The Importance of French Wine

Somehow, when all the critics declared that Bordeaux’s 2009 vintage was the finest they had ever tasted, the clamoring from the wine drinking public in the US was very lukewarm. There are many legitimate factors that have come into play at the same time.

First, even for those that can afford the exorbitant prices that top Bordeaux demands, the pricing is geared closer to an item that you would want to invest in, rather than consume. Secondly, the US market is no longer singularly fixated on French wines as the only source of the finest wines. That viewpoint was not always the case.

Before the famous Steven Spurrier tastings in Paris in 1976, if you were a wine lover you had to know about French wine. French wine was the standard-bearer so much that someone in the US, asking for a generic white wine would ask for a Chablis, and someone asking for a red wine would ask for a red Burgundy. They weren’t getting a fine Chablis from Burgundy, nor a fine Pinot Noir from Burgundy. They were receiving a cheap field blend of grapes from California, which fit a price point. Still, the reference was to French wine, and wine had not become popular at all yet. Wine was really a mindset of the Europeans, and the well-to-do.

A high compliment about an Australian Chardonnay, or a California Chardonnay was that it tasted Burgundian, or was made from clones of the best producing regions of Burgundy. A great Cabernet Sauvignon, or a red Bordeaux blend, may have other names, such as Meritage in the new world, but the best compliment is still to call it a great Bordeaux blend.

Examples of this New World borrowing of French techniques and grapes are spread throughout the winemaking world.