Cru Bourgeois to be assessed by quality

In just over one month’s time a new list of Bordeaux Châteaux will be announced that have been awarded Crus Bourgeois status due to the quality of their wines, not their provenance.

As previously reported by the drinks business, a system of checks has been instigated by l’Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc and forms part of a quality charter dubbed Crus Bourgeois Reconnaissance.

The checks include the assessment of wines two years after the harvest, beginning with a tasting of the 2008 vintage.

According to Frédérique Dutheillet de Lamothe from l’Alliance Des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, 290 châteaux have put forward wines for tasting to see if they reach a standard suitable for this Cru Bourgeois designation.

“If they don’t pass, they can’t be called Cru Bourgeois,” she told the drinks business.

To ensure independence, French inspection group Bureau Veritas is handling the quality charter. As Dutheillet said: “It was important to choose an organisation outside Bordeaux and outside the wine business.”

She also said that the current list of Cru Bourgeois châteaux was nothing more than a “guideline” to quality, and independent checks were necessary to save the longstanding designation from disappearing altogether.

“One of the pillars in Bordeaux was about to disappear,” she admitted.

She even said that the classification doesn’t officially exist after an attempt to organise a quality verification in 2003 failed due to a clear conflict of interest – the person in charge of the new list had his own Cru Bourgeois property.

However, from 15 September, those bottles from the 2008 vintage onwards that are awarded Cru Bourgeois status will have been quality assessed.

“Cru Bourgeois will now only be Bordeaux that is taste tested after the wine is bottled,” she said, stressing that the list of châteaux could vary from vintage to vintage.

Finally, she summed up, “We are showing we are not just resting on our laurels and understand that the consumer needs to be convinced.”

This latest step also means that Cru Bourgeois will be the only classified Bordeaux that is verified according to the quality of the current production. 

The official list for the 2008 vintage will be announced to the UK trade on 23 September in London, and will include a tasting of the selected wines.

Patrick Schmitt, 12.08.2010