Bordeaux: A Comprehensive Guide (revised and expanded Third Edition) - Hardcover

9780751301434: Bordeaux: A Comprehensive Guide (revised and expanded Third Edition)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0751301434 ISBN 13: 9780751301434

Publisher: DK

Who is making Bordeaux's best and worst wines? What has a specific chateau's track record been over the last 40 years? Which chateaux are overrated or underrated? These are the questions Robert Parker answers fully in the new edition of his comprehensive and authoritative guide to the wines of Bordeaux. His vintage-by-vintage reports demonstrate thoroughness and discernment and he has set uncompromising standards in assessing each vintage from 1961 to 1997 for every major chateau. Each vintage is described in detail for taste, colour, quality and anticipated maturity, so you can see at a glance which wines are ready to drink now and when to enjoy those that are still maturing. For each chateau, Parker also provides details of how vineyards are planted, yields, annual production and style of vinification. He takes you through each of the famous Bordeaux regions and gives the official 1855 classifications, the crus classes and crus bourgeois, for each chateau along with his own appraisal of each one. Many chateaux long regarded as producing high-quality wines receive surprisingly low evaluations and Parker argues that many little-known chateaux ought to be upgraded on the evidence of the wines they have produced in the last 40 years. His assessment of the value of Bordeaux's top wines, including second labels of major chateaux as well as hundreds of under-publicized estates, make this a useful book for the wine buyer.

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About the Author:

Robert Parker is a bestselling author, his previous titles include Parker's Wine Buying Guide. He is the first wine writer to receive France's two highest honours, Knighthoods in the National Order of Merit and the Legion of Honour and he is regarded as the world's foremost authority on wine. Robert Parker resides in Maryland, USA.

Chapter 1

1: USING THIS BOOK

There can be no question that the romance, if not downright mysticism, of opening a bottle of Bordeaux from a famous ch�teau has a grip and allure that are hard to resist. For years writers have written glowing accounts of Bordeaux wines, sometimes giving them more respect and exalted status than they have deserved. How often has that fine bottle of Bordeaux from what was allegedly an excellent vintage turned out to be diluted, barely palatable, or even repugnant? How often has a wine from a famous Ch�teau let you and your friends down when tasted? On the other hand, how often has a vintage written off by the critics provided some of your most enjoyable bottles of Bordeaux? And how often have you tasted a great Bordeaux wine, only to learn that the name of the Ch�teau is uncelebrated?

This book is about just such matters. It is a wine consumer's guide to Bordeaux. Who is making Bordeaux's best and worst wines? What has a specific chateau's track record been over the last 20-30 years? Which ch�teaux are overrated and overpriced, and, of course, which are underrated and underpriced? These issues are discussed in detail.

The evaluations that are contained in this work are the result of extensive tastings conducted in Bordeaux and in America. I have been visiting Bordeaux every year since 1970, and since 1978 I have gone to Bordeaux as a professional at least twice a year to conduct barrel tastings of the young wines, as well as to do comparative tastings of different wines and vintages that have been bottled and released for sale. Since 1970 I have tasted most of the wines in the top years a half dozen or more times.

It is patently unfair to an estate to issue a final judgment about a wine after tasting it only once. Consequently, when I do tastings of young Bordeaux, I try to taste them as many times as possible to get a clear, concise picture of the wine's quality and potential. I have often equated the tasting of an infant, unbottled wine with that of taking a photograph of a long-distance runner at the beginning of a race. One look or tasting of such a wine is only a split-second glimpse of an object that is constantly changing and moving. To effectively evaluate the performance and quality in a given vintage, one must look at the wine time after time during its 16-24-month prebottling evolution and then evaluate it numerous times after bottling to see if the quality or expected potential is still present.

Obviously, some wines as well as general vintages are much easier to assess than others. For certain, tasting young wine requires total concentration and an extreme dedication to tasting the wine as many times as possible in its youth, both at the individual Ch�teau and in comparative tastings against its peers. This is the only valid method by which to obtain an accurate look at the quality and potential of the wine. For this reason, I travel to Bordeaux at least twice a year, spending over a month in the region each year visiting all the major ch�teaux in all of the principal appellations of the M�doc, Graves, Sauternes, St.-Emilion, and Pomerol.

The ch�teaux visits and interviews with the winemakers are extremely important in accumulating the critical data about the growing season, harvest dates, and vinification of the chateau's wines. Most of the winemakers at the Bordeaux ch�teaux are remarkably straightforward and honest in their answers, whereas owners will go to great lengths to glorify the wine they have produced.

