Vintage myths
The news from Bordeaux is that the 1983 vintage may have turned out to be a very good one after all. Last August there was talk of red spider, mildew and heaven knows what else, but fine weather in September apparently saved the day, and the grapes were harvested in good condi- tion. Merchants who have recently been in Bordeaux tasting the young '83s in cask report that they are deep in colour and tan- nic, with the makings of a classic, long- lasting vintage. This means that five out of the last six vintages in Bordeaux have been considered good ('79), very good ('81, '78, maybe '83) or outstanding ('82). There seems to be no such thing as a poor vintage in Bordeaux these days, only average ones ('77, '80) or better-than-average ones. Mathematically that sounds a bit odd, but 1 suppose one shouldn't complain, if the vin- tages really are very good.
Actually, I don't doubt that the vintages are good. My doubts are about whether vin- tages in general are good. What we have been seeing in Bordeaux is a cult of the vin- tage — a kind of idolatry, in fact, because putting the vintage before the wine is put- ting the cart before the horse. The reason for this is quite specific: it is the growing use, or abuse, of claret as an investment commodity. Investors want vintages in the same way that they want signatures on pain- tings; it has nothing to do with the intrinsic quality of the painting or the wine, it is an external sign (come back, Roland Barthes, all is forgiven) or proof of quality. Not all signed paintings are masterpieces: not all wines from 'great' vintages are great, or even good. The 1967 Château Haut Bailly, for example, was far better than the more expensive and highly-rated '66 (not to men- tion later vintages). And more recently, the 1977 Château Chasse-Spleen has been a much more enjoyable drink than the majority of the more illustrious '76s and, admittedly immature, '78s.
The unavoidable vicissitudes of life and growth are particularly severe in the case of claret, paradoxically the wine favoured by investors as a 'rock-solid' or 'cast-iron' commodity. Nothing could be less like rock or iron. Take the 1970 vintage: an enor- mous quantity of perfectly ripe grapes pro- duced wines which seemed in their youth to possess everything — colour, fruit, tannin, balance, you name it. But these wines which everyone expected to develop quickly pass- ed instead into a dumb and closed-up adolescence, and they have not emerged. One restaurateur tells me that he has stop- ped serving 1970 clarets because he has never had a customer who was pleased with one. But the auction prices of the '70s con- tinue to rise, and wine writers of dubious independence continue to award them high points in comparative tastings which always end up 'confirming 1970's status as a classic vintage'. There are just too many vested in- terests at stake for anyone to be able to ad- mit that the emperor, temporarily at least, has lost his robes. Not that we should be surprised; other claret vintages have suf- fered from delayed, or even permanent, adolescence. The 1870s, for example, came round eventually, but not until their initial purchasers were safely in their graves.
This, of course, is what makes claret so fascinating, but it clearly has its inconve- nient side for those who view cases of Lafite as ingots of precious metal, and whose ap- proach, sadly, has made them almost as ex- pensive. Investment in claret has brought about a progressive disproportion between intrinsic value and exchange value, accom- panied, in the media, by distortion of the truth. This too has happened before, not just with claret (1973-74), but with other forms of investment. Now the techniques are more sophisticated and the process has been taken further: more and more clarets these days are sold en primeur, in the sum- mer following the vintage while still in cask and not due to arrive in this country for three years. There are obvious, perhaps in- evitable reasons for this: in times of high in- terest rates and inflation, merchants cannot afford to hold stocks of claret for the many years it requires to reach maturity. But this is a risky way to buy claret, purely in terms of its unpredictable development, and prices, and blurbs, should reflect this fact. First growths opening at £300 and talk of 'a great classic vintage' when the wines are barely six months old only reflect greed.
Fortunately, for those of us who are primarily interested in wines rather than vintages, this situation has its compensa- tions. One is the availability of good mature clarets from `off vintages' at reasonable prices: the 1980 Château Chasse-Spleen is a worthy successor to the charming '77. Another is the ever-increasing number of well-made wines from areas which do not suffer from Bordeaux's uncertain climate and inflated prices — Chile, Australia and Penedes, to name three.
Ausonius
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