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The problem with Bordeaux – and how to fix it

There’s no question that Bordeaux has an image problem, but why? And what can the region do to remedy the situation? Andrew Jefford makes a suggestion or two.

Anyone who identifies as a wine lover will be familiar with The Question. It’ll pursue you all your life. It’s innocent and often charmingly asked. What, the questioner wants to know, is your favourite wine? I smile glassily at this point, for two reasons.

The first is that I don’t have a favourite wine.

What I love about wine is diversity and difference. If I say that, though, my questioner will think it’s a cop-out. So I reply ‘red Bordeaux’ instead. ‘Bordeaux? Bordeaux?’ Disappointment mingles with amazement.

‘That’s so boring! You’re a wine expert: can’t you give me a name that will change my drinking forever?’

Red Bordeaux may be the most obvious, unoriginal and unhip ‘favourite wine’ in existence, but at its best it’s also the most subtle, refined and complex red wine of all.

It’s the most food-friendly, the most successful in terms of accomplishing metamorphosis with age, the most qualitatively consistent across a broad price spectrum, the most generous in terms of market offer, the most profoundly satisfying, and (a personal view) the most digestible and health-bringing wine of all.


Scroll down for Andrew Jefford’s suggestions for Bordeaux



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