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Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 10:32:11 AM   
Stirling

 

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From: Vancouver, BC
Status: offline 		Riffing off of the 2010 Bordeaux thread and Pjaines suggestion, let's hear some of the various points of view about those two regions and their wines. Can the current prices be justified? Can they be sustained? Is there really much difference between the wines of those regions?

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 10:40:50 AM   
Bryan Collins

 

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Joined: 7/14/2006
From: Bedfordshire, UK
Status: offline 		Bordeaux seems to be getting more and more Californian with each vintage. I buy very little of either - which is just as well, given that Bordeaux is now largely priced out of my pocket and the top Californians are virtually unobtainable anyway.)

Having said that, there are certainly producers in both regions who still make proper (how's that for an antagonistic word!) wine. I do buy Ridge, particularly Monte Bello, also some Dominus, and as far as Pinot is concerned I have been very impressed by Rhys, although it's next to impossible to find. I used to buy VCC every year, but in 2009 I took one look at the price, laughed, and stopped.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 10:45:58 AM   
cgrimes

 

Posts: 1571
Joined: 10/8/2007
From: Massachusetts
Status: offline 		As long as there are wealthy Chinese buying up large quantities of Bordeaux, the demand will continue and the prices with rise. It is amazing. In less than a decade, people like me with modest income and wine collections have been completely pushed out of the game. Believe me, I'm not crying about it. There is plenty of other great wine to drink. I'm just fascinated at how quickly the prices have risen. Hard to believe I purchased almost all the first growths in my cellar for less than $200/bottle.

Craig

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 10:56:21 AM   
khmark7

 

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From: Chicago suburbs
Status: online 		USA! USA! USA!

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 11:18:58 AM   
cgrimes

 

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Joined: 10/8/2007
From: Massachusetts
Status: offline 		I have to admit that I am still partial to Bordeaux--for it's elegance and complexity, largely. Many CA cabs come off as overextracted to my palate. That being said, Bordelais-style CA cabs like Dominus and Montelena are stunning, especially with 10+ years of age. My future Bordeaux purchases, however, will not likely include many of the Second growths. Even Pontet-Canet which I have purchased yearly in the past decade went unbought in 2009 and 2010. I will be looking toward the likes of La Vieille Cure and other sleeper chateaux as well as some of the better Washington Bordeaux blends. Just met up with some fellow trackers yesterday at the tail end of a business trip to Seattle and they took me to Mark Ryan. The blends were terrific and $45. I may just be starting to change my focus. There is too much great wine out there to get bogged down and financially drained by BDX and CA.
Craig

< Message edited by cgrimes -- 4/3/2011 11:20:19 AM >

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 12:35:37 PM   
slaughterer

 

Posts: 757
Joined: 7/4/2010
From: Frankfurt am Main
Status: offline 		Lots of Ridge, particularly Monte Bello, and Shafer, and even Staglin in the basement, but Stag"s Leap and SQN--only a few bottles. Looks like we are going to get to a "Judgement of Paris" moment here at some point. In which point, alot of Cali holds up better than the BDX after two decades, surprisingly. So, if it is from the 70s and 80s, it is most likely Cali for me.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 2:02:18 PM   
nwinther

 

Posts: 929
Joined: 7/28/2006
From: Denmark
Status: offline 		US wine of any quality is almost non-existant in Denmark, and when it is, it's too expensive, so I've tried very little.
Re. Bordeaux the prices of the classified wines can NOT be justified in any qualitatively sense. Sure, the market is crazy and getting crazier - but it has nothing to do with wine or the quality thereof, only prestige.
Some decent Bordeaux can still be obtained - but it's a dying breed.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 3:03:36 PM   
Stirling

 

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From: Vancouver, BC
Status: offline 		 "Sure, the market is crazy and getting crazier - but it has nothing to do with wine or the quality thereof, only prestige. "

+1

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 4:49:37 PM   
pdemaio

 

Posts: 285
Joined: 8/17/2010
Status: offline 		+1 on the prestige (no coincidence that Lafite which is owned by LVMH is the top seller in HK).
I think both can be excellent, but I like the highly extracted style associated with Cali more. It's only a matter of time before other locations meet that quality bar...

