The Ultra Quick Guide To Understanding French Wine

[normal]

Thanks a lot. I like your whine threads

[devogue]

Thanks a lot. I like your whine threads

I don't whine. I point things out.

[normal]

Thanks a lot. I like your whine threads

I don't whine. I point things out.

Sure you do, sure you do!

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I feel edjerkated bout whine now. Thanks.

Course, until I can find a job, it'll still be the 3 for a tenner plonk I will be swilling!

[devogue]

I feel edjerkated bout whine now. Thanks.

Course, until I can find a job, it'll still be the 3 for a tenner plonk I will be swilling!

Why not steal some good stuff? We never prosecute.

[Don't Panic]

I feel edjerkated bout whine now. Thanks.

Course, until I can find a job, it'll still be the 3 for a tenner plonk I will be swilling!

Why not steal some good stuff? We never prosecute.

XC, meet you in Fermanagh, bring a bolt cutters.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I feel edjerkated bout whine now. Thanks.

Course, until I can find a job, it'll still be the 3 for a tenner plonk I will be swilling!

Why not steal some good stuff? We never prosecute.

Just post me a bottle - it'll save you the cost of a glazier.

[JimC]

I feel edjerkated bout whine now. Thanks.

Course, until I can find a job, it'll still be the 3 for a tenner plonk I will be swilling!

Why not steal some good stuff? We never prosecute.

Just post me a bottle - it'll save you the cost of a glazier.

And they're bloody hard to find, these days - I hear they're all melting...





I'll get me coat...

[Sisifo]

Look for less well known regions and buy the most expensive wine from therw. A piss poor Chateauneuf du Pape will cost £20 a bottle because it has Chateauneuf du Pape on the bottle and that's the going rate for that appellation. The producers know that, and there's so much svaing face involved with wine that consumers will just go along with them and drink their sub standard shit while convincing themselves it's lovely.

Well, bollocks to that.

Not far south west and east of Chateauneuf du Pape are a couple of amazing regions - Cotes de Ventoux and Costiere de Nimes. The bog standard plonk from these regions costs about £3.99 (the bog standard stuff from the Cote du Rhone, because it's more famous, is around the £6.99 mark - anything less is utterly shite), so trade up to £8.99 or £9.99 and you'll get something pretty astonishing for your money made from the same grapes and in the same way as Chateauneuf. Why? Because every last penny has been squeezed out of the vines, you haven't been screwed because the name is famous and the land is expensive, and you will be receiving genuine value for money with all the usual hoity toity wine shit stripped away. Vacqueras and Gigondas are shit hot as well.

The OP and this advice in particular, has been the best introduction to wine that I have read; and I am now in charge of wine in my organization and I have to read a lot about it.

The advice to buy expensive from lesser regions, has given me amazing pleasurables surprises, and I repeat it to the Vietnameses that are getting interested in wine. It gives me Kudos in front of them, because it's the best no nonsense advice that you can find to enjoy good wine. I have to repeat that advice to you, with credit to its author.

For the record.

[devogue]

[redunderthebed]

Twenty years ago Wolf Blass made really lovely wines - their Yellow Label Cabernet was brilliant stuff. In 1992 it cost £6.99 a bottle - it still costs £6.99 on promotion because good old Wolfie sold up long ago and it's now thrown together piss water.

As an Australian beer drinker i can tell you why that is the fucking case.

It was taken over by fosters of which started as amalgamation of breweries in Melbourne once called carlton and united breweries or CUB. Now since it moved from being a proper brewery to essentially a investment company run by suits. It has bought and taken many many great regional and national brands watered down economised them and if they were really a niche brand just took them off the marketed completely taking a bit of australian drinking culture with it.

Then moved into wineries and pubs and doing the same and wolf blass is no different.

Bunch of cunts that i wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.

