Bordeaux Wine Classification

Political and Economic Considerations Create a Ranking System

Dec 30, 2008

Discusses the five-tiered growth classification system which ranks Bordeaux wines from high to low.

It all started when Napolean III decided that France needed a classification system for Bordeaux's wines. The classification system would be designed to rank the best of Bordeaux's wines, and would be applied in time for the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris. Wine brokers then ranked the wines by quality – with first growths ranked as high, and fifth growths ranked as low. The brokers based their decisions on a chateau's reputation and trading price.

First Growth Classified Clout

Since then, this ranking system has largely determined how much money Bordeaux chateaus could charge for their wines and set up an advantage for those chateaus who had the money and clout to market their wines.

These first growth Bordeaux represent some of the most expensive wines on the planet.

Bordeaux Wine Critics

Peter M. F. Sichel, the owner of Fourcas-Hosten, a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in Listrac states: "The old system has held up pretty well, though any objective examination would not assign, in a number of cases, the same numerical classification to the classified growths today."

He goes on to say that, "The classified growths are still the best wines, with very few exceptions, made in the Médoc, as they were in 1855," Sichel says. "There should also be a periodic reassessment of the classifications, to enable some Cru Bourgeois to move up, and classified wines that have deteriorated to move out."

According to New York Times Wine columnist Howard G. Goldberg, Americans buy by the numbers, and the numbers he refers to are the critics numbers. He muses that for the next 150 years scholars can decide if the 1855 classification system influenced wine guru Robert Parker's 100 point grading system.

Complex Ranking System Needs Changing

There are many who believe the system is in need of a complete overhaul, or at the very least tweaked a bit.

One of the problems is that the system has evolved into an exceedingly complex tangle of wine classifications that often leaves the average wine consumer baffled. Currently around 7000 winemakers use over 12,000 chateau names to classify their wines.

The government is trying to simplify the complex labeling system and make it easier for the consumer to understand. Winemakers in Bordeaux have been told to stop using several different chateau names for the same wine that has been bottled at the same property.

A spokesperson for the Federation des Syndicats des Grands Vins de Bordeaux (FGVB) stated that,"A chateau may use only one name, with the possibility of a second if it can be proved it was in use before 1983."

The problem is that many winemakers want to use premier chateaus labels on their Bordeaux wine because it would bring them more prestige and more money.

Winemakers have been given a January 31, 2008 deadline to decide what names they want to keep.

The copyright of the article Bordeaux Wine Classification in French Wine is owned by Ellen Wilson. Permission to republish Bordeaux Wine Classification in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.