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 5:45:44 PM   
oskiwawa

 

Posts: 2258
Joined: 2/16/2008
From: Austin TX
Status: offline 		First of all how 'bout those Rangers.   Got back from the Ballpark at Arlington a couple hours ago after watching the Rangers sweep the Red Sox.   What a blast......

When I read this thread I found myself thinking what would I buy if money was not a major factor in my decision process.   While I would grab a few 1st growths for special events 2nd growths from '82, '89, '90 and 2000 would dominate.   I'd follow this with the early 90's California Cabs from Dominus, Ridge, Montelena, etc....  I guess one could call these the second growths of California.  Rieuseec '01 with a bottle or two of d'Yquem for a wedding or such celebration down the road. 
I would then hunt down Bryan to consult me through the Burgundy mine field. 

I guess this comes down to a long winded vote for Bordeaux.



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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 6:25:25 PM   
khmark7

 

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From: Chicago suburbs
Status: online
quote:

ORIGINAL: cgrimes

I have to admit that I am still partial to Bordeaux--for it's elegance and complexity, largely. Many CA cabs come off as overextracted to my palate. That being said, Bordelais-style CA cabs like Dominus and Montelena are stunning, especially with 10+ years of age. My future Bordeaux purchases, however, will not likely include many of the Second growths. Even Pontet-Canet which I have purchased yearly in the past decade went unbought in 2009 and 2010. I will be looking toward the likes of La Vieille Cure and other sleeper chateaux as well as some of the better Washington Bordeaux blends. Just met up with some fellow trackers yesterday at the tail end of a business trip to Seattle and they took me to Mark Ryan. The blends were terrific and $45. I may just be starting to change my focus. There is too much great wine out there to get bogged down and financially drained by BDX and CA.
Craig


I have largely written off California Cabernet as being too ripe and overextracted, with some exceptions.  Several recent Bordeaux vintages have me bothered as well.  Still feel like there is so much to learn about the regions and their aging potential.  I have consumed great wines from both regions, and Washington.  For me it's not about JUST Cali or BDX, as there are several other regions producing some quality Cabernet/Merlot at fair prices.  Washington, Chile, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Italy and some oddball locations within the US all make some nice wines that I can purchase. 

If Bordeaux prices me out of the 2010 vintage I don't care.  It's simple supply and demand.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 8:11:19 PM   
skifree

 

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Status: offline 		I have a lot more BDX than Cali - because I still remember the dinner when I had Mouton and Opus One back to back. Mouton bottle was SO much better, we all agreed. For new world, I'm happier with my home state of Washington than Cali for a lot of reasons....

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 8:48:00 PM   
J2K

 

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They both have gotten overpriced especially for the big names. But money aside I still prefer BDX over Cali, and my favorite Cali wines seem to be the Bdx blends or aged wines. I conitinue to look for value wines and lesser known names in both areas.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/3/2011 10:31:37 PM   
pdemaio

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: skifree

I have a lot more BDX than Cali - because I still remember the dinner when I had Mouton and Opus One back to back. Mouton bottle was SO much better, we all agreed. For new world, I'm happier with my home state of Washington than Cali for a lot of reasons....


Umm... Opus was your litmus test? That's like using Col Solare to decide if wa wine is good.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 6:45:30 AM   
drycab

 

Posts: 3714
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From: Jupiter, FL
Status: offline 		My biggest problem is trying to wrap my head around a producer that can supposedly make 15,000 cases of wine that are 100 point wines and get upwards of $1000/bttl for each of the 180,000 bottles. It makes navigating the California wine ocean much more realistic and "profitable" to me and even if I "waste" $250 on a bottle of wine, I haven't spent $1000 on one of 180,000 bottles that are supposed to be amazing that I can't drink until I can barely hold the stem into which it's poured!

I'll continue to drink California wines simply because the whole issue has been decided by the producers themselves. But, I will also drink Italian, Spanish, Aussie and maybe even some South American wines!

