Bordeaux is in crisis – but it's not all bad news for drinkers

Telegraph

01-03-2025

Reporting from the frontline of gastronomy, the wine guru Oz Clarke posted on social media recently about a Michelin-starred restaurant whose wine list takes in, '200 champagnes; 206 wines from Burgundy and four Bordeaux. FOUR! Bordeaux really has dug a hole for itself. How is it going to dig itself out?'
The anecdote neatly illustrates the crumbling power of the world's largest, and most famous, fine wine region. Bordeaux is in crisis.
The venerated land around the Gironde estuary on France's Atlantic coast is home to fabled names such as Margaux, Petrus and Lafite. Yet, for many wine estates beyond this magic circle – and there are thousands of them – life is currently very difficult.
Bad enough that three of the past four years were beset by rain and mildew, giving growers stress and extra work in the vineyard, then below-average yields, meaning less wine to sell.
The bigger issue, though, is that bordeaux wines have fallen so far from favour that selling them is hard. In the words of one grower: 'There's a lot of gloom about.'
In 2023, exports fell 12 per cent by volume, to 17.3 million cases, and 5.6 per cent by value, to €2.23 billion (around £1.65 billion), according to a report in Decanter magazine. Last year they dropped again, this time 8 per cent by value and 4 per cent by volume.
The Bordeaux wine bureau, the CIVB, quite rightly points out that part of this fall can be attributed to 'a backdrop of persistent international tensions, economic slowdown and inflation. China alone accounts for more than half of the export volumes lost since 2017.'
A global shift towards moderation and a move away from red wine, in particular, has also hurt a region in which the majority (80.5 per cent) of production is red.
But the problems go beyond that. Huge, and complex, Bordeaux finds itself in the eye of a perfect storm. To grasp the picture, it's helpful to consider that there are really two Bordeauxs.
The first, the Bordeaux of wealth and status, comprises a few dozen châteaux whose wines sell for dizzying prices. Even for this gilded set, the market is currently, some privately concede, 'difficult'. The consensus among the merchants who sell expensive bordeaux is that prices have ratcheted too high.
'For me, 2021 was the opportunity to reset the en primeur system [when new wines are sold while still in barrel],' says one seller, who asked to speak anonymously. 'That was a vintage that was not great and prices should have been lower.'
For the rest of Bordeaux, those growing grapes for mid-priced and cheap wine, times are exceptionally tough. In supermarkets, claret in the key £6.50 to £9 price bracket has lost ground to bold, fruity Argentinian malbec, anything red from Chile or Portugal and Italian primitivo.
Morrisons now sells more primitivo in one quarter than it does of Bordeaux Supérieur across the year, according to its wine sourcing manager Charles Paterson. More generally, Bordeaux has not successfully appealed to a new generation of drinkers or to wine nerds who instead explore high-altitude grenache, German pinot noir and so on.
'For many under 40s, bordeaux is not sexy. It's considered a bit leatherback chair, a bit gentleman's club,' says Tim Sykes, who has just completed a 12-year stint as Bordeaux buyer for The Wine Society.
This slowdown in interest has led many Bordeaux property owners to go into administration or sell up. Sykes, 'got calls quite regularly from people who were stopping – grubbing up the vines, selling to a property developer, whatever [and had stock to sell]'.
The CIVB is aware of these problems. Two years ago it confirmed a deal with the French government aimed at reducing oversupply, offering financial support to growers who ripped out vineyards.
As the available grubbing-up budget has not been used, applications for a second wave are still open. Even so, Bordeaux's overall vineyard area today is smaller than it has been since 1985, shrinking from 108,000 hectares in 2022 to 94,600 hectares in 2024.
Most vines approved for pulling up under the government scheme are in the areas of Blaye, Bourg and Entre-Deux-Mers, where a lot of cheaper wines are made, explains Gavin Quinney, a cheerful and energetic Englishman who owns a Bordeaux property, Château Bauduc.
Quinney feels the grubbing-up needs to go further. 'We probably need to lose another 30 per cent of the 94,600 hectares,' he says.
For drinkers, of course, there is a flip side to the doom: the upper echelons might still cost a fortune but mid-priced and inexpensive bordeaux has never been so cheap. I would go further and argue that it is one of the best value wines in the world.
'Bordeaux in the doldrums means there are deals to be done,' says Siobhán Astbury, of merchant Haynes, Hanson & Clark. 'The last five years we've come back from our annual January range-refresh trip rubbing our hands together.
'Each year the opportunities get bigger and bigger,' she continues. 'This year we're shipping 2015 Haut-Médocs – they'll be here in about three weeks – which we will sell at around £15 a bottle, as part of a case. It's incredible to be able to offer fully mature, really delicious wines at this price.'
Drinkers are beginning to catch on. Sykes says Wine Society members – a relatively switched-on crowd – 'go nuts' when some parcels of wine drop: 'My successor in the Bordeaux role bought 1,000 cases of Diane de Belgrave 2016 and they sold out inside three hours.'
Ultimately, of course, Bordeaux needs to be sustainable for its growers, not just drinkers who benefit from distress sales. So what is the answer?
The CIVB says: 'Bordeaux has reinvented itself, and that's what we want to demonstrate and prove.' Clarke, meanwhile, thinks the region needs to remind people that red bordeaux 'is a mealtime classic' and win back the taste makers.
'It's almost as though some sommeliers have a personal vendetta against bordeaux, though the way the pricing of the top châteaux has gone since 2009 it's not surprising,' he notes.
Quinney, whose own wines are listed in Rick Stein's restaurants, sees 'shards of light' in unexpected areas. One of them is white wine: 'No one's pulling white grapevines out.'
Another is crémant – yes, the sparkling white wine. 'Bordeaux made 4.5 million bottles of crémant in 2021 and over 15 million in 2024. We're making it too and it's going well,' says Quinney.
Perhaps it's a case of: bordeaux is dead! Long live bordeaux?
How to buy bordeaux
Tip number 1
On the high street, look in the Co-op, which has a brilliant range of red bordeaux.
Château Beau-Site 2016 Saint Estèphe, Bordeaux, France
13.5%, £25, Co-op
From a beautiful vintage, and now with a bit of maturity, this is a wine very true to its appellation, in that it's based on cabernet sauvignon, polished (but not too polished) and with notes of dark fruit and cedar.
Tip number 2
Look to the Saint-Emilion 'satellites' (they have Saint-Emilion in the name but they're not Saint-Emilion itself) and to the 'Côtes' in particular, Castillon (which neighbours Saint-Emilion) and Francs.
Château Jamard Belcour 2019 Lussac Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux, France
13.5%, £14.50, The Wine Society
Pliant and not too heavy, a wine made almost entirely from merlot, but with a 10 per cent dollop of cabernet franc bringing an attractive perfume. There's no oak.
Tip number 3
Find a merchant whose taste is aligned to yours and keep going back. I find a lot to like at Haynes, Hanson & Clark, which veers towards wines with a fresher, more finely delineated feel.
Château Ferran 2019 Pessac-Léognan, France
14%, £26.25, Haynes, Hanson & Clark
'I'm often surprised this estate isn't better known,' writes Jane Anson, in her bible, Inside Bordeaux. This vintage is drinking perfectly right now.
Tip number 4
Don't write off the very cheap wines. I taste a lot of wine under £6 and bordeaux actually performs very well against the competition.
Chevaliers St Martin 2022 Bordeaux, France