Oeno-File

Bordeaux Is So Out It’s Back In Again

This little piggy goes oui oui oui.
This little piggy goes oui oui oui.

Eric Asimov penned an amusing bit in the Times this week about how the “faddish dismissal” of Bordeaux among the American wine cognoscenti — deeming it overpriced and only worthy of douchebags — has begun to turn. Ironically, the grandaddy of big wines, from perhaps the most established wine-growing region in the world, has taken on the role of unsung underdog among American sommeliers after a decade of being largely ignored by everyone but Richard Parker. If you were cool, you didn’t recommend Bordeaux. It’s been all about Barbaresco, Riesling, obscure Italian or Eastern-European varietals, or even Burgundy, along with lots of talk of acidity and food-friendliness. Asian buyers and collectors may have driven up the price of premier-cru vintages to record highs, but the chateaux finally realized in the last year or two that they’d lost a lot of love from wine professionals and importers, prompting them to launch an unheard-of PR effort. The result: Sommeliers are rediscovering some of the more moderately priced labels and putting them back on lists, and wine writer and sommelier Richard Betts is even producing wines in conjunction with a Bordeaux estate that clock in under $35. They named it Saint Glinglin — a fictional saint of French idiom whose name basically means “when pigs fly.” [NYT]

Bordeaux Is So Out It’s Back In Again