Inexpensive Ageworthy Bordeaux?

[SparrowsFall]

Here are the the premises:

o A single large Bordeaux chateau makes more wine than all the Cote-Rotie producers combined.

o There are zillions of small, quality Bordeaux producers, putting out good wine at good prices. They've benefited from the dissemination of scientific winemaking techniques (I distinguish this from the Parker influence), so you'll rarely encounter the flawed plonk they sometimes put out before the 80s.

So it seems that some of those producers might be producing Bordeauxs that will age well, at decent prices--$12 or $18 bottles that in ten or fifteen years will deliver a good bit of that wonderful aged-Bordeaux experience.

Problem is, if you start testing now, you won't know for fifteen years. I didn't start searching for these, laying down twosies and threesies, until a few years ago, so I'm afraid I won't be able to share discoveries for some years yet.

Has anyone found any of these--perhaps by accident? Bottles got lost in the cellar and turned into real surprises?

[marcus]

I think that its unlikely that you are going to find what you're looking for. Age worthy wines don't just happen, its built into the vinification process and is expensive, just the barrels can be very expensive. The winemaker would need to significantly increase his cost and would probably end up pricing his wine out of the market.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Marcus is right. The pricepoint for Bordeaux revolves around ageability. In the $12-$18 pricepoint, the best you will generally be able to do is 3-5 years (of course there will be exceptions.) I don't keep track of the Bordeuax market in detail but I think you need to get into the $40-$60 category for that type of ageworthiness, i.e., the same pricepoint as Cote Roties that can age for 10-15 years. And a lighter style Barolo like Scavino which is a 10-15 year wine will also be at that pricepoint. Starting to see a pattern?

[SparrowsFall]

The two primary cost-related items I know of that contribute to ageworthiness are low yields and (supposedly) aging in new oak barriques.

Clearly, new oak is unecessary to create age-worthy wines.

Low yields and careful selection are fairly widespread in less expensive wines.

I would suggest that the primary additional cost is the cost of property. That's why California wines, and the top Bordeauxs, are so overpriced, and why inherited family properties throughout Europe are able to produce such good wines at such good prices.

What the Bordelais say may well be true--there are only a limited number of terroirs where great wine can be made. Hence the cost of those properties may be justified. But there may well be a self-perpetuating cycle at play, as well--or instead.

While I agree that my search may be fruitless, I wonder what other winemaking techniques are required to make these wines, that also significantly increase the cost of production.

[marcus]

I am not an expert, but there are many factors. The one that you mention low yield, will immediately take you out of the price range that you are looking for. After all, the yield per acre may need to be reduced by 2/3 to 3/4. By itself, this triples the cost of your grapes. Long storage in the barrels means that you need to finance the cost of your crop for another year or two and you probably will not be able to sell futures to cover these costs. There are also significant people cost to manage a fine wine through the vinification and barrel ageing process.