately south of the city of Bordeaux, and the most famous sweet whites just south of that, in Sauternes and Barsac.                                            

Bordeaux has a total of 57 appellations — a specific, delimited area of land, the name of which appears on the label.   These appellations generally avoid land that is of too poor quality to grow grapes such as low-lying badly drained land, or soils that are too sandy. 

To qualify for an appellation all the grapes must be grown within the borders of the appellation. So, for a wine labelled ‘Bordeaux Appellation Contrôlée’ the grapes can come from anywhere within the 120,000 hectares.  But there are fewer than 800 ha of vines in Pomerol, which makes average production per grower a tiny 2,500 to 3,000 cases.  As a point of comparison, in the UK, we buy over 2.5 million cases of Aussie wine Jacob’s Creek to drink at home.

Another criterion for appellation is the use of specific grape varieties.  For Bordeaux, all red wines are made from cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc (sometimes with sprinklings of petit verdot and malbec).  All white wines, both sweet and dry, are made from differing proportions of sauvignon blanc and semillon, sometimes with a little muscadelle.  Bordeaux wines cannot be made from any other grape varieties. As a comparison, the appellations of Burgundy must be just pinot noir for reds and chardonnay for whites.

GRAPES AND BLENDS – RED

Pauillac vineyards

It is the red wines of Bordeaux that have claimed their place in wine immortality. They account for the lion’s share of production, about 90%. Over the centuries the Bordelais have found that blending their grape varieties can add additional layers of complexity and palate profile to a wine, with the best aspects of one grape variety complementing the best aspects of another.  For the classic cabernet sauvignon/merlot blend the deeply coloured, tannic and richly blackcurrant-fruited cabernet sauvignon can be softened and rounded a little by the more supple tannins of merlot and its additional flavours added of earth, plum and warm bread.  

Within this classic blend there is a useful distinction to be found between the left bank and right bank.  The Médoc tends to have a higher proportion of cabernet sauvignon in the blend, maybe 60-70%, which lends a stronger, more structured profile, with more tannic grip.  The remainder will be 20-35% merlot, up to 15% cabernet franc, plus a little “seasoning” from those other two grape varieties.

Right bank wines tend to have a higher proportion of merlot (~60%) and cabernet franc (~30%) which offer a softer, rounder, more approachable and supple profile, supported by the strength of about 10% cabernet sauvignon. Right bank wines are often considered an easier introduction to people unfamiliar with the wines of Bordeaux.  And in terms of value, some of the best reds are to be found in the lesser known right bank appellations such as Bourg, Blaye, Fronsac and Côtes de Castillon.

GRAPES AND BLENDS – WHITE

White Bordeaux wines are made from semillon and sauvignon blanc, and the sweet styles may have a little muscadelle also.  For dry whites at the lower end of the market – likely from the Entre-deux-Mers – the best may be varietal sauvignon blanc, unoaked, aiming at primary fruit expression, an aperitif style.  At the top end dry whites are generally blends and are serious, overtly oaked, creamily-textured wines needing appropriate food pairing to show their best colours.  The emphasis for this style is on structure and potential longevity rather than immediate fruity appeal and the price reflects this, often £20 and more. 

The sweet white wines of Sauternes and other appellations such as Barsac, Saint-Croix-du-Mont and Cadillac are made in a very different way.  Some grapes are left on the vine after the ‘dry wine’ harvest.  As autumn approaches and with it the risk of rain, the mornings in places close to the river may be misty which brings a beneficial mould, botrytis. Botrytis wraps itself around each intact berry, drawing water from it, thereby concentrating all the other grape constituents.  So long as the afternoons are dry all is well, but if the autumn is damp and rainy the mould can turn nasty and cause the remaining crop to rot, by splitting the berry skin and exposing the pulp. Semillon has thin skins which are susceptible to this magical, risk-laden botrytis.  Blending with sauvignon blanc, which has naturally high acidity, balances the final wine.

CLASSIFICATION

Almost unique to the wine-producing world, a few Bordeaux properties are classified.  About 200 properties are classified, among the ten thousand growers, and it is these ‘top’ châteaux that provide the global benchmark.

The 1855 Médoc classification is the most widely known (see it here).  It was drawn up for the Universal Exposition in Paris of the same year.  Market prices of the day formed the basis of a list of producers whose wines consistently attained the highest prices.  This group of 60-odd châteaux were ranked into 5 groups – first growth through to fifth growth – what are now known as the ‘classed growths’. 

Other properties, such as those in the Graves, Sauternes and St. Emilion, have also been classified, bringing the total up to 200.

REPUTATION AND QUALITY

At their best and classic expression, the prestigious appellations (containing those classified properties) of St. Estèphe, Pauillac, St. Julien, Margaux, Graves, Pomerol, St. Emilion show subtly different flavour profiles, which reflect the particular site where the grapes have grown.  This is the essence of ‘terroir’ or the ’sense of place’ that good quality wines display.

The vast majority of wine is produced in the less prestigious appellations – the Entre-Deux-Mers and areas lying outside the key names.  Some of these wines are bottled at the property and sold as “petit châteaux” wine under its specific appellation and Château name.  Much is sold in bulk to merchant firms which blend various wines into brands e.g. Mouton Cadet, Numéro 1, Sirius, Calvet Classic, sold under the most generic appellation of Bordeaux Appellation Contrôlée.  The advantage here  is that the merchants are able buy fruit and wine from all the Bordeaux vineyards with the aim of finding the best quality they can to fit into the price of their brands.  This is a vital part of the Bordeaux market, and a way of potentially offering consistent and reliable wine styles for consumers to try the region’s wines.