Of course Bordeaux is a staple of wine lists all over the world, and of course the cru classé wines can be among the best that a list can offer. So it’s to the credit of a group of forward-thinking château owners that they actually wanted to put themselves in the firing line for an evening of discussion and, occasionally, heated debate about how they are perceived by the on-trade and what they could do to improve.

The key points were as follows…

WHO DRINKS CRU CLASSÉ BORDEAUX?

Mostly older consumers – say mid-40s-plus; the older they are, the more regular. Younger drinkers are often hesitant or confused and more likely to require help from the sommelier. They’re also less interested in the vintage.

‘Only the specialists will really know Bordeaux,’ said the Tate’s head sommelier and buyer Hamish Anderson.

THE BLING THING

Of course, not all Bordeaux consumption is by people who know what they’re looking for. Indeed, many of the sommeliers felt that knowledge was significantly less of a factor in the choice than conspicuously ordering something expensive.

‘A lot of the City guys just want to show off, but don’t know anything,’ said Joris Beijn of Andaz Liverpool Street (formerly Great Eastern Hotel). ‘As long as it’s Grand Cru Classé they’re happy. They’ll dismiss anything else as barbecue wine, even if it’s better than poor vintages of Bordeaux.’

This explains why places such as China Tang – The Dorchester’s pricey Asian restaurant on Park Lane – sells enormous amounts of claret that are unlikely ever really to work with the food.

‘We shouldn’t kid ourselves that people are buying them because they know the wine is great,’ explained Anderson. ‘Spending a lot of company money is part of the whole theatre.’

Or, as Philippe Blanc of Château Beychevelle put it, ‘We’re in the luxury world. Why do people buy a Chanel bag?’

Whether this luxury buying will continue in the current climate is, of course, open to question, and could leave pricey bottles of barely understood claret looking vulnerable.

WHITE'S NOT ALRIGHT

Nothing, arguably, is more vulnerable than good Bordeaux white wine; partly because it’s not really on customers’ radars and partly because it’s expensive.

‘It’s very hard to find good white Bordeaux that I can get on the list at £35,’ commented Beijn. ‘It’s just far easier to go to the south of France.’

SMALLER SERVES AND TRADING UP

Obviously, with high prices and shrinking customer budgets, smaller serves are an attractive option. Sommeliers, though, were not keen on the idea of selling such expensive wines by the glass. Both Lucio Penetra of L’Oranger and Katie Exton of Chez Bruce expressed reservations about both freshness and wastage. Half-bottles, however, were received with a lot more enthusiasm.

‘We sell a lot of fine wines by the half-bottle,’ said Exton. ‘We would love to offer more of them, it’s simply a question of availability. People see it as something they’ll treat themselves to.’

There was unanimous agreement that, for wines at this level, half-bottles could really offer an attractive option, both in making the wines affordable and encouraging people to try something they might not normally drink. Sadly, there was equally unanimous agreement that they’re all but impossible to get hold of, with the system in Bordeaux to blame.

‘Only a few négociants want to sit on a stock of half-bottles,’ sighed Basile Tesseron of Lafon Rochet. ‘They think it’s scary. We’d be the ones keeping the stocks.’

Since merchants (both in France and the UK) have a real fear of being stuck with vast stocks of half-bottles, and restaurants are reluctant to pre-order (and pay for) them, there seems to be no viable solution to this problem as the system stands at the moment.

‘The way in which Bordeaux sells its wine to the on-trade is a disadvantage,’ said Anderson. ‘I have a direct relationship with many of the people I buy bottles from in other areas. It’s much harder to have that with a Bordeaux château because there isn’t that direct relationship between the producer and the UK.’

THE NEGOCIANT PROBLEM

Indeed, much of the sommeliers’ frustration during the evening was focused on the fact that they didn’t feel they got good service when it came to buying Bordeaux, with no personal contact with the châteaux themselves and nobody fighting for them in the UK either.

‘Brokers are not set up like normal on-trade wine distributors, who know what their customers want and buy it in advance,’ complained Anderson. ‘If I want to buy a 2003 Pomerol, I’ll type the name of the château into winesearcher.com and choose the cheapest broker with whom I have an account. Those people aren’t interested in servicing my needs, and may well not even have bought the wine off a négociant. It could be from the secondary market. It’s very different from phoning up a Burgundy specialist who’s only one phone call away from the producer.’

There’s also a problem with buying older bottles. Since brokers don’t want to sit on stock for any length of time, it often means that restaurant-friendly older bottles are only available from the secondary market, where, as Penetra pointed out, ‘Go back even 10 years, and you don’t know where the wine has been.’

AND THE CONCLUSION?

All agreed that there was a gap in the market for a specialist Bordeaux merchant who could deal more closely with restaurants and suppliers in Bordeaux. Will anyone step in to fill the gap?
Watch this space…