Cru Bourgeois 2020 ranking: the 14 new Exceptionnels Jane Anson
It’s been a bumpy ride, but the latest official redrawing of Bordeaux’s oft-misunderstood ranking of the cru bourgeois producers was published in February this year. Jane Anson explains what lies behind the listings, and profiles the 14 highest-ranked and
For a word that’s become associated with the establishment, cru ‘bourgeois’ wines have pretty revolutionary origins. The exact date of arrival is not certain – some say they date back to the 13th century, when Bordeaux was a duchy of the English crown. Others to the 15th century, when French laws were relaxed to allow the best land not to be the sole preserve of the church or of titled aristocrats.
Their real rise, though, clearly came after the French Revolution itself, when noble lands were broken up. These estates, owned by the working ‘bourgeois’, gained traction and grew in number. Their more recent history has been similarly turbulent; first resurrected, then challenged and overturned, then reinvented as a mark of quality. And, as of February 2020, the latest chapter of the Crus Bourgeois du Médoc has arrived – back to being an official classification with three quality tiers, the intention being to provide clearer signposting for consumers.
After a little more than a decade of being a yearly ‘stamp of quality’ that essentially judged the characteristics of individual vintages, cru bourgeois has returned to being an official classification that rewards châteaux across a set period of five years. The hope is that it will give lasting power and sustainability to a category of wines that are in many ways the backbone of the entire Bordeaux system – great quality, reasonably priced claret.
New impetus
A few corollaries before getting started. The new list doesn’t include any of the nine estates that were named ‘Exceptional’ back in the reconstituted but subsequently revoked classification of 2003. That means there’s no Château Chasse-Spleen, no Haut-Marbuzet or Labégorce Zédé, no Ormes de Pez or de Pez, no Phélan Ségur, Potensac, Poujeaux or Siran.
‘We’re not going to pretend that we aren’t missing some names that we would like,’ said Olivier Cuvelier, president of the Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, at the time of the launch of the new classification in February this year. ‘It is now up to us to prove its worth. We hope to see them with us in 2025.’
What there is instead, with the 2020 ranking, is a full 249 châteaux, comprising 14 crus bourgeois exceptionnels, 56 crus bourgeois supérieurs and 179 crus bourgeois. This will hold across the Bordeaux vintages of 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
It’s early days – Covid-19 lockdown coming along just a few weeks after the official launch in February means that it’s difficult at this stage to judge exactly how the market will react – but it’s clear that any new system needs a way to connect with its audience. If the new cru bourgeois exceptionnel wines deliver, they highlight the potential of the entire ranking. On this tasting, the results are mixed.
Positive signs
The new ranking – which was based on blind tastings of any five vintages of the producer’s choice between 2008-2016 – is intended to provide reassurance to drinkers looking for quality and value in the Médoc. It is also intended to be an answer to a real and pressing issue; a single-level cru bourgeois classification was bringing prices down for everyone, and so causing very real struggles for properties which were investing heavily in the quality of their wine and yet not being rewarded for it by the market.
It’s one of the problems of the Bordeaux system. The best cru bourgeois estates have levels of investment in both viticulture and vinification that differ very little, if at all, from those at neighbouring 1855-classified châteaux. And yet the prices they can hope to receive differ widely.
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The cru bourgeois châteaux represent 31% of Médoc production, and cover every appellation except St-Julien. There is a solitary Pauillac in the form of Château Plantey. And because cru bourgeois is a name that has been in use since at least the 15th century, there is true consumer recognition and trust around it in France and most traditional markets.
If all goes well, the new clarity of signposting towards the best estates could really bring ‘excitement and a sense of direction to all the châteaux in the ranking’, said Cuvelier, whose family owns newly ranked Exceptionnel Château Le Crock.
Work in progress
The estates named Exceptionnel in 2020 all deserve their ranking, particularly in my opinion Belle-Vue, Cambon la Pelouse, Le Boscq and Lilian Ladouys; and there are several Supérieurs – Fourcas-Borie, La Tour de Mons and Sérilhan among them – that I would have been happy to see at the higher level.
But you don’t need me to tell you what might go wrong. In February I heard a few growlings, specifically around the fact that wine tourism (within a marketing and promotion category) was given more weight than expected among the qualification criteria. There have been concerns, too, over the relatively low tasting scores required for the higher levels: 26 points out of 40 for Exceptionnel and 14 out of 40 for Supérieur.
This suggests that not all lessons have been learned from previous arguments – but then, a process like this will always generate criticism.
Before the February announcement, châteaux had already had access to a ‘dispute committee’, where they could raise complaints if they didn’t receive the ranking they wanted. They also had the chance to withdraw rather than live with a level of classification that they didn’t like. That seems a smart move on behalf of the organisers, as does the five-yearly renewal for the ranking – soon enough, it can be hoped, to dissuade lawsuits.