Guide
What a second wine really is, and what it is not
Not a lesser appellation, not a cheap copy, and older than the marketing suggests.
The short answer
A second wine is a selection, not a different place. It usually carries the same appellation as the grand vin and comes from the same estate, made of the lots the estate judged not to belong in the first wine: younger vines, weaker plots, a vat that did not fit the blend. No law defines it. The estate does, and the strictest houses make a third wine below it.
The same ground, a different decision
The grand vin is not a plot. It is a choice made after the harvest, vat by vat, and everything the estate declines goes somewhere. Most of it goes to the second wine, which is the second selection, not the last: what the second wine declines in turn goes to a third wine where the house makes one, as Latour does with Le Pauillac de Château Latour, or leaves the estate without its name. The second wine carries the same appellation because it comes from the same delimited vineyard: Les Forts de Latour is a Pauillac, Pavillon Rouge is a Margaux, the second wine of a Saint-Émilion classified growth is a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru.
The lots that fall into it are usually 1 of 4 things: young vines not yet making the first wine, plots the estate rates below its best ground, a vat that is good but does not fit the blend it is building, or the press wine it chooses not to use.
What the name promises
Nothing, legally. The second wine has no definition in French or European law. It is a brand the estate owns, and the only rules that bind it are the ones that bind any wine of that appellation. An estate may create one, rename it or stop making it: Château Franc Mayne changed its second wine from Les Cèdres to Ilex at the 2018 vintage, and Château Nénin first sold Fugue de Nénin in 1997, the year the estate changed hands.
What it is worth
It is the cheapest way to taste an estate’s hand: the same cellar, the same people, the same year, with the best lots taken out. That is a real thing to learn from, and it is why the second wines of a great estate in a great year are worth more attention than the first wine of a modest one.
What it is not is a discount version of the grand vin. Estates that have raised the share of the harvest going into the second wine have raised the quality of both, and estates that have been strict about the first wine have made a second wine that carries more of the estate than it used to.
A caution worth carrying
Some names that look like second wines are not: an estate may own a separate property, in a different appellation, with a name built from its own. Duhart Milon Blanc is a Bordeaux Blanc, not a Pauillac; G d’Estournel is a Médoc, not a Saint-Estèphe. The appellation on the label settles it every time.
Where to go next
Sources: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 of 17 October 2018 · Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux · Château Latour, Le Pauillac de Château Latour