Bordeaux wines lose prestige among young wine lovers

January 6, 2011

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Bordeaux Loses Prestige Among Younger Wine Lovers
THE hyperbole over 2009 Bordeaux began building even before the harvest last fall. Ripples of praise grew into waves this spring as critics and the trade descended on Bordeaux for the annual ritual of tasting the most recent vintage from barrels. Their ecstatic reviews reverberated through Britain, which takes its claret extremely seriously. They rang out in Hong Kong, the leading edge of what Bordeaux hopes will be a huge Asian market.
In the United States, the huzzahs resonated with collectors and wine investors, and with high-end restaurants whose clients don’t mind spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on renowned bottles. These people paid attention when Robert M. Parker Jr., the wine critic whose opinions most influence Bordeaux prices, wrote, “For some Médocs and Graves, 2009 may turn out to be the finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux.”
But for a significant segment of the wine-drinking population in the United States, the raves heard around the world were not enough to elicit a response beyond, perhaps, a yawn. For these people, Bordeaux, once the world’s most hallowed region and the standard-bearer for all fine wines, is now largely irrelevant.
What happened? Plenty of Bordeaux is still consumed in the United States. In 2009, 1.29 million cases of Bordeaux wine were imported, accounting for 0.46 percent of all still wines, domestic and foreign, distributed in the country. While this percentage rises and falls year to year, it is still a far cry from its highs in the mid-1980s. Bordeaux shipments accounted for 1.69 percent of all still wines distributed in the United States in 1985, for example.
While the drop stems from far more competition in the lower-priced market, it also reflects a shift in the demographic of Bordeaux aficionados. For young Americans in particular, Bordeaux has become downright unfashionable.
Not so long ago, young wine-loving Americans were practically weaned on Bordeaux, just as would-be connoisseurs had been for generations. It was the gateway to all that is wonderful about wine. Now that excitement has gone elsewhere, to Burgundy and the Loire, to Italy and Spain. Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass.
“The perception of Bordeaux for my generation, it’s very Rolex, very Rolls-Royce,” said Cory Cartwright, 30, who is a partner in Selection Massale, a new company in San Jose, Calif., that imports natural and traditional wines made by small producers, and who writes the Saignée wine blog. “I don’t know many people who like or drink Bordeaux.”
But the lack of interest is not just a question of perception. Nor is it solely a reflection of the weak economy, which drove down sales of most higher-priced wines in the last two years.
The more troubling sign for Bordeaux is that it has largely lost the loyalty of people like sommeliers and neighborhood wine shop proprietors, who can help build an audience for wines. The high-end, big-name wines will always have a market, but the less expensive, less familiar names, the natural points of embarkation for young wine explorers, may not fare as well without the support of those crucial intermediaries.
“I don’t know any young sommelier who I’ve encountered in the last 15 years who is a Bordeaux hound,” said Paul Grieco, an owner of the restaurant Hearth as well as two innovative wine bars, Terroir and Terroir Tribeca, all in Manhattan. Mr. Grieco has been a mentor for many young sommeliers. He himself learned about fine wine by drinking Bordeaux. Nonetheless, at his wine bars, he serves 50 wines by the glass, and not one is a Bordeaux. His shift has left him with mixed feelings.
“I think, ‘I’m a history guy, how can I not revere Bordeaux?’ ” he said. “If even one person came in and said, ‘I want a glass of Bordeaux,’ I might think I really have to serve a Bordeaux. But not one person has said that. Not one! That’s pretty sad.”
For many younger sommeliers and wine lovers, the new standard of excellence is Burgundy.
Unlike Bordeaux, where many of the best-known chateaus are run by corporations or wealthy absentee owners, Burgundy is full of estates, including many of the leading ones, that are essentially small businesses. Dealing with Bordeaux often requires working with middle management and marketing specialists. It’s much easier to visit a Burgundian estate and find the one person who has dirt on the boots, wine on the hands and a name on the bottle.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/dining/19pour.html?_r=3

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