Bordeaux! A geographic region of southwestern France, a historic city and the collective name for some of the world`s most admired and costly wines.
After a period when other wine-producing areas from Tuscany and France`s Rhone Valley to our own Napa Valley and the vineyards of New Zealand have been in the news for various innovations and inventions, Bordeaux is back in the spotlight.
Three highly successful vintages, 1988, `89 and `90, have collectors buzzing. Meanwhile, merchants try to anticipate demand surges that seem to defy logic and cope with a river of unsold wine that is another legacy of the prolific `80s, which influential wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. has called
”the decade of the century.”
Historically, a 10-year period with two or three outstanding vintages has been considered normal in Bordeaux. In the decade just passed, only two vintages-1984 and 1987-were less than outstanding.
So isn`t there plenty of good wine available, and shouldn`t there be a lot of bargains? Isn`t the time ripe for those who turned away from French wines because of the wild escalation of prices during the magic `80s to renew their acquaintance with Bordeaux reds? Shouldn`t novices take a step up in class and try the real thing? After all, as the English writer Edmund Penning- Rowsell puts it in ”The Wines of Bordeaux” (Penguin), ”he who aspires to be a serious wine drinker must drink claret.”
The answers to the questions turn out to be far more complex than Penning-Rowsell`s prescription. Let`s start at the beginning.
Claret, as you may know or have guessed, is the name the English gave to the red wine of Bordeaux several centuries ago. Today, these reds are blends of as many as five grapes with cabernet sauvignon and merlot the most important of them.
Despite changes in vinification methods and all the expectation and excitement elsewhere, Bordeaux remains the region with the best track record for producing reds of great style and elegance that are capable of aging for long periods of time.
This quality, in turn, has led collectors to pay large sums of money to obtain older vintages of these wines at auction. It also has led them to speculate by buying Bordeaux futures, bidding on new wines before they have been released for sale, with the expectation that they will increase in value. Both strategies have been successful over the past two decades. Futures buying has been abetted by preview evaluations of every vintage, most notably by Parker, who assigns numerical ratings to each wine. Unfortunately for wine- lovers of ordinary means, many of those who rush to buy the wines never expect to drink them. To them, wine is a commodity.
So great is the demand for wines earning scores of 90 or higher on the 100-point scales used by Parker and the Wine Spectator magazine that the price structure has been distorted and worthy wines graded less than 90 are left sitting on the shelves. Yet due to French pride and markups (and international demand for Bordeaux and the unfavorable dollar-franc ratio), it is virtually impossible to find classified-growth Bordeaux of recent vintages for less than $20. Meanwhile, the two handfuls or so that lead the pack, wines such as Mouton and Lafite Rothschild, sell from $50 to $90 a bottle.
Asked about buying Bordeaux in this environment, veteran wine merchant Bud Schwartzbach, whose Wine Discount Center is a source of bargains, says,
”There are no easy answers if you`re not willing to spend a lot of money.” (The first prices quoted for the 1990s were well below those of the
`89s, but that may well change as the fame of the `90 vintage grows.)
He does offer an option, however: ”Dare to be different.”
This means buying lower on the point scale or finding wines that have not caught the critics` attention. To do so, read widely, taste unfamiliar wines in restaurants and find a merchant who actually tries the wines he or she recommends. Also, hone in on wines from merchants with good track records. Chateau & Estates, Christopher Cannan and William Grant, for example, are trustworthy Bordeaux specialists.
But the first question to ask yourself is, when do you intend to drink your Bordeaux? Are you buying for current consumption or to lay it away? In the long run, the extra money you spend for a slow-maturing classified growth with a 90-plus rating may be justified. In the short run, it almost certainly will not, because these wines usually are harsh and ungenerous when young.
When it comes to unclassified wines intended for early drinking, the first vintage to look for at this time appears to be 1988.
”There are some real nice-drinking wines out there,” says Bud Schwartzbach. ”This vintage has backed up in the pipeline and is standing still.”
”The `88s are forward, lighter than `89 and `90 and should be food compatible,” adds Howard Silverman of Sam`s. ”They represent nice value now, and there are good buys people are not picking up on.
”But there`s a problem. Bordeaux is a wine-drinker`s wine. It`s pretty austere. The wine novice is likely to want something softer, less complex. He might be happier with wine from California or Chile.”
As a middle ground, look for wines from the St. Emilion and Pomerol areas, which tend to be richer, earlier-maturing wines than those of the Medoc and Graves and have a number of excellent chateaux that are not famous. ”The trouble is,” Silverman says, ”most of them are very small, and once the word is out, they disappear from the shelves.”
He recommends looking even further afield in outstanding vintages, to other Bordeaux communes such as Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac, Cotes de Bourg and Cotes de Blaye or to wines labeled simply Bordeaux or Bordeaux Superieur.
In regard to price, Silverman says decent wines from these areas are available for as little as $6 to $7. Two he names are Chateau Pitray and La Rose Bellevue. For about $10, he mentions St. Andre Corbin, Chateaux Larose Trintaudon, Greysac, La Cardonne and La Commanderie.
”In the $10 to $15 area, I tend to recommend California wines,” he says. ”The Bordeaux selection gets better between $15 and $20” and will include the second wines of some famous chateaux, such as Lacoste Borie, which is made at Grand Puy Lacoste.
Young Bordeaux tastes best at cool room temperature. Don`t be afraid to chill a bottle in the refrigerator for 10 or 15 minutes to bring the temperature down to about 65 degrees. Drink these wines with one-dimensional foods such as beef tenderloin, chicken without a lot of herbs or spice (such as the Bordeaux-region recipe below) and creamy cheeses such as brie or camembert.
At the moment, a full range of `88s are in local stores, as are some
`89s. The classified `89s and early maturing `90s won`t be here until next year.
”So,” concludes George Schaefer, owner of Schaefer`s in Skokie, ”don`t feel you have to buy X or Y or even from a specific vintage. Look at the scene. I don`t see any substantial escalation in prices over the next 18 to 24 months.”
CHICKEN FRICASEE WITH COGNAC
Four servings
3-3 1/2 pound chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces, or 8 precut chicken thigh and/or breast pieces
1 cup cognac
6 strips thick-cut bacon slices, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces
24 baby onions
4 tablespoons butter or 2 tablespoons each butter and vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
1. Place chicken pieces in a shallow bowl and pour cognac over them. Cover and marinate for 8 to 12 hours in the refrigerator, turning the pieces occasionally.
2. Drain the chicken, reserving the cognac, and pat each piece dry. If bacon is salty, plunge it into boiling water and simmer for 1 minute. Rinse and dry bacon on paper towels. Plunge onions into a separate pan of boiling water and simmer for 1 minute. Rinse onions under cold water and peel them.
3. Heat the butter in a frying pan large enough to hold the chicken pieces in a single layer. Add chicken and bacon and cook over low heat, turning chicken pieces occasionally, until meat is firm but not brown.
4. Add onions, reserved cognac and a little salt and pepper. Cover the pan and cook over low heat, turning pieces occasionally, for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve with pan juices, rice or potatoes and a young, lightly chilled Bordeaux red.
-Adapted from ”French Regional Cooking” (Morrow)
