Book Review: What Price Bordeaux by Benjamin Lewin

[AKR]

Book Review: What Price Bordeaux by Benjamin Lewin MW

https://www.amazon.com/What-Price-Borde ... 0983729220

I alluded to this book in a prior post, while midstream reading it. In short this is a good book on the market structure of the regions wines, with extensive history on how trade practices developed. It's a blend between economics and Bordeaux wine.

The author is an academic with a MW, who also seems to be both a prolific writer about his vocation of biology, and about wine. A quick skim through Amazon will load up 4 pages of his books.

This book is published with color plates on nearly every page, so the page feel a little slick, compared to normal books, but there are great visuals to go with everything - whether its maps, labels, price charts and so on. Although the book is a decade old, I don't think anything is really out of date. If anything some of his observations from back then have only become more plain today to wit: the deteriorating state of the futures campaigns.

The first chapters dive into the nature of yields, terroir, INAO, and all the craziness in the AOC systems. As much as I thought understood this system, the author describes the rules, and how they may not make any sense. For example an estate can not protect its soil with tarps from a drenching rain (and thus leading to swollen watery grapes) but can use the manipulative reverse osmosis process for water removal from grape must!

Then it covers the classification system, and all the distortions that has caused. The author is not a fan of it. He spends some time covering the curious case of Mouton Rothschild and the details of their promotion decades ago which are murky even to insiders.

It then dives into the system of negociants, courtiers, estates and their financiers. All of this material about La Place was only vaguely understood before I read this book, but he really explains it well. It does suggest why some estates only allow their wines to be tasted on site during the EP campaign.

Other topics area also covered like the growth of 2nd wines, the rise of the Right Bank wines, and the role of critics. Based on the bibliography and 30 pages or so footnotes, it appears to be well researched and carefully written.

One doesn't have to agree with all the authors sentiments to get some value out of this. I'd grant that it deals a lot with the economics of wine, rather than solely on viticulture/terroir etc. But its a balanced blend between all those topics.

I picked up a used copy on Amazon, and there seem to be plenty of them, but I'd wait til one was available for cheap (i.e. a big discount to new). In short, I recommend it.

PS: I have not tried any of his self published books / print on demand stuff on Amazon yet. This review is about his traditional university published book.

[marcs]

I read this book a while ago, I think I still have it around somewhere but there are so many books in my house I can't figure out where it is (I wanted to check it out again before doing this post, but couldn't find it).

Anyway, I remember it as a pretty amazing book for the sheer factual density of information about Bordeaux in it -- geology, weather, history, economics, politics, law, you name it. It might be the best book I have ever seen for those purposes. It's not quite totally comprehensive on any of those topics but it contains a lot on each. The major issue for me was that it is pretty dry, the guy has a gift for amassing information but does not have the gift for writing about it in a way that would make you want to read straight through it.

The major impression that stuck with me from the book was just how elastic the boundaries of the different chateau are, just how frequent and extensive the changes in land ownership are in Bordeaux. Before I read this book I had always thought of a Bordeaux producer as sort of a fixed thing over time, like when I am drinking a 1985 Lynch Bages I am drinking a wine made from grapes grown on the same vines used for 2000 Lynch Bages, etc. Far from it, apparently! I can't remember the time horizon for all these land purchases, etc. but the Bordeaux chateau buy land like real estate speculators.

[AKR]

Yes that's an excellent point, that I forgot to mention. He really dives into Ch. Gloria, which seems to have built their 'franchise' on all the odd ball parts of St Julien that other estates - for whatever reasons - do not want to deal with. So despite having a 'morcellated' vineyard, they are able to make a very solid wine that seems to have gotten better over the decades.

And the book is a bit dry. Still, I think the kind of people on this board might like it. Still, I wouldn't pay up for this. Just put it on your watchlist on Amazon for this, and when it gets to a low price, maybe press the buy button. At any given time, I might have 50-100 books on my list that I check periodically. And even after something gets delivered, there's still a long queue by the nightstand before anything gets read. Sort of like a BWE cellar!

[Ryan DB]

One of my favorite books by one of my favorite wine authors. While some may some of the content dry at times, I really never have felt this way about any of his books. If you are a wine nerd (like myself), I would recommend this for you. Coming from a scientific background (he was the founder of the journal Cell), the book almost reads like a Ph.D. dissertation.

Check out his other books the Wines of France and Claret and Cabs. Both are equally good. And if you want to go beyond Bordeaux, his book on Pinot Noir is pretty great as well.

[JimHow]

Ok I