This show aired on June 22, 2024 and followed the previous show on red blends. This particular red blend is known by its name and signals which grapes it contains. That’s the classic Bordeaux blend, but as we’ll see, more information is needed. I chose Debussy’s music as a musical accompaniment to these fine wines so a short introduction to his music is included.
Bordeaux Red Blend: Right or Left Bank
Last week we covered Rhone Valley red blends, most identified as GSM for its primary grapes. The blend is known worldwide, so it conveys much more information than simply calling it a red blend. This week we look at Bordeaux red blends, which are also understood to mean a select group of grapes. The one twist here is that in Bordeaux those grapes are different within the right bank and left bank.
Actually the left bank wines are on the Gironde River and the right bank wines are much further down on the Dordogne River, which is the northern branch of the Gironde after it splits into the Garonne and Dordogne rivers. The lower Garonne River flows passed the city of Bordeaux and the Graves sub-region, while the Dordogne left bank feeds the Entre-Deux-Mers sub-region where Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes thrive.
The three principal grapes of both banks are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, but the principal grape of the left bank is Cabernet Sauvignon and it’s Merlot on the right bank. Thus two distinctly different blends are created, based on the primary grape. Also both Petit Verdot and Malbec blending grapes are primarily left bank grapes.
Bottom line; even after a wine is labeled a Bordeaux blend, one should know which bank’s blend we mean, and that often doesn’t happen, so it’s helpful to know the towns and villages of each bank.
Bordeaux Blends: Going to the Source
Once more we trek to Bordeaux for wine that will not cause our bank account to go tilt. There are certainly a number of highly regarded wines from the right bank of the Dordogne, such as Chateau Petrus, which will break the bank and I don’t mean the Right Bank! There are more reasonable wines in St. Emilion and Pomerol, and also the lesser-known third subregion of the Libournais; Fronsac.
In Bordeaux most red wines are blends of two or more grapes, but while Left Bank wines have up to five, Right Bank wines typically only blend two or three at the most.
Some like Chateau Petrus rely only on the Merlot grape. Another Chateau Cheval Blanc is often a 50-50 blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. These are two of the most highly regarded wines in Bordeaux, but are well beyond my price range. If someone has this wine in their cellar they either bought them when they were much cheaper, has a lot of discretionary income to lavish on wine, or has a rich uncle that loves them.
If someone wants to enjoy the fruits of Bordeaux more cheaply it’s imperative to learn a lot about this wine region because we can’t rely only on price or wine ratings to get the most bang for the buck.
European Wine Regulations: Quality designations
So what do we need to know about the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855? Well the first thing to know is the top tier wines, which are still so rated, are way beyond our price range unless you got it off the back of a truck. In fact these wines were rated by how much they cost. That is how the wines were calibrated. With rare exceptions the more expensive wines are not always the most desirable for a typical wine palate. In fact one of the primary facts we should know about wine is price does not always indicate quality, but here were the French back then suggesting it was!
Moreover, the subtlety of a Chateau Margaux would be lost on wine drinkers not familiar with Bordeaux wine styles. I have a friend that loves big, jammy California wines. When he tasted a Medoc I had just decanted he made a face like I’d just given him week old coffee. I think that was even his comment. He could not believe people actually drank such stuff, and if I’d told him the price he’d have questioned my sanity.
On the other hand, if he’d tried it already familiar with these wines the conversation would have been completely different. Or maybe not, he was a cantankerous fellow.
The French Appellation System of 1935
Having survived powdery mildew and phylloxera and a world war the French were now experiencing competition to their favored Bordeaux and Champagne “brands”. They established the Appellation d’origine contrôlée system, governed by a powerful oversight board; the Institut national des appellations d’origine, (INAO). France has one of the oldest systems for protected designation of origin for wine in the world, and strict laws concerning winemaking and production.
- The term appellation has been adopted by many countries, though not as strict in definition.
- Other European countries adopted many of the regulations the French had implemented.
- In 2012 the EU defined a series of classifications that applied across the entire EU. Again similar to those defined previously by the French.