[Calilasseia]

First of all, many thanks to Dev for his guide in the OP, which he really should think about having printed off as a pamphlet entitled "Devogue's Bullshit Free French Wine Guide".

Second, a question. What sins (or otherwise) are associated with the word "claret"?

Third, allow me to pass on a couple of experiences of my own. One of the big names in the world of premium French wines is Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and their 'first growth' is usually regarded as well worth the wallet-melting price tag associated therewith. However, they also produce two very nice affordable lines - Cadet Claret and Mouton-Cadet. You can pick these up for about £8 a bottle, and I've never been disappointed with either. Indeed, my fondness for the former is one of the reasons I asked the second question above, because whatever reasons Dev may have for letting fly with the vitriol over clarets, this one is a good one, and it's my first choice for accompaniment with my Christmas dinner. The only complaint I have is that it's an absolute bitch to get hold of, I usually have to find a dealer that knows how to go looking for it, but when it can be found, it's seriously good stuff in my view. All I can say is, if the Chateau Mouton Rothschild is several steps up from this, it must be utterly fucking glorious, which is one reason I harbour the ambition to be able to afford a bottle someday, but at £200 a pop for one bottle of a recent vintage, it won't be something I'll indulge in soon.

Fourth, with respect to Chateauneuf du Pape, I'm quite surprised to see the prices being quoted. If you want to sample this without breaking the bank, head off to Asda, which is selling this for just £12 a bottle, and has done for some time. Though you won't get a 1929 vintage for that money obviously.

Fifth, for someone who can't afford to "try and buy", and risk spending money on undrinkable piss, what would be the Dev recommendation for getting something different from my usual choice (see above) to go with the Christmas dinner? Something that will deliver much without requiring a mortgage to be taken out? Bear in mind the Christmas dinner invariably centres upon beef, because I can cook a beef joint well, whereas lamb is a bit of a pain in the arse, and turkey is a total fucking waste in a single person household.

[devogue]

First of all, many thanks to Dev for his guide in the OP, which he really should think about having printed off as a pamphlet entitled "Devogue's Bullshit Free French Wine Guide".

Second, a question. What sins (or otherwise) are associated with the word "claret"?

Let's take a look at his, shall we?

Claret to me just means any red wine from Bordeaux, from the cheapest Bordeaux Superior up to the legendary First Growths - I've never felt there is anything bad about the term - if anything it's a handy term to use instead of saying "Bordeaux red wine" every time.

Third, allow me to pass on a couple of experiences of my own. One of the big names in the world of premium French wines is Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and their 'first growth' is usually regarded as well worth the wallet-melting price tag associated therewith. However, they also produce two very nice affordable lines - Cadet Claret and Mouton-Cadet. You can pick these up for about £8 a bottle, and I've never been disappointed with either. Indeed, my fondness for the former is one of the reasons I asked the second question above, because whatever reasons Dev may have for letting fly with the vitriol over clarets, this one is a good one, and it's my first choice for accompaniment with my Christmas dinner. The only complaint I have is that it's an absolute bitch to get hold of, I usually have to find a dealer that knows how to go looking for it, but when it can be found, it's seriously good stuff in my view. All I can say is, if the Chateau Mouton Rothschild is several steps up from this, it must be utterly fucking glorious, which is one reason I harbour the ambition to be able to afford a bottle someday, but at £200 a pop for one bottle of a recent vintage, it won't be something I'll indulge in soon.

It's PETUNIAS TIME again, folks!!!

I have quite a soft spot for Mouton Cadet because it was one of the first wines I tasted on my first day of my wine career at Oddbins in the 1990s. The quality is really good for a generic Bordeaux red and one of the world's biggest wine brands - I'm glad you enjoy it, but I reckon I can find you better wine for your money. As you know, the best French wines are produced in specific appellations - that indefinable, almost woo-ish quality known as terroir shines through. Mouton Cadet doesn't have that because the fruit is sourced from right across the region. The great appellations of the Medoc (Margaux, Pauillac, St Julien and St Estephe) and the likes of St Emilion and Pomerol can be very expensive, but there is one region in particular that I think is a treasure trove of great value claret - Cotes de Bourg. I stock one called Chateau Puybarbe from the incredible 2009 vintage. Like Mouton Cadet it is predominately Merlot - absolutely bursting with fruit and class, and only £8.99 a bottle.

