Quality at the heart of cru bourgeois

The new cru bourgeois collection was unveiled to the trade last week with an increased focus on quality.

“Reconnaissance” is a new system of quality control that takes place two years after the harvest and sets the standard required for wines wishing to label themselves cru bourgeois year after year.

Bureau Véritas, an independent organisation concerned with the evaluation of standards compliance, was chosen by l‘Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc to judge the three stages of the system.

The 2008 collection is the first vintage to have been judged under the Reconnaissance system and features 243 wines from all eight regions of the Médoc, from Médoc AOC to one of the communes such as Pauillac or Margaux.

In total 290 wines applied for the chance to be rated cru bourgeois but ultimately 47 fell by the wayside.

The breakdown of the new list is as follows:

•    96 crus bourgeois from Médoc
•    81 from Haut-Médoc
•    12 from Listrac
•    12 from Moulis
•    13 from Margaux
•    2 from Saint-Julien
•    5 from Pauillac
•    22 from Saint-Estèphe

While the category has been neglected for a number of years it is an important part of Bordeaux’s wine scene, with the new selection representing 3,500 hectares, 22% of the Médoc’s vineyards and producing 25 million bottles of wine or 30% of the region’s production.

This new system has taken three years to approve but was finally ratified by the French government last year. Approval by Decree was given on 20 October 2009 and by Order on 16 November.

Upon the date of the initial application in 2007, the Administrative Court of Bordeaux annulled the decree of 17 June 2003, which established the first official classification of crus bourgeois.

However, the 2003 classification, which judged 490 candidates before picking 247, was decried as unfair by those left out of the final line-up.

Among the new selection, 166 producers featured in the 2003 selection and 119 were listed in an unofficial list in 1932. A further 96 estates were listed in both 1932 and 2003.
With the selection process taking place two years after the harvest it will not be until September 2011 that the 2009 selection is made.

In the present though, the 80 wines presented to the trade at the Institute of Physics were a timely reminder, to buyers and journalists alike, just what an attractive vintage 2008 was.

Rupert Millar, 30.09.2010