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Cru Bourgeois: A Contentious History, But A Real Force For Good In Modern Bordeaux

This article is more than 8 years old.

The historic wine region of Bordeaux has been in a pickle for some years.

Back in the great old days, once upon a time, every wine drinker everywhere—beginner or veteran geek—thought first of Bordeaux when selecting a bottle of wine. The names and the traditions were irresistible: Château Margaux, Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Haut-Brion, etc. The incredibly low prices of these spectacular wines helped the knee-jerk Bordeaux tradition thrive for hundreds of years; a bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild, back in the good old year of 1971, might cost you $15.

Then all hell broke loose.

Bordeaux lost its hegemony in the world of wine, sniped at by upstart regions from everywhere. Bordeaux producers had to charge more…and newly rich people in new wine markets (like China) were willing to pay the higher prices. Way willing. Today, most of the top Bordeaux wines will cost you in the vicinity of $400 a bottle…when just released! A few special ones (like Château Pétrus) will cost even more…as much as $2000 a bottle…young!

As the prices went up over the last 40 years, the general addiction to Bordeaux wine diminished. To many wine drinkers today, Bordeaux wines are something other people drink…because, in many cases, this people cannot even imagine affording them.

It is a shame…not to mention a disaster for many Bordeaux producers! There is a lot of terrific Bordeaux being produced that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. The problem is that the Bordelaise did such a good job of imprinting the classification of 1855 in our minds—the famous nineteenth-century classification that determined which Bordeaux wines were “first growths,” “second growths,” “third growths,” “fourth growths,” and “fifth growths”—that many wine-drinkers today can’t think of Bordeaux outside the 1855 classification (which is now referred to as a list of the “crus classés”).

Château Margaux is a “cru classé.” Château Palmer is a “cru classé.” Château Calon-Ségur is a “cru classé.” And a few dozen others…all pricey.

Some producers in Bordeaux are convinced that the answer to the problem of public apathy towards Bordeaux…is creating another kind of Bordeaux classification…one that would emphasize the “littler” châteaux, those making good wine at good prices. Bordeaux is immense; there are so many good wineries out there…but how does the customer find them, keep track of them?

One answer, for almost 300 producers in the Médoc (which you could call the heart of Bordeaux wine country) is an organization called Cru Bourgeois.

According to Fréderic de Luze, the President of the Syndicat Cru Bourgeois, “the name ‘Cru Bourgeois’ has been around for hundreds of years. It first appeared,” he said to me, over lunch at his Cru Bourgeois estate Château Paveil de Luze, “just after Louis XIV, when the law requiring wine estates to be owned by the nobility was relaxed.” So suddenly there was a new class of château owners: non-aristocrats, or "bourgeoisie." Their estates were commonly referred to, though not officially, as “Cru Bourgeois.”

Château Paveil de Luze photo: avis-vin.lefigaro.fr

The name floated through Bordeaux for centuries, used in various ways at various times. Some of the estates referred to as “Cru Bourgeois” have always been held in high regard; according to De Luze, a number of estates thought of as “Cru Bourgeois” were on the original draft of the 1855 classification. However, before the list became official, the “Cru Bourgeois" estates were deleted.

In 1932, the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Chamber of Agriculture decided to get serious about the nomenclature—probably as a way to boost sales of Bordeaux wines outside the list of “cru classés.” The Chambers chose 444 wines to be part of the “Cru Bourgeois” group—some of which started using the designation on their labels. But the legislation languished, and never became official.

The next major step occurred in 2000, when some of the “Cru Bourgeois” producers decided to work on a new plan, one that could be ratified and made official. This time, only 247 estates were part of the “Cru Bourgeois” group. The plan was finalized in 2003. But, as always, there were forces in Bordeaux who opposed the permanent institution of a “Cru Bourgeois” category…and in 2007, after much legal wrangling, the courts banned the use of the phrase “Cru Bourgeois” on wine labels.