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 8:39:45 AM   
darren81

 

Posts: 125
Joined: 12/17/2009
From: Singapore
Status: offline 		i'm with nwinther on this. barely getting any value for money american bottles here so barely touched any. all i've had is a cooked shafer hillside which my uncle who doesn't know about wine kept in his cupboard for a decade without air conditioning... and also a few bottles of Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir Ashley's Vineyard that i bought at some sale which i hope to try one day.

everything else that i've seen has seen incredibly pricy... even compared to bdx. but i guess that could just be the local mkt here.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 4:38:28 PM   
Stirling

 

Posts: 2288
Joined: 1/12/2007
From: Vancouver, BC
Status: offline 		While the top BDX are prohibitively expensive to me, the same can be said for many of the top or "cult" CA Cabernets. I used to buy both; now most of that spending has been diverted to WA: Andrew Will, DeLille, Betz, Leonetti, Quilceda and Woodward Canyon are fulfilling my Cabernet and Merlot urges. I find they produce excellent wines, fully ripe, complex and proportioned.

And while I can't really say they are worth the price premium, I did buy a bunch of the CA Cabs and blends from the 07 vintage. I already miss buying those BDX that brought me so much pleasure in the past. But that was when they were less than $300 per bottle. Sigh.


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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 6:21:48 PM   
IWineAlot

 

Posts: 440
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From: Chicagoland Area
Status: offline 		I still try to find '04 Bdx which is still roaming about in the current supply chain. I have been turning towards Italian, spainish, astralian reds and starting to drink more white wines from Germany. Top tier bdx I fear will always be too darn expensive from here on out :(.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 7:37:43 PM   
Uncle Noon

 

Posts: 273
Joined: 5/30/2008
Status: offline 		I prefer Bordeaux wines to those from California. but, alas, the prices lately have me looking at alternatives.  I'm not buying French wine like I used to.  Maybe I'll start learning about the Languedoc region-I understand that they make some great wines there. 

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 7:42:58 PM   
J2K

 

Posts: 4041
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Speaking of Languedoc....where has NiklasW been?????

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 9:47:03 PM   
peeks13

 

Posts: 470
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From: Wilmette, IL
Status: offline 		When the Asian money/economy hits the wall - and we all know it will - will Bordeaux be without a chair when the music stops?

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 10:11:06 PM   
Hollowine

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: peeks13

When the Asian money/economy hits the wall - and we all know it will - will Bordeaux be without a chair when the music stops?


Depends if Parker is still singing the music to which the chairs are shuffled...

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/4/2011 11:57:36 PM   
geppetto

 

Posts: 796
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From: Vancouver, Canada
Status: offline 		In my experience, I can't get my hands on decent Californian wines because of the extensive use of mailing lists. This is a real hindrance to some of us up in Canada. Given that, I fear my experience with California is limited. What is available seems priced too high for what I am getting. Bordeaux is readily available here, and even though the first growths are priced high, at least I have a choice to pay if I want to. That being said, I find the cheaper Bordeaux provides better drinking than the equivalently priced California wines.

As many others have said, I am having a lot of fun exploring other regions. I am totally infatuated with CdP and I have had some amazing experiences with Spain and Italy.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 1:00:16 AM   
pdemaio

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: peeks13

When the Asian money/economy hits the wall - and we all know it will - will Bordeaux be without a chair when the music stops?

quote:



Depends if Parker is still singing the music to which the chairs are shuffled...


...and only if they have recently bought their winery. At this point any major house in Bordeaux only needs to save a bit for a rainy day.

The more interesting risk is if the rest of BDX can catch up and start making good wines. It will be interesting to see if the majory of BDX, which is losing money can start making quality wine and selling it at higher price points if proper wine making techniques and good marketing are used. A rising tide may float all boats, but a glut of good BDX will do a lot more to make good BDX wines accessable than a crashed asian economy (which will happen, but will also hurt ours if ours isn't the cause itself :-)

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 6:43:18 AM   
treetops

 

Posts: 2323
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From: England, UK
Status: offline 		I regret I see no end to increase in fine wine prices and I don't think it's a bubble. As has been said, it has now become a luxury item and whilst there are plenty of people serious about wine still buying there's also a large rump of very rich people who don't seem to care how much a wine costs, they have to have it. Sad really.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 6:49:35 AM   
pjaines

 

Posts: 10664
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From: London
Status: offline 		In general I find the US wines too sweet and heavy with not enough acidity and freshness compared to Bordeaux - it is all about having wine with food and for my mind I have had very very few US wines that sit well with food. Having said that, I went to a Ridge Montebello tasting recently that showed some serious wines from 1995-2000. Would I have drunk these wines with diner? Probably not. They were excellent, but no food wines. Bordeaux is more food friendly and balanced in my opinion - is this weather or a style issue? A bit of both I would suspect.



