Chinese Whispers
St. Emilion (Photo: Adam Baker)
Bordeaux is rather a big place. It covers over 400 square
miles and they produce 700 million bottles of wine every year, ranging from
enormous quantities of everyday wine to some of the most expensive and
prestigious wines you can buy. In Bordeaux, there are over fifty appellations
(or “designated wine growing areas”) and the wine is made by more than 8,000
winemakers producing their wines under over 12,000 different châteaux names.
Try as I may, I simply cannot remember twelve thousand names, especially when
being pushed around by enormous Russians in a packed supermarket. Now I’ve got
nothing against the Russians you understand, except that they insist on speaking
an incomprehensible language. And they do tend to push and shove their way
around in the supermarkets. When I was last in Russia the locals seemed charming
and well-mannered, although I admit it was some time ago. Tchaikovsky was still
a boy.
Anyway, the châteaux names issue is made more complicated by the fact that a
single wine company can sell identical wines under different and totally
fictitious châteaux names. Several years ago, in an attempt to tidy things up,
the grandly named Federation des Syndicats des Grands Vins de Bordeaux announced
that wine producers may use only one château name with the possibility of a
second, if it was in use before 1983. The aim was to bring the number of château
names down to fewer than 10,000. Well, good for them. It will be a whole lot
easier to remember a mere ten thousand names rather than twelve thousand.
The prices of top Bordeaux wines have soared in recent years. The Chinese are
buying Bordeaux wines by the truck-load but not only that, nouveau-riche Chinese
are actually buying up entire châteaux, no doubt with much Gallic guttural
grumbling from the locals. Foreign ownership of French châteaux is not
particularly new. However, at the Chinese owned Château Laulan-Ducos, which lies
in a quiet part of the Médoc, its total annual wine production is whipped off to
China. Now, that’s a sobering thought if you ask me. In the past four years it’s
been said that thirty Bordeaux châteaux have been snaffled up by the Chinese and
there are whispered rumours that several other important châteaux will end up in
Chinese hands before we’re much older.
Château Moulin de Mallet 2011 (red), Bordeaux, France (Bt. 650
@ Friendship)
This wine is from St. Emilion although you’d never guess from the
label, unless of course you’ve already memorised those 12,000 châteaux names.
St. Emilion is quite a large region east of Bordeaux city and the wineries tend
to be smaller and rather less grand than those of the Médoc. Unlike the Médoc,
the dominant grape is not Cabernet Sauvignon but Merlot. Just south of
Saint-Emilion lies Ch. Moulin de Mallet where at one time, windmills sprouted
everywhere. One of them is now a château owned by the Couderc family since 1898.
The château is managed by the present owner, Serge Couderc and his son Julien,
who is a qualified viticulturalist and oenologist.
This wine is a very dark, rich red with a heady aroma of black fruit, along with
cherries and black currants. You might detect the faint aromas of strawberries,
mint and vanilla along with a kind of slight earthiness - one of the trade-marks
of Merlot. This blend is fairly typical of the region with 80% Merlot balanced
with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Although there’s plenty of black
fruit flavour on the palate, the mouth-feel is exceptionally soft and gentle
with a framework of delicate but firm tannins.
It’s a dry, well-balanced and very attractive wine. There’s a pleasant dry
finish with a hint of cherries and a satisfying bite of tannin. Even so, it’s
quite an easy drinker and although there’s an alcohol content of 13.5% the wine
is light and unassuming enough to go it alone without food. But it would make a
good partner for dishes like grilled steak with a lively sauce and for many
other red-meat dishes, stews and cheese.
Château Cazette 2011 (red), Bordeaux, France (Bt. 650 @
Friendship)
This wine is a lovely, intense purplish red with plenty of those
characteristic rivulets or “legs” that form in the glass as you swirl the wine
around. The wine is produced from a blend of 70% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon
and 15% Cabernet Franc, though it took me ages to find out, because Bordeaux
wine producers rarely reveal this sort of information. Predictably, the Merlot
qualities tend to dominate and bring an attractive woodland aroma of
blackberries, plums, herbs with a touch of vanilla and minerals. It has an
exceptionally soft mouth-feel with flavours of rich dark berries and minerals.
There’s an attractive touch of acidity too, with a good framework of firm dry
tannins. This wine won a Bronze medal at the Bordeaux Wine Awards (Concours de
Bordeaux) which for the last sixty years has been one of the most important
events in the Bordeaux wine industry.
Oh yes, the wine has an excellent finish; clean and dry, herby with touches of
fruit, fine tannins and a hint of some mysterious beguiling aroma that I just
couldn’t put my finger on. Perhaps your finger might be more successful.
This wine is rather elegant and refined - just what Bordeaux should be, in fact.
Unlike many New World reds, Bordeaux wines tend to be more restrained on the
palate. The emphasis is never on an “in-yer-face” style, with bucket-loads of
fruit in every mouthful. Bordeaux wines, for me at least, seem to be more about
elegance, restraint and balance. They seem to veer more towards grown-up
sophistication rather than playfulness and novelty. I really hope that the new
Chinese owners of the recently purchased châteaux understand these values and
not simply put quantity over quality. Two thousand years ago, the vine was
introduced to Bordeaux by the Romans. There’s a tradition to uphold and the
French, quite rightly, take these matters seriously, especially in Bordeaux.