During this attempt at becoming official, however, one new concept was introduced—a concept that was to cause more controversy later. The 2003 plan divided the “Cru Bourgeois” into three quality levels:

Cru Bourgeois

Cru Bourgeois Supérieur

Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel

Three years after the 2007 annulment, a new plan developed that was to have a lot more staying power. Those with an interest in the Cru Bourgeois category decided that for the exercise to have any real meaning in the marketplace, there would have to be some kind of quality judging standing behind a winery’s status as a “Cru Bourgeois.” So, in 2010, they hired an independent wine analysis company—with no financial interest in the “Cru Bourgeois” designation—to decide who’s in, and who’s out. The plan, despite some opposition by non-Cru Bourgeois wineries, went through, all the way to official approval.

At least one thing they did, in this new formula, was excellent: they decided that the Cru Bourgeois imprimatur would be renewed for each winery each year. This was not a lifetime membership. In the spring of 2010, the independent organization selected a few hundred wineries as the Cru Bourgeois wineries…based on the panel’s tasting of wines from 2008. So the 2008 bottlings released to the world in 2010 were the first bottlings to ever carry the OFFICIAL words “Cru Bourgeois.”

But more controversy lay just ahead. The panel decided to keep the three-tier system of Cru Bourgeois—Cru Bourgeois, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, and Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel—and some winery members felt they were dissed by their placement in this scheme (e.g. “We should have been an Exceptionnel!”). A large group of them walked…at which time the Syndicat decided to carry on with everything EXCEPT the three-tier classification.

So, finally, things are relatively stable. Every spring, wineries who wish to proclaim “Cru Bourgeois” on their labels, supply wines to the Cru Bourgeois panel that were produced 2 1/2 years ago. For example, in the spring of 2016 the panel will taste the wines that were made in October 2014. Some of them will be given the right to include the words “Cru Bourgeois” on their labels. The analysis is stringent, and the Cru Bourgeois people have arrived at a very good vetting net, a real way to tell if the bottle in your hands at the wine shop has promise.

It is not infallible as a way of selecting Bordeaux. The estates selected do not HAVE to use the words “Cru Bourgeois” on their labels…so you don't always know. Furthermore, if you are interested in ALL of Bordeaux, the classification won’t help you for many parts of Bordeaux; the right bank, for example, including Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, is not included in the system. Cru Bourgeois wines must come from the Médoc; wines from eight different appellations may submit samples to the panel. The greatest part of Cru Bourgeois wineries have the “Medoc” or “Haut-Médoc” appellations. But there are 22 estates in Saint-Estèphe, 10 in Margaux, and 5 in Pauillac that are also currently “Cru Bourgeois.”

Intriguingly, no estate from Saint-Julien currently carries the designation “Cru Bourgeois.” It all comes down to money, of course; an estate pays roughly $5000 a year to be part of the system, and many feel the prestige of the designation on the label repays their investment in greater sales. Is it possible the Saint-Julien winery owners feel something like “We are successful enough in marketing Saint-Julien…we don’t need an extra level of designation to sell our wines.”

In any case, it’ll be interesting to watch this modern formulation of “Cru Bourgeois” evolve. The name is carrying more order and prestige than ever before, and submissions from wineries for testing and inclusion are going up every year.

Keep in mind that the Syndicat, for all its success, is not planning to stand pat. They are hoping to reinstall the three-tier system soon, if they can figure out how to keep everyone happy. Today, you may see the designation “Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel” on labels in wine shops, but these will be from older bottles before “Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel” was annulled. It will not be on any bottles made in the vintages of 2012, 2013, or 2014.

For me, the whole project is a grand success. Cru Bourgeois wineries are generally smaller, more family-owned that the big Cru Classé wineries, and supply more of the “artisanal” feel that is so appreciated today in a wide range of products. The selection policy guarantees good wine, and, therefore, the “Cru Bourgeois” designation is an excellent key to the complicated world of Bordeaux.