What you don’t see in Bordeaux
There’s a reason that many younger wine-drinkers aren’t enthused by Bordeaux. The polish with which the region’s estates preen themselves masks any semblance of authenticity – falling victim to their own PR machine. This year, I set about trying to scrape away some of that polish – trying to get at the dirt, details and real people that are behind these wines. It wasn’t easy.
Every request saw me pushed in the direction of their communications team, a nudge towards the technical director, someone from senior management – almost anyone but those that actually have their feet on the ground and are getting their hands dirty. Eventually, with a handful of properties, however, we managed to get past the media-trained executives – to meet some fascinating people. We set off in February to visit Pontet-Canet, Lafite Rothschild, Smith Haut Lafitte and more. I visited stables, bottling lines, a cooperage and a team busily pruning First Growth vines. Each one had a story to tell, a craft to talk about and an unrelenting passion for the estates where they worked: trying to capture that on the (digital) page was a joy.
You can read the full series at frw.co.uk/editorial: from meeting the team that looks after the horses at Pontet-Canet and a man who has worked the vines at Lafite for over 30 years to two of the women that label each and every bottle of Yquem and the master cooper at Smith Haut Lafitte.
