Château Le Crock 2005, Saint-Estèphe
28th June 2008
Most of the big political arguments have their counterparts in wine. Take the question of trade. One of the loudest debates of our time is between those who favour governmental control and those who would rather trust market forces. In this argument the world of wine perfectly mirrors the world of politics, with continental Europe obstinately in the first camp, the New World unthinkingly in the second.
Italy, France and Spain require that wines be classified by government-appointed experts, and that each wine label reveal its classification. The consumer must be sure whether he is paying for a vin ordinaire or a grand cru. He must be certain that if a wine comes from a particular location, it will only contain the prescribed amount of a certain grape. Armies of bureaucrats enforce these rules. Anyone who disobeys faces a stiff fine, perhaps even imprisonment.
The New World offers no such restrictions. The only government standards are those of food safety. Beyond those, winemakers can say as much or as little as they please about their wares. It is up to me, the buyer, to know the difference between the bottle labelled “Opus One” and the one labelled “Ernesto and Julio Gallo”. If I pay the same for both, that is my own silly fault.
I had better say right away that my own preference - in wine, at least - is for the free market. With so much readily available information on the subject of wine, few people nowadays are likely to pay Opus One money for a bottle of Gallo. And I have yet to come across a merchant or even a restaurant that would dare to charge the same for both. By and large you can be confident that a wine’s price reflects the honest opinions of many well-informed people. There is no guarantee that you will agree with them, of course, because such a thing is impossible to guarantee. And that is precisely what makes the European system so nonsensical.
The Europeans freely admit that their classification systems offer no assurance of quality. All they are saying is that certain wines can be expected to meet certain standards. In the case of Bordeaux, most of these standards were set in 1855. Many if not most winemakers try to live up to them, but nothing compels them to do so. If the maker of a Cru Classé wine wishes to turn out sulphurous muck, the only thing that will stop him is the knowledge that no one will buy his wines again – in other words, market forces. But in that case, what is the point of the classification?
The system is also a recipe for absurdity. Consider this week’s wine, Château Le Crock. This is a dense, silky Saint-Estèphe with odours of wild mushrooms and flavours of blackberry and licorice. It costs around $45 in the US, £20 in the UK, and is mouth-wateringly delicious. Until recently its label bore the legend Cru Bourgeois. Indeed Saint-Estèphe has an unusually high number of Cru Bourgeois wines – or rather, it had, because in 2003 the classification disappeared.
The term Cru Bourgeois goes back many centuries. It was originally an informal description, not an official designation. People used it to describe wines that were good, but not of the highest pedigree. Such wines were ignored in the 1855 classification, but by the 1930s attitudes had changed: the slump hit the wine industry hard, and the authorities were under pressure to do all they could to revive it. The result was was a classification of Cru Bourgeois properties of the Médoc. It lasted over sixty years.
Then people began to notice that the better Cru Bourgeois wines were outperforming many Cru Classé wines, while the weaker ones were scarcely better than vin de table. A new classification was called for. Government ministers issued decrees. A new three-tier classification was introduced: Cru Bourgeois, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel. Producers were invited to submit their wines for classification. That was when the trouble began.
490 wines were submitted, but only 247 were chosen. Those left out felt unfairly treated. They challenged the decision in court – and won. The judge noted that four of the 18 members of the panel had interests in some of the classified properties. The entire new classification was annulled. The French fraud office decreed that the use of Cru Bourgeois on wine labels would henceforth be illegal. And that is why, after more than sixty years, Château Le Crock’s label no longer carries the term.
It may return. The Alliance des Crus Bourgeois passed a motion to reintroduce the term as a mark of quality rather than a classification. I am not clear if the government has agreed to this idea, and if it has, what difference it will make. The continuing need to cling to these designations strikes me as pathetic. The most noteworthy point, surely, is that throughout all the bureaucratic chaos, Château Le Crock’s quality and reputation remained wholly unaffected. They went on producing and we went on buying. Surely that is all that matters.