In addition to doing extensive visits to the specific Bordeaux ch�teaux in all appellations of Bordeaux in good, poor, and great vintages, I insist on comparative tastings of cask samples of these new vintages. For these tastings I call many of Bordeaux's leading n�gociants to set up what most consumers would call massive comparative day-long tastings of 60-100 wines. In groups of 10-15 wines at a time, an entire vintage, from major classified growths to minor Crus Bourgeois, can be reviewed several times over a course of 2 weeks of extensive tastings. Such tastings corroborate or refute the quality I have found to exist when I have visited the specific Ch�teau. Because I do these types of broad, all-inclusive tastings at least three times before the young Bordeaux wine is bottled, I am able to obtain numerous looks at the infant wine at 6, 9, and 18 months of age, which usually give a very clear picture of the wines' quality.

Despite the fact that young Bordeaux wines are constantly changing during their evolution and aging process in the barrel, the great wines of a given vintage are usually apparent. It has also been my experience that some wines that ultimately turn out to be good or very good may be unimpressive or just dumb when tasted in their youth from the cask. But the true superstars of a great vintage are sensational, whether they are 6 months or 20 months old.

When I taste young Bordeaux from the cask, I prefer to judge the wine after the final blend or assemblage has been completed. At this stage, the new wine has had only negligible aging in oak casks. For me, it is essential to look at a wine at this infant stage (normally in late March and early April following the vintage) because most wines can be judged without the influence of oak, which can mask fruit and impart additional tannin and aromas to the wine. What one sees at this stage is a naked wine that can be evaluated on the basis of its richness and ripeness of fruit, depth, concentration, body, acidity, and natural tannin content, unobscured by evidence of oak aging.

The most important component I look for in a young Bordeaux is fruit. Great vintages, characterized by ample amounts of sunshine and warmth, result in grapes that are fully mature and produce rich, ripe, deeply fruity wines. If the fruit is missing, or unripe and green, the wine can never be great. In contrast, grapes that are allowed to stay on the vine too long in hot, humid weather become over-ripe and taste pruny and sometimes raisiny and are also deficient in acidity. They too have little future. Recent vintages that, in their youth, throughout all appellations of Bordeaux, have been marked by the greatest ripeness, richness, and purity of fruit are 1982, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1995, and 1996, all high-quality vintages for Bordeaux. Vintages that exhibited the least fruit and an annoying vegetal character have been 1974, 1977, and 1984, poor to mediocre vintages.

In early summer or fall following the vintage, I return to Bordeaux to get another extensive look at the wines. At this time the wines have settled down completely but are also marked by the scent of new oak barrels. The intense grapy character of their youth has begun to peel away, as the wines have now had at least 3-4 months of cask aging. If extensive tastings in March or April give a clear overall view of the vintage's level of quality, comprehensive tastings in June and again the second March following the vintage are almost always conclusive evidence of where the vintage stands in relation to other Bordeaux vintages and how specific wines relate in quality to each other.

With regard to vintages of Bordeaux in the bottle, I prefer to taste these wines in what is called a "blind tasting." A blind tasting can be either "single blind" or "double blind." This does not mean one is actually blindfolded and served the wines, but rather that in a single-blind tasting, the taster knows the wines are from Bordeaux but does not know the identities of the ch�teaux or the vintages. In a double-blind tasting, the taster knows nothing other than that several wines from anywhere in the world, in any order, from any vintage, are about to be served.

For bottled Bordeaux, I usually conduct all my Bordeaux tastings under single-blind conditions. I do not know the identity of the wine, but since I prefer to taste in peer groups, I always taste wines from the same vintage. Additionally, I never mix Bordeaux with non-Bordeaux wines, simply because whether it be California or Australia Cabernet Sauvignons, the wines are distinctly different, and while comparative tastings of Bordeaux versus California may be fun and make interesting reading, the results are never very reliable or especially meaningful to the wine consumer who desires the most accurate information. Remember that whether one employs a 100-point rating system or a 20-point rating system, the objectives and aims of professional wine evaluations are the same -- to assess the quality of the wine vis-a-vis its peers and to determine its relative value and importance in the international commercial world of wine.

When evaluating wines professionally, it goes without saying that proper glasses and the correct serving temperature of the wine must be prerequisites to any objective and meaningful tasting. The best generally available glass for critical tasting is that approved by the International Standards Organization. Called the ISO glass, it is tulip shaped and has been designed specifically for ta...

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