How would you describe the life-span of
a Bordeaux wine? What is their maturity curve?
Obviously we need to look at the different wines.
If it's white, red, if it's sweet wine
because we know the diversity of wine in Bordeaux is very wide.
But I would compare
maturity curve
with human life.
Wine is very similar to us.
When your born, you're very little. You're weak
and as we grow, we get stronger, we get
wiser, hopefully. And basically, this is what is happening to the wine.
And it's at some point, you basically reach a plateau,
where we learn quite a lot in
our lives, but still have a lot of energy to
get things done. This is what is happening to the wine.
So basically, when it's born,
when it's made, it starts to mature.
At some point, it reaches it's peak.
Like for humans.
And after that, good quality wines,
it basically stays on that plateau for a some time.
So they reach prefect drinking
window,
when a wine is very complex. The tannins
beautifully melted down
and round and soft. They still have some
primary aroma left, when the wine is made
first it's dominating these fruit
flavours and aromas. After that it is going into secondary
aromas which start to
mature and start to get fresh,
let's say, cherries or plums,
going more into dry fruit, dry cranberries
and after going into tertiary aromas,
which is more lava,
earth, dry mushrooms, that kind of
aromas. And a good wine
will stay on that plateau, the same going back to that
comparison of people. And some people,
in their 60/70's, they are still running businesses,
they're successfull, they're climbing mountains,
they're running marathons and enjoying in their life.
Some people in their 60's, they are sitting at home
and watching a soap opera, this is how it is with wine
some could stay on that plateau for a long time and some go up
and go down. So for a Bordeaux specifically, can you put
an age? Can you say in 10 years
it's perfect and then after 40, it's not
or does it depend? It really depends on the wine,
the chateau and it depends on the vintage.
Some vintages are good but
they're not vintages which will
age really well. The tannins are a bit softer, they are
really fruit driven and they,
really nice, intense,
kind of starting after 5 years, for another ten years lets say.
Some legendary wines like, Mouton
1945, I've been really lucky to try that
wine 2 years ago
and it was absolutely incredible.
For me it felt like it
had just reached the drinking window.
And it would have been 70 years old? Correct.
Some wines will collapse after
10 years, some wines after
50/60 years, just
entering a drinking window. In general for wines, I
think that after about 8-10 years
it's reaching this really nice drinking window
If you're talking about red wines. So speaking of vintages,
what are currently the best vintages in
Bordeaux? I would maybe start with
what are the best vintages in general in Bordeaux.
And going very far back, as we mentioned
phylloxera. So lets take it
to before phylloxera. One of the greatest
vintages in Bordeaux is 1784.
The next I would say 1811
those are kind of one of the greatest vintages
before phylloxera.
Are there any bottles left of that stuff? Maybe in collectors
cellars! But
I haven't had any experience trying
such old wines. And after that post phylloxera
I would say 1900, 1945,
one of the legendary vintages,
1961,
again I was quite lucky to try from
this Château, Château Palmer. 1961,
considered to be the best Château Palmer ever made.
The next vintage, again, one of the most absolutely
famous one and if you
take going more into an area where it is
easier to buy this wine, it will be 1982.
The next would be 1986,
1990 we need to mention as well.
2000, 2005,
2009, 2010. After that
2015 and 2016,
two very recent vintages.
Showing really, really
good potential.
So, why is one vintage better than the other? What impacts it?
It’s got to do
with a number of different factors but the
main is Mother Nature. So depends how,
in what mood she is
and because wine is, we could say its an agricultural product.
Like other fruit, some years apples in England
are much better than other years,
therefore, wine is the same. Even more
complex so its basically if it’s starting right from the beginning
of the year , so if there was no frost, let’s say
in the Spring, and next if the summer wasn’t
too dry or hot, there was enough rain
during the summer for grapes, they have enough
rain and sun to ripen
and after that how was the Autumn?
When the harvest came? It was a beautiful
Indian summer or it was raining? Because when it
rains you cannot pick grapes. The wine
will effectively be diluted so we will wait
until the rain stops and the grapes dry.
These are all factors that you need to take into consideration
and when everything is perfect
like in those super vintages that I mentioned
you get a perfect wine.
So Martyn, why are there different classification
systems in Bordeaux?
What are they?
1855 classification was created
based on an order from Napoleon the 3rd for
that famous walled exhibition in Paris,
so that was the purpose of
that classification. Saint-Émilion was
created much later, again
was not classified and Saint-Émilion is a fairly big
area with a lot of Château's and how do you know
what is the best.
In Saint-Émilion we've got Saint-Émilion Grand Cru
Class A, Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Class B,
Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Class,
and just Saint-Émilion Grand Cru.
We've also got Graves, Pessac-Léognan classification
which is for areas to the south of the Bordeaux city.
We've got Sauternes
classifications. Sauternes and Barsac.
And Sauternes and Barsac again similar kind of tiered classification
right at the top, we've got only one,
which is Château d'Yquem, Château d'Yquem is classified
as Premier Grand Cru
Class, well above in a way
even of the fifth grows
and after that we've got Cru Bourgeois
some kind of generic wines from some appellations
Cru Artisan, that’s one of their
latest one, I believe it was created in 2015.
So different classifications,
for different reasons, at different times?
For different regions. It's not the easiest one. No, it's not.