AOC classifications
There are currently three categories. These are French designations as a subset of EU wine regulations.
- Vin de Table (11.7%) – Designates the producer and that it is from France.
- Vin de Pays (33.9%) – Designates a specific region within France (for example Vin de Pays d’Oc from Languedoc-Roussillon and subject to less restrictive regulations than AOC wines.
- Producers can use grape varieties or procedures other than required by the parent AOC
- The geographical area might be similar
- Producers submit the wine for analysis and tasting
- Wines can represent good value, or could be garage
- Garage wines are small production, usually high quality wines, similar to super Tuscan wines
- This classification has been largely replaced by the IGP (France) standard
- Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC, 53.4%) – Wine from a particular area with many other restrictions, including grape varieties and winemaking methods. This is also known as a Bordeaux appellation.
- Only certain grape varieties permitted
- Yield per acre limited, spacing of rows, etc.
- Appellation, not the grapes used appears on the label
Bordeaux Blends
The term Bordeaux blend identifies a blend of 2 to 5 varietals per wine, but is not an official term like Meritage. Four of the grapes permitted are among the most planted in France. The three Rhone GSM blend grapes are also among the most planted. The top six are listed below by acres planted.
- Left Bank: Cabernet Sauvignon primary then Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec, Petite Verdot
- Right Bank: Merlot principal grape, then Cab Franc typically
Top Six Red grapes of France
- Merlot 288,000+ acres Bordeaux, Languedoc + Southwest France
- Grenache 240,000+ acres Southern Rhone, Languedoc, Roussillon + Provence
- Syrah 172,000+ acres Northern & Southern Rhone, Languedoc, Roussillon
- Carignan 146,000+ acres Languedoc, Roussillon, Southern Rhone
- Cabernet Sauvignon 143,000+ acres Bordeaux, Languedoc + Southwest France
- Cabernet Franc 92,000+ acres Bordeaux, Loire + Southwest France
The Bordeaux wine region
The Bordeaux region occupies France’s western coastline, with influences from both the Atlantic and the major river tributaries, particularly the Gironde River, which is over six miles across at its widest. The left bank vineyards are part of a peninsula that expands to 30 miles near Margaux. Later it splits into the Dordogne above and Garonne below, which feeds the busy shipping port of Bordeaux. The right bank vineyards begin further down the Dordogne River.
Bordeaux Principal sub-regions
There are 34 sub-regions in Bordeaux. These can be grouped into four primary areas.
Bourg and Blaye: Upper right bank Gironde
Medoc: Eight sub-regions with four 1st growth chateaux. Most popular sub-regions are St. Estephe, Pauillac (POY-yack), St Julien and Margaux.
Libournais: Right bank includes Fronsac, Pomerol and St Emilion
Graves: Lower Garonne left bank, Pessac-Leognan, Haut-Brion 1st growth
Sauternais: Barzac & Sauternes dessert wines – Chateau d’Yquem 1st growth
Entre-Deux-Mer: Between two seas, Many excellent Bordeaux Blanc blends
Right Bank: St-Emilion
The most-known and popular right bank wines come from St. Emilion and its satellites, which like good satellites surround the Grand Cru heart of the appellation. Marked by its historic fortified village, the St-Émilion appellation, along with its neighboring village of Pomerol, are leaders in quality on the Right Bank of Bordeaux. These Merlot-dominant red wines are paired with lesser amounts of Cabernet Franc and even less of Cabernet Sauvignon.
St-Émilion has the longest history in wine production in Bordeaux—longer than the Left Bank—dating back to an 8th century monk named Saint Émilion who became a hermit in one of the many limestone caves scattered throughout the area.
So were there cave paintings documenting the various vintages the monk made? Or did he just drink it all in the cave?
For your consideration: Chateau Puy Blanquet 2017, 12.5% ABV, $33
Ironically, while we talked about red blends this vintage year was 100% Merlot.
