CLASSIFICATIONS OLD AND NEW
FIXED AND MALLEABLE
The Classification everyone knows about is the 1855 Classification of Bordeaux. At the time of the Great Exhibition of Paris, the Bordelais were asked to produce a list of their 60 best red wines and their 24 best whites. This task the authorities entrusted to a team of local brokers and merchants. The best white wines were, of course, all sweet, for dry white wine was unfashionable. The reds all came from the Médoc (with the exception of Haut-Brion), for these too were the most desirable – Saint-Emilions and Pomerols, quite simply, did not command the same prices.
As everyone knows, with the single exception of Château Mouton Rothschild, elevated by presidential decree in 1973, this Classification has never beern officially superseded. Commentators have subsequently published their own versions, as did writers before 1855. And quite justly, for reputations rise and decline, and many of the properties' land and dimensions bear little relation to what existed more than 150 years ago. But these are just personal opinions. So what if Château Lascombes is five times the size today as it was in 1855, and that Desmirail occupies quite different parcels of appellation Margaux. So what if Ausone and Petrus now sell for higher prices than Lafite and Latour. The 1855 is well out of date. But it doesn't really matter.
What is of more importance is that most modern classifications are required to be periodically up-dated. Sadly this was not built into the rules when the INAO classified the Graves in the 1950s. This list of classed growthe, red and dry white, looks like it will follow the 1855 Classification into the mists of pointlessness. But those of Saint-Emilion and the Médoc Bourgeois growths are ongoing, up-dated every 10 years or so.
Not without difficulty, however. Properties penalized by demotion or non-inclusion naturally get upset, and telephone their lawyers. Both the latest re-classifications have becomed mired in legal action, and for a time were cancelled. Happily for the consumer, and justly for the best estates like Château Troplong-Mondot, appeals have been denied, and these latest classifications re-instated.
Pomerol, by the way, has never had, or requested, a classification.
While Bordeaux classifications are effectively of brands, (theoretically Château Mouton Rothschild, which owns neighbouring Mouton d'Armailhac and Clerc Milon, could amalgamate all three and sell all the wine as Mouton Rothschild, first growth) the rest of France, and elsewhere, classifies the land. That Richebourg is grand cru does not mean that every bottle of Richebourg is grand. It just means that the land can potentially produce grand wine. It is an extention of the INAO system of grading the lands upwards from table wine to generic, village and premier cru and beyond.
This was brought in, in Burgundy, in 1936. But it would be an error to assume that nothing has been modified since. You might assume that once you have classified the land, the job is finished. After all the land does not change. In fact the authorities have been unexpectedly flexible.
What they first had to consider, right after the laws were introduced, were appeals from near neighbours whose vines had been denied grand cru status. These proprietors would argue that they had always sold their wine under the name of the grand cru. One well-known case occured prior to 1936. The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti progressively bought up parcels of Les Gaudichots, which they bottled as La Tache, from 1834 onwards, and bought what I might call the real La Tache at auction in 1933, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's owners having won the legal right to call their existing bits La Tache the year before. In 1936, all six hectares were confirmed by the INAO as La Tache.
The most notorious post-1936 developement was at Clos de la Roche. Four and a half hectares it was then. Over the next decade all who had vines in Les Mochamps, Les Froichots, Les Fremières, and Les Chabiots, plus, in 1971, bits of Les Genavrières and Les Chaffots, won the right to call their wine Clos de la Roche. There are now just under 17 hectares of this grand cru.
Corton and its environs is another vineyard which has seen major elevation. Today there are some 100 hectares of grand cru rouge. Periodically since the 1940s the boundaries in Ladoix have been tinkered with, premiers crus been elevated to grand cru, and village wine promoted to premier cru. This has also taken place round the corner in Pernand-Vergelesses. The last time was in 2002.
Two of today's grands crus were, because the proprietors wished it, not considered for top status in 1936. The owners feared they wold be liable for higher taxes. So Clos des Lambrays grand cru dates from 1979, and La Grande Rue from 20 years later.
In many cases justifiably, these progressions are continuing. There are currently proposals in to bring in first growths in Pouilly-Fuissé and Marsannay.
Much of Burgundy, moreover, particularly on the higher, steeper, more-costly-to-cultivate slopes, was en friche (scrub) in 1936. Today we live in happier economic times. The reason Ghislaine Barthod is the only Chambolle-Musigny grower to have premier cru Les Varoilles, above Les Cras and Les Fuées, is that these were the only vines in place in 1936. Now that the rest of the climat is planted, surely her neighbours should have the right to call their wines first growth? I don't know whether they have applied – it is a very long and drawn out process: think a decade, minimum – but a little further north, above Clos de Tart, is a vineyard called En La Rue de Vergy, where the proprietors, including Marsannay's Bruno Clair, put in an application as far back as 1998.
Perhaps what is less acceptable, merely, in my view, an expression of amour propre, is that the owners of Nuits-Saint-Georges' Les Saint-Georges should have put in an application for promotion. Apart from the essential dilution of the term grand cru, there are other vineyards more justified – Amoureuses and Clos Saint-Jacques, for instance. And if Les Saint-Georges, what about at least three, if not four of the top first growths of Vosne-Romanée (after all the wines here sell for the same price as Echézeaux)? And if the Clos des Perrières, a monopoly in Meursault, where the Bardet family have applied for grand cru status, what about all the rest of this premier cru? And Cailleret, Pucelles and Folatières in neighbouring Puligny-Montrachet while you are about it. No, you can carry this sort of thing too far.