Soul Searching

Brand Bordeaux realizes they have lost two generations of sommeliers. And they want them back. They want the business back. They want the love back. But can they change their too big to fail corporate mindset? Do they even want to? For example, it’s hard to understand why they resist organic viticulture, so important to the new generation. Their then-spokesperson, Sylvie Cazes, explained to me simply, “It’s not what we emphasize. We’re about quality.” Tell that to the young wine director who, on a Bordeaux-sponsored sommelier trip, curtailed her runs through the vines because she feared breathing the toxic sprays. Most of her fellow sommeliers concurred that their worst wine of the trip was the Mouton. One visitor described it as “Out of balance, chemically altered, soulless, placeless. Wholesale $110.” Seems to me this could well describe the perception of the entire region by those who are instead reaching for the Jura.