As a younger wine aficionado, I simply cannot join Hugh Johnson in shedding a tear for Bordeaux’s decline in popularity (November 2023 issue). Sure, people like me can find a reasonable bottle of claret (let’s just call it Bordeaux) for £8-£20 that I can afford. Yet is affordable Bordeaux the type of wine ‘worth talking about’? Hardly, for they are often generic, boring, lifeless. Those that do stimulate imaginations and conversations are, I suspect, those traded by the case in bond at prices (like with housing) well beyond the reach of many of us younger folk. Bordeaux perhaps never will be a simple matter of ‘personal choice’, as it is no option at all for many of us. Price drives us to other regions where value is easily found – the Rhône, for instance.
Bordeaux is complicit in this as it has done itself no favours. Good Bordeaux is floated by men in expensive suits on La Place at inflated prices, backed by marketing departments praising a lifestyle most of my younger generation cannot hope to aspire to.
While Mr Johnson laments the decline of Bordeaux, he fails to see the general mood of optimism in wine that he himself helped create. His own World Atlas of Wine, for example, did help steer interest in areas beyond Bordeaux. Frankly, what we find elsewhere is not only often less expensive, but also better aligns with our values. Many of us feel that Bordeaux as a region has failed to connect with the younger generation by refusing to drop conservative methods in the vineyard and winery.
I cannot and may never afford Bordeaux, or Burgundy for that matter.
