CigarsLover Magazine Awards Issue

TASTE
The historical grand chateaus are located along the banks
of the Gironde, where one can find the best pedoclimatic
balance in the region, that is the ideal combination
of climate and soil composition: indeed, an old motto of
the region says that “one should see the river from the
best vineyards”. The 1855 classification has zoned the
area according to the best cru, the highest-quality single
vineyards or particles among them. As mentioned, the
classification has been only slightly modified ever since,
highlighting the refinement of the enological culture reached
in the region even back then. Among the red wines
there were five levels of cru, crowned by the highly
selected First Growth: Château Lafite Rothschild and
Château Latour in Pauillac, Château Margaux in the homonymous
AOC, and Château Haut-Brion in Pessac de
Graves (the only one not in the Medoc). Among the white
wines there were only three levels of cru crowned by a
single unrivaled Superior Frist Growth: Château d’Yquem
in Sauternes (back then a sub-zone of the Graves). For
better or worse, this classification initiated the ascension
of Bordelais wines in the enological empyrean, and it stood
the test of time with one single substantial change:
the promotion to First Growth of Château Mouton Rothschild
of Pauillac in 1973. Year after year, hardly tested
by pest infestations and world wars, Bordelais wines
did not always meet easy successes, but always proudly
overcame the challenges of modern enology by betting
on sustainable viticulture choices (paying attention
to the most suited clonal varieties and to non-invasive
phytotherapeutic treatments) and on respectful vinification
techniques of the features of the soil (the typical
scents of tobacco and truffle in the Medoc’s red, the earthy
and smoky scents in the Graves’ ones, and the difficult
handling of the noble rot in Sauternes and Barsac).
The worst moment in Bordeaux’s recent history was in
1972 when a terrible speculation led to a crash of market
prices and a dire economic crisis in the region. A structural
feature of Bordeaux was the negociants system, the
middlemen that were in charge of buying the grapes from
the producers and then selling the finished bottle on the
international market: due to the price crash, producers
could not recuperate any loss from the negociants and
the whole system was cast in a downward spiral, except
for the few bigger properties that survived without many
sacrifices. It would take a decade of arduous work and
the coming of the superstar wine critic Robert Parker to
bring Bordeaux back to the top. The enthusiastic reviews
of the 1982 vintage en primeur (meaning directly from the
barrels, before auctioning to the negociants and bottling
the wine) renewed the ‘global thirst’ for Bordelais wines,
forever changing the function of the global wine market.
The negociants could not ignore the critical evaluation
of the vintages anymore and were thus forced to pay a
much higher price to the producers before being able to
bottle their wines. This change allowed many producers
to invest in their property and improve the quality of their
wines by reducing the crop quantity and lengthening the
cask aging. At the same time, many producers saw this
opportunity as the right moment to start bottling with
60 #5-2022 CigarsLover Magazine