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The title is a provocation, I know, but it is true. Those who speak of the wines of the Bordelais think of the two or three hundred châteaux that have made Bordeaux "the heaven of wine" (Mahogany magazine), where "wine connoisseurs quickly go into raptures" and - it is to be feared - also quickly lose their minds. After all, a single bottle of wine that costs a hundred, even a thousand or more euros must be a drink of the gods. That is what the common economic order of our world suggests.

Petrus% the landmark for the most expensive wines rises into the sky (Photo: P. Züllig)

But Bordeaux is much more than a few famous wineries, more than a few famous wines. Bordeaux is a wine region - certainly favoured by its topography and climate - where 100,000 hectares of vines are planted and almost five million hectolitres of wine are produced annually.

Every lover of French wines is perfectly capable of listing ten, perhaps even a hundred Bordeaux estates, knowing their classification and grading and even the prices. This is ensured - year after year - by the so-called subscription (en primeur), in which wines are traded that will not come onto the market until two years later. This is actually a futures business that is accompanied by many oracles from all the world's renowned wine critics. The focus is always on the same names: it is the "great" Bordeaux, the Premiers Crus and the comparable non-classifieds from Pomerol that make the "Bodeaux race". Around them are almost always the same wineries that were chosen as the best in the Médoc as early as 1855 or - in the other appellations - have "dominated the field" for many years. Every now and then, a so-called "garage wine" manages to break into the phalanx of the greats.

Margaux - another wine icon in the Bordelais (Photo: P. Züllig)

These wines - from the most expensive to the cheapest - are offered year after year. "Millesima", for example - one of the big wine trading houses in Bordeaux with a very wide selection - has about 120 red wines "en primeur" (subscription) in its programme every year, and they are always about the same; more or less the same Châteaux that the other trading houses also offer year after year. In Bordeaux, however, there are far more than 10,000 wine producers whose names are hardly known. However, many of these "nameless" producers - about 4,000 - are registered in Edouard Féret's wine guide with their names and production details. So they exist, they have a name and yet they are nameless, because hardly anyone in the big wine world knows them. Only in recent years, after the price explosion of "primeur wines", more and more wine lovers are looking for alternatives that are still affordable and yet meet high and highest quality standards. They exist, these wines. Clever merchants have long since tracked them down and offer them at prices that are moderate by international standards, and yet the wines come from the Bordelais. Wine lovers have to take note of new, completely different names, most of which they have never heard of before - despite a good knowledge of Bordeaux.

Bordeaux - 100,000 hectares are under vines; a view over Saint-Émilion (Photo: P. Züllig).

A few examples: A stone's throw away from the "big" Cheval Blanc (2010 en primeur for around 1,000 euros) lies Château Jean Faure - not entirely unknown, but nameless compared to Cheval Blanc. Same terroir, same appellation, same effort to produce excellent wines. It even succeeds - year after year - and yet the wine (2010) costs about 3.7 percent of Cheval Blanc of the same vintage, and that is still a proud 35 euros per bottle. It is idle to look for the reasons here and to question the development towards a "two-tier society" in the Bordelais. The market has long since taken the reins, and we are part of this market. So it is time for all those who love wines from Bordeaux, who enjoy drinking them - and who are not looking for an increase in value - to get to know new names. Names of châteaux that don't have a name: Cambon la Pelouse, Haut Mauriac, Sequin, le Grand Verus, Trocard Monrepos, de Gironville, Amélisse, Parenchère and what they are all called.

Cult with the familiar names (Photo: P. Züllig)

They are all wines that are good value for money. They usually cost between 10 and 20 euros and offer the highest drinking pleasure, even measured against the high bar set for Bordeaux wines. It is not that the expensive wines from the Bordelais are not in demand, on the contrary, they are bought, mainly because of their sounding name and the possibility to sell them all over the world - at a profit. Auctioneer Franz J. Wermuth says: "Buyers in Asia only want bottles with nice labels, they practically don't care about the contents." To this one could add: "... and bottles with as famous names as possible." Mouton Rothschild has been making a lucrative business out of this for more than 80 years. Under the label "Mouton Cadet", Rothschild markets a "merchant wine", four million bottles per year, at around 10 euros a bottle. This price corresponds to just under two percent of what a "real" Mouton Rothschild costs (even in a mediocre year).

Mouton Rothschild - here are stored wines% that have already been sold en primeur% but not yet bottled (Photo: P. Züllig)

It is the name with which the business is done. The wine itself is a dozen wines - 15% Cabernet Franc, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 65% Merlot - a tried and tested Bordeaux cuvée that is just as one imagines a "Bordeaux" to be. "Fresh aromas of juicy cherries, ripe raspberries and cassis on the nose and palate. Finely balanced, velvety with plenty of richness and harmoniously integrated tannin, Mouton Cadet Rouge reflects the typicity of its appellation," writes the German marketer Weinkontor. He is not wrong, the marketer. It is a wine that tastes about the same every year - whether it is a good or a bad wine year - Bordeaux-like, and is still nice to drink. But the wine has nothing to do with the famous Mouton-Rothschild: The grapes come from "nameless" vineyards in the Bordelais, are vinified in their own cellar in Saint-Laurent and prepared according to a uniform pattern so that the wine tastes the same year after year, is pleasing and pleasant to drink. Wine from the assembly line, so to speak, well made and without rough edges, boring, but a wine from the house of Mouton.

The Gironde - decisive for Bordeaux wines; departure for new shores (Photo: P. Züllig)

The alternative is many small, equally well-made wines from little-known but reliable wineries in the Bordelais. The difference to the "perfectly constructed Mouton Cadet": the wines sometimes have rough edges, they are not exactly the same every year, but try to bring in the possibilities and differences of the region and the vegetation, they have character and personality, they are not only pleasing, but demand something decisive from the wine lover: namely, to get involved with a product that is made year after year with a lot of care, love and skill. They are the new vocabulary of the unknown (or little-known) Bordelais, they are names that wine lovers must first take note of and then - forgive me for asking - learn by heart. For the wines with these names still lie largely hidden in the "unknown wine country of Bordeaux", buried by names that have been elevated to myth status.

Cordially
Yours/Yours

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