Now on to the complex issue of the greatness of the First Growths, Bordeaux's most prized and illustrious reds. In 1855 Napoleon III requested a classification of the best wines from the best region of Bordeaux, the Medoc (yes, some people will argue about Petrus, Cheval Blanc and the like from Pomerol and St Emilion - mind blowing wines but distinctly different from the great Medocs). The resulting classification was based on the reputation and prices of the wines built up over centuries, and it was divided in to five levels. So theoretically the "Fifth Growths" are the wines deemed of "least quality" (bear in mind this is relative - many of them are fucking amazing) and you work your way up to the First Growths, of which there are only five (four in 1855 but Cali's dream wine Mouton Rothschild was elevated in 1973) and one of which, Haut Brion, is actually from outside the Medoc. Here are the First Growths:

Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild
Chateau Margaux
Chateau Latour
Chateau Haut Brion

Lafite is currently the most coveted, especially by Chinese investors - a case of 12 bottles of the 2009 will currently set you back approximately £14,000 (ex duty and VAT), but it will need at least ten years aging before it is ready to drink. Like the other First Growths from 2009 it will still be drinking nicely in 2109...

So what do these wines taste like? I guarantee that if I was to pour you a glass today you would be completely underwhelmed, Cali. That sounds bizarre, especially after spending a grand on a bottle of wine, but I can sort of compare it to your scientific knowledge and experience and mine. I have a sound enough grasp of the Theory of Evolution and as a layman I find your mega-posts debunking crap are normally very easy to follow and understand - however, when I click on one of your links to a supporting thesis or research article I very quickly get lost in a tangle of terminology and "deep" science I don't understand because I haven't gone on that scientific journey through university and beyond - I am just not educated enough to see beyond the bigger picture to the nuances that can only be experienced with thorough training and research. It's the same with great Claret - the first time I tried a First Growth, Haut Brion 1986 in 2000, I was only four years in to my career and I had only just begun to sample and learn about the lower rungs of the Classification - it was far too soon to make the jump to Haut Brion at the top - I expected fireworks, transcendent aromas and flavours, Picasso in a glass, but what I got was a rather austere and serious red wine with a curious "something" but nothing spectacular. It was deeply disappointing and I feared for my wine sanity, because wines like Haut Brion should be the sort of wines we long for and dream about. Of course, me being me I never learn - one of the most excruciating wine nights I have ever organised was a dinner with Chateau Palmer (a Third Growth many rate as highly as the Seconds and sometimes Firsts) in 2009 priced at £175 a head. More than forty people with limited wine experience sipped the £300 bottles of Palmer (which were staggeringly good) and I could see the bemused, confused looks on their faces - a room full of "is that it?".

Over the next five years I worked my apprenticeship through the Classifieds, all the time tasting multiple vintages of the likes of Lynch Bages, Leoville Barton, Palmer and other illustrious names, but finances and my rather lowly position in the wine world ensured I never got to try the First Growths during this period. By 2006 I was more than ready to take the step up, and I was lucky enough to find myself invited to more and more events and tastings where I could sample them. Invariably they were young wines (eg Lafite 2000, 2001 & Mouton 2002 in 2007), but this time, with all of the experience behind me, I got it - They are like the finest racehorses, elegant, lithe, rich, muscular and so graceful...each of them has amazing personality, voices which sing like no other wines in the world - Latour is a deep baritone, a brooding, dark, beast of a wine, essence of black fruit (I always got something "evil" from it in a Star Warsy kind of way), Lafite is a soaring soprano, an eighteenth century madam fluttering her eyelashes...so sexy. Mouton is like The Strangler's Golden Brown - exotic, mysterious, incredibly oppulent and luxurious, Haut Brion is just essence of nature - minerals, quartz, bricks, fire and endless depth, and then there is Margaux - so perfumed, crystalised flowers, black as night, silk and diamonds...

