The Rise & Fall of Bordeaux w/ William Kelley, The Wine Advocate

Deputy Editor of The Wine Advocate, William Kelley, who recently took over reviewing Bordeaux, as well as Burgundy and Champagne, amongst others, and former guest on E62 (Evolution of the Wine Critic) and E68 (Burgundy), takes a deep dive into the current state of Bordeaux in this two-part episode. First, William tackles the history of Bordeaux and how it achieved greatness as one of the top wine regions globally to its recent decline relative to Burgundy.

Detailed Show Notes:

Bordeaux was William’s 1st love of wine, part of its charm being its everywhere and always accessible relative to Burgundy’s scarcity

The Rise of Bordeaux

France’s most successful “commercial” wine - Bordeaux is a trading port city on the Atlantic, commerce is key to its identity
Wine was mostly an export product vs Burgundy was drank mostly by nobility, was also harder to travel
Robert Parker was a big supporter of Bordeaux vs. Burgundy, which was less of a focus

Bordeaux’s downfall

Lost commercial influence over the past 20 years
Conversation of wine has been around “terroir” and the Burgundian model
Aggressive pricing (particularly of 2010 en primeur campaign) also drove away many traditional customers - many wines still not worth what they were sold for en primeur from the 2009 and 2010 vintage campaigns
Worries that 2022 may have a similar fate

Bordeaux strategies

Some are trying to replicate Bordeaux scarcity (produce less Grand Vin, more 2nd / 3rd wines) - the region/producer may be too big for this strategy to work
Trying to copy other successful wine region styles (e.g., Napa, Super Tuscans; Int’l Sauvignon Blancs for whites)
William believes the best path is to keep what’s unique about the region but improve quality to make wines more approachable (e.g., more precise block harvesting, canopy management, etc.)

There’s an overreliance on vintage for Bordeaux; many great wines are made in lesser vintages

Winemaking trends

Since the 1982 vintage, new prosperity led chateaux to invest in new wineries, the focus was in the cellar
Recently, the push has been for vineyard improvements, promoting soil health and rooting systems, canopy management, and rootstocks and clones, though these take generations to implement

Sales focus

Salespeople in Bordeaux are not winemakers vs. Burgundy, where they are vignerons
Critics often taste at negociants, not at wineries
William was one of the 1st critics to walk the 1st growth vineyards in decades

La Place de Bordeaux