Winery Snaphot:
Chateau Puy Blanquet is owned by the Jacquet family. The wine making, vineyard management and sales are all managed by Ets. Moueix. The 20 hectare, Right Bank vineyard of Chateau Puy Blanquet is planted to 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. The vines are on average, 25 years of age. The vineyard is planted to a vine density of 5,000 vines per hectare. The vineyard has a terroir of clay and limestone soils. The percentages of grapes planted clue us to what a typical red blend will be.
Vintage Data
The winter of 2016-2017 was dry and sunny. The spring was the third warmest since 1900, with the notable exception of a few cold nights the 27th and 28th of April which resulted in frost damage to certain low-lying terroir. The summer was marked by persistent dry conditions (annual rainfall was 30% lower than average) and a few heat waves. The clay and limestone soils of Château Puy-Blanquet, natural hydric regulators, provided a steady water supply to the vines throughout the drought. Welcome rain in early September rounded out the maturation of the grapes and confirmed the good quality of the vintage. Upon tasting, the berries were gorged with sugar yet fresh at the same time, with intense aromas of small black and blue fruit; the thick skins were rich in soft tannins.
French Impressionist: Claude Debussy
Impressionism in music is similar in concept to impressionistic art so it’s not surprising they evolved together and France, one of their primary sources. The music seems to complete a fine summer day, with our back to a tree, our eyes on a gently flowing river and our ear attuned to the coursing of water over a dam.
Impressionist composers spent little time echoing the music of the classical and romantic periods. Debussy in particular focused on interplay between motifs and short vignettes. Ravel showed comparatively greater reverence for formalism, as did his student Ralph Vaughan Williams, but none of them rigidly adhered to traditional forms.
Impressionistic music makes use of chromatic scales, pentatonic scales, whole tone scales, and brief flourishes of atonality. These techniques had also been in the works Chopin, Liszt and Wagner. Still, the full scale embrace of such harmonic concepts was considered a bold step forward.
Impressionist composers were known for experimenting with the textural and timbral potential of orchestral instruments, with the purpose of creating emotive moods and atmospheres. Ravel in particular was fascinated with the interplay of various instruments and the resulting harmonics and dissonances.
Claude Debussy
Debussy himself rejected the impressionistic label, calling those who did idiots. In fact during his stint as a music critic at La Revue Blanche, he had harsh words for anything he didn’t like. Regarding the Paris Opéra: “A stranger would take it for a railway station, and, once inside, would mistake it for a Turkish bath” He had several romantic liaisons; more than once causing controversy and losing him friends.
He was introduced to Emma Bardac by her son, one of his students and they eventually married in 1903 after both their divorces. They were together until his death from cancer in 1918, with the sounds of German cannon fire disturbing the peace of his Paris home.
He was fortunate to have excellent musical training and entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of ten. His own unique musical style took several years to emerge, which is not surprising when one considers how different his music was to the established strictly rules-based traditions of the time. His only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande was completed in 1902 and helped established his reputation.
He was known for his orchestral tone poems and piano pieces composed in his middle and late periods.
Orchestral works:
- Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1891-94); Still a popular ballet composition
- Nocturnes: 1-Nuages 2-Fêtes 3-Sirènes (1897-99)
- La Mer: Also in 3 movements (1903-05)
- Images: 3 movements, 2- Iberia is very long (1905-12)
- The Children’s Corner, in 8 pieces (1910)
- Le Martyre de saint Sébastien five-act musical mystery play on Saint Sebastian (1911)
Piano Works:
His piano music is so extensive I’ll only mention a few sets that I have and love.
- Six épigraphes antiques
- The Children’s Corner from the orchestral work
- Images: 1 and 2
- Preludes: Book 1 and 2, each with 12 pieces
- Suite Bergamasque which contains the piece Clair de Lune
- Estampes: 3 pieces, I-Pagodas influenced by hearing the Oriental Gamelan Orchestra
- Clair de Lune has been used in many movies included the feather dance in The Right Stuff
If you’d only heard one or two of his compositions, Debussy’s works are all wonders to discover. And they pair beautifully with a fine French wine and help set a lyrical interlude of contemplation and ease.
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