Then in 2010 I got to try a truly great Haut Brion from the 1961 vintage - to this day it haunts my thoughts; alongside the Cheval Blanc 1955 it remains one of the most profound sensual experiences I have ever experienced - it even beat receiving my first rimjob.

That's the thing about these wines - unlike the great Australian wines they are about increasing levels of character and complexity rather than intensity and power, but you have to build up to them by creating a frame of reference otherwise your experience will be seriously diminished.

Fourth, with respect to Chateauneuf du Pape, I'm quite surprised to see the prices being quoted. If you want to sample this without breaking the bank, head off to Asda, which is selling this for just £12 a bottle, and has done for some time. Though you won't get a 1929 vintage for that money obviously.

Poppycock!

What you should be asking yourself is how Asda can sell a Chateauneuf for £12 while the rest of the trade is selling them for £20 and above. Think about it like this - in Chateauneuf (or Chablis, or wherever) you've got one family who owns a load of hectares. They have no interest in winemaking and they don't even get on with each other, but they are lumped together because of French inheritance laws - a supermarket calls by and does a deal with them to produce a wine. A winemaker is installed and then decisions need to be made about the style of wine. Asda are concerned about price - the Chateauneuf market is lucrative because the very name adds a highly desirable artificial premium to the price above the actual cost of producing the wine - there aren't many wines the UK consumer will plump for above £10 a bottle, but Chateuneuf is certainly one of them. So our winemaker has some decisions to make - as per the appellation laws (the strict rules that must be followed to allow "Chateauneuf du Pape" to be printed on the label) he can choose to blend up to eighteen different grape varieties to make his wine, but he can also use just one. If he uses 7 or 8 like a reputable producer (Beaucastel uses 13!) his wine will have more depth and will be more interesting - the blend of different grapes is like a recipe - a little spice here, a little seasoning there, but wait a minute...all of the different grape varieties ripen at different times - so at least seven or eight different batches of wine have to be made to prepare for the final blend - but that costs money...hmmm. Also, he has to decide whether to pay a team of workers to hand pick his grapes as each vineyard ripens, ensuring superb quality control, or he can choose the cheaper option to machine harvest everything...hmmm, decisions, decisions!

So 7 or 8 varieties handpicked at different times to ensure complexity, richness, and balance goes out the window - three primary varieties are machine picked to keep costs down. The minimum requirements are met regarding oak, yields etc. to get the wine in to the bottle as cheaply as possible - another thing to look out for is the negociant who has sold wine to the supermarkets - if he doesn't have a well known name the chances are that he is dumping juice that he has been unable to sell anywhere else. So Tesco and Asda have a wine produced for a few pence which should retail for £4-6 that they can sell to you for £13 because the illustrious name has drawn you in. It's a brilliant whammy - you think you are saving a fortune, but you're actually paying miles over the odds!

The reason a Chateauneuf is expensive is because at its best, and as it should be, it is an expensive style of wine to make! It is not the indpendent merchant who is racking up prices and ripping off the consumer, it is the supermarkets who are ripping off the consumer by creating wines which are not up to standard and passing them off as the real deal. They get away with it because most of the public has heard of Chateauneuf but hasn't tried that much of it, and because we have a remarkable capacity with wine to convince ourselves we are getting a great deal because we have no point of reference except the name of the wine. And another thing - avoid all of those rip off "half price" deals in the supermarkets - it's total fucking lies and bullshit. Firstly, the wine is usually an "own brand" meaning you can't compare the price elsewhere (even cleverer is when they commission a wine from a big producer like Hardy's so you think you are seeing a real bargain). Secondly, it is then tucked away on a quiet shelf in a relatively quiet store for a few weeks priced at £9.99, a price which is miles above its true value of about £4 a bottle. After a few weeks the supermarket can then legally promote the wine as "Was £9.99, now £4.99 - half price!" - unethical, n'est pas? But they are cunts for doing that.