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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 8:00:27 AM   
IWineAlot

 

Posts: 440
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From: Chicagoland Area
Status: offline 		Fine Bdx has become more like fine art. Traded, sold at auctions with lots of fan fair and targeted by counterfeiters.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 9:35:21 AM   
GalvezGuy

 

Posts: 5864
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From: Galveston, TX
Status: offline 		A while back, an off-line vertical of Mondavi really opened my eyes, I greatly preferred the elegance and character of the 85 to the overtly extracted 97. The top producers in Cali have become for lack of a better word, "Parkerized", I am not saying that it is bad, clearly most folks have preference for this style, or they would not be able to command the market like they do. A lot of Bdx producers are doing the same thing, you only have to drink Pape Clement, Monbousquet, or Pavie to see the trend. I don't know if this trend will cease, most of the world lacks the patience to let a well structured, austere wine come into balance (98 Monte Bello, anyone?). Anyway, I still prefer Bdx to Cali for the reasons espoused by the illustrious pjaines, but as I research more into each regions, you can find producers that make your style at the price you want to pay, but it is getting harder all the time.

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RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 12:08:37 PM   
Khamen

 

Posts: 5543
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From: near Stonehenge, UK
Status: offline 		OK I better say my bit I guess...

It's chalk and cheese, and I don't really think it is any more fair to compare Cali to Bdx than Spain and Chile. For example:

Bordeaux is a real borderline climate for full ripening of cabernet sauvignon. Napa Valley certainly is not.
California is HUGE - rather than Bordeaux or California this should really be "California or France"?
The most heralded vintages in Bordeaux (think 47,49,61,82,90,etc) have been RIPE vintages. Historically it is rarer to get a proper ripe vintage in Bordeaux than California - don't dismiss a wine as a fruit bomb just because it comes from ripe fruit!
Conversely it is easier to get (over) ripe fruit in parts of Cali. You're pretty sure your fruit will ripen most of the time in most areas, so a lot comes down to style and producer decisions
Bordeaux has much more varied terroir. It varies every few hundred metres! I'm not saying all of California is the same but there is not the same level of variation in such a compact area - sometimes a single small vineyard can have 3 or 4 different soil types in Bdx

It is easy to make caricatures and generalisations about both regions - some of them will even be true!

However we now live in a world of Parker points, "modern" palates, rising temperatures and new markets. One side-effect appears to be Bordeaux producers splashing around in this play-pen of unusually ripe recent vintages and are kicking out juice that is much more about the ripe fruit than the terroir of the vineyard. This is a trend I dread going any further. Also, as winemaking practices have improved it is possible to save more of a crop and force it into something acceptable in the lab/winery rather than on the vine. Again the wine becomes about the winemaking and less about the life of the vines.

Sometimes I love the fresh sunshine nature of a big, pure Napa cab - and with a nice lump of steak it makes perfect sense. If I want complexity and elegance I'm going with Bordeaux, and personally I belive it cannot be bettered by any other region (including Burgundy for you people wholike drinking red water ), BUT it has to be of an age. I would rather be drinking a 3 year old cali cab than a 3 year old Pauillac, and conversely a 20 year old Bdx rather than Cali

A place for everything and everything in its place

K

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Post #: 29
RE: Bordeaux or California? - 4/5/2011 12:37:32 PM   
recotte

 

Posts: 6873
Joined: 1/19/2011
Status: offline 		Khamen has rather more eloquently stated what I was struggling with.

As I've stated before, I'm a Bordeaux neophyte, so my opinion here needs to be taken in that context, but it does seem to be comparing apples and oranges. Almost like asking "Syrah" or "Cabernet Sauvignon." They're different, and I thoroughly enjoy both for different reasons. What I'm finding about Bordeaux is that you can only get that special something if you drink Bordeaux. I've always been drawn to Italian wines that have a real sense of terroir, and I'm finding, in my initial trials, the same for French--Bordeaux, Burgundy, CdP, et al.

I don't want a wine shipped from Europe that tastes like something I can get from Napa or Washington. I want something that can ONLY come from where they came from. This goes for any area of the world.

I love, I mean really, really love, the great diversity that exists in the world of wine. I hope the "Parker effect" doesn't ruin that for all of us.


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