Five lines that carry you through any Bordeaux dinner

1. “Left Bank or Right Bank is a question about soil”

Bordeaux is split by its rivers, and the split runs through the soil: the Left Bank is gravel and Cabernet Sauvignon (opens in a new tab), the Right Bank clay and Merlot (opens in a new tab). Ask which bank a wine comes from and you have asked the one question that matters first. If the answer is Right Bank and the wine turns out to be Cabernet-led, you have found the interesting part of the evening. The soil did something unusual there.

2. “Grand Cru in Saint-Émilion is an appellation, not a rank”

The rank is Grand Cru Classé. The list of 2022 holds 85 estates, 71 of them Grands Crus Classés and 14 Premiers Grands Crus Classés. Grand Cru on its own is an appellation (a legally defined wine name). It means the wine was made to stricter rules: lower yields, 46 hectoliters a hectare instead of 53, and longer aging in the cellar. It is a common misunderstanding, and the easiest to clear up kindly.

3. “The Classification of 1855 has been formally changed only 2 times”

Cantemerle (opens in a new tab) was added on September 16, 1855, 5 months after the brokers delivered their list, and Mouton Rothschild (opens in a new tab) was promoted to First Growth, the top rank, in 1973. Those are the only changes anyone signed. Names have come and gone in print without a decree, and 1 Léoville became 3 in print. Say it and the table will start arguing about which estate deserves promotion, the best conversation in Bordeaux and the one nobody wins.

4. “A second wine is the same estate with the best lots taken out”

Not a different vineyard, not a lesser appellation, not a bargain version. The same cellar, the same people, the same vintage, and the second selection rather than the last, since the strictest houses make a third wine below it. None of this is law. It is custom, kept by the estates themselves, and it is the cheapest honest way into a great house.

5. “That is in the cahier des charges”

Every appellation has a cahier des charges, its official rulebook, which says what may be planted, how much may be picked, and when the wine may be sold. Almost nobody at the table will have read one. When a question comes up that opinions cannot settle, this is the sentence that ends it. The answer is usually one page away.

And one more, for when the bottle disappoints

Bordeaux is a place, not a promise. About 4,600 winegrowers work its vines, and 88 estates are in the Classification of 1855 (opens in a new tab). A dull bottle says something about that grower and that year. It says nothing about the other 4,599.