So where is the value to be found? Well Chateauneuf du Pape is in the Cotes du Rhone, but so are other appellations like Vacqueras, Gigondas and Cairanne - all areas with extremely passionate winemakers who can't charge the Chateauneuf premium because they are relatively unknown. You can get fantastic wines from around £11 a bottle from these areas. Even some generic Cotes du Rhone from the likes of Guigal and Perrin are of fantastic quality - Guigal's 2007 Cotes du Rhone at £9.99 will slaughter any supermarket Chateauneuf (btw Guigal's gorgeous Chateauneuf 2005 is about £26 a bottle).

Further south, check out any wines from Costiere de Nimes priced above £8 per bottle - likewise from the Languedoc, especially Minervois (La Lavinieres if you can get it) and St Chinian. All very similar to the southern Rhone blends but phenomenal value for money.

Fifth, for someone who can't afford to "try and buy", and risk spending money on undrinkable piss, what would be the Dev recommendation for getting something different from my usual choice (see above) to go with the Christmas dinner? Something that will deliver much without requiring a mortgage to be taken out? Bear in mind the Christmas dinner invariably centres upon beef, because I can cook a beef joint well, whereas lamb is a bit of a pain in the arse, and turkey is a total fucking waste in a single person household.

I would go for a bottle of Ben Marco Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina. Fucking amazing stuff - super gutsy, it will have you nice and squiffy in time for Songs of Praise.

Cali - you have probably opened my eyes to science more than anyone else in the world. I owe you. PM your address details to me so I can send you a few liquid offerings to sate your eager palate.

[Calilasseia]

Right, so concentrating for a moment on your remarks about the infamous Chateauneuf du Pape, a good wine with this label will have been laboured over intensively, inolving the cultivation and careful harvesting of a number of different grape varieties, followed ideally by careful pressing, fermenting, fining and maturing, thence followed by careful blending to produce something with a certain "oomph", preferably by a master wienmaker who knows his stuff, and all this intensive labour and time spent nurturing the wine will be the basis for the expense, even before the premium associated with the label is factored in. That expensive method of production, and the quality of the wine emanating from those producers thereof that still do things properly as it were, is what gave the label its gravitas in the first place, because when the process is followed properly, a good Chateauneuf du Pape is, to use a term from the engineering world, built up to a specification, not down to a price. But the label has now been corrupted by people building down to a price, and then taking advantage of the gravitas of the label, at least in the minds of the uninformed public, to charge a premium for what is effectively little better than Lambrusco. Nice to know this before I spend my money!

Oh, by the way, with respect to the remarks earlier in the thread about Wolf Blass, I was in the Asda earlier today, and sure enough, there were bottles of Wolf Blass sitting on the shelves. I smiled wryly as I recalled how it had been described as complete and utter piss, after its descent at the hands of people who masturbate over spreadsheets, and wondered if any of the people walking past the shelves knew anything about its recent history.

Meanwhile, the thought of paying more money for a case of recently bottled Lafite than I'd pay for a brand new BMW really does make me wince, especially as I'd have to spend yet more money on decent storage for it for 10 years before it became drinkable, and in that time, economic hoo-ha totally unconnected with the wine market could make the price go into free fall because the world economy is up to its neck in the doggie doo thanks to the b(w)ankers.

It's also interesting to take note of the fact that you have to be trained to appreciate the stratospheric names, and spend years learning what tastes right and what doesn't - I will admit that I laboured under the impression that with the likes of Lafite and Mouton, it was a case of open the bottle, pour, take first sip, and be hit with a sensation not unlike having Scarlett Johanssen disrobe her Janet Reger negligée and say "come and make a woman of me big boy".

Which means that people with inflated bank accounts arising from shafting people in the arbitrage markets on Wall Street, swaggering into a high-roller restaurant in Manhattan and ordering one of these names to accompany some suitably decadent meal, are in all probability totally unaware of why what they've just ordered is so good, and as a corollary, they're merely doing it so that they can show off how filthy stinking rich they are, without the good taste underpinning the writing of the cheque. Nice to know I'll be one up on these jerkoffs if ever I have real money to play with, just because I know this, even if my taste buds lack your training ...

[devogue]

Right, so concentrating for a moment on your remarks about the infamous Chateauneuf du Pape, a good wine with this label will have been laboured over intensively, inolving the cultivation and careful harvesting of a number of different grape varieties, followed ideally by careful pressing, fermenting, fining and maturing, thence followed by careful blending to produce something with a certain "oomph", preferably by a master wienmaker who knows his stuff, and all this intensive labour and time spent nurturing the wine will be the basis for the expense, even before the premium associated with the label is factored in. That expensive method of production, and the quality of the wine emanating from those producers thereof that still do things properly as it were, is what gave the label its gravitas in the first place, because when the process is followed properly, a good Chateauneuf du Pape is, to use a term from the engineering world, built up to a specification, not down to a price. But the label has now been corrupted by people building down to a price, and then taking advantage of the gravitas of the label, at least in the minds of the uninformed public, to charge a premium for what is effectively little better than Lambrusco. Nice to know this before I spend my money!

Oh, by the way, with respect to the remarks earlier in the thread about Wolf Blass, I was in the Asda earlier today, and sure enough, there were bottles of Wolf Blass sitting on the shelves. I smiled wryly as I recalled how it had been described as complete and utter piss, after its descent at the hands of people who masturbate over spreadsheets, and wondered if any of the people walking past the shelves knew anything about its recent history.

Meanwhile, the thought of paying more money for a case of recently bottled Lafite than I'd pay for a brand new BMW really does make me wince, especially as I'd have to spend yet more money on decent storage for it for 10 years before it became drinkable, and in that time, economic hoo-ha totally unconnected with the wine market could make the price go into free fall because the world economy is up to its neck in the doggie doo thanks to the b(w)ankers.

It's also interesting to take note of the fact that you have to be trained to appreciate the stratospheric names, and spend years learning what tastes right and what doesn't - I will admit that I laboured under the impression that with the likes of Lafite and Mouton, it was a case of open the bottle, pour, take first sip, and be hit with a sensation not unlike having Scarlett Johanssen disrobe her Janet Reger negligée and say "come and make a woman of me big boy".

Which means that people with inflated bank accounts arising from shafting people in the arbitrage markets on Wall Street, swaggering into a high-roller restaurant in Manhattan and ordering one of these names to accompany some suitably decadent meal, are in all probability totally unaware of why what they've just ordered is so good, and as a corollary, they're merely doing it so that they can show off how filthy stinking rich they are, without the good taste underpinning the writing of the cheque. Nice to know I'll be one up on these jerkoffs if ever I have real money to play with, just because I know this, even if my taste buds lack your training ...

A most excellent post.

I took my time explaining the worth of a wine "apprenticeship" - every single day I hear people say "all wine tastes the same to me", and many people think that it's all bollocks.

If truth be told, it is all bollocks - but then so is Shakespeare compared to Dan Brown and Mozart compared to Steps. What is real, though, is creating a context. I reckon I've tasted upwards of 200,000 wines across the course of my career - my mind constantly cross references and compares wines against their near neighbours or far-flung rivals. The more I taste the more my opinions about what constitutes greatness in wine develop - surely it's no coincidence that I have ended up revering the wines that everybody passionate about wines wants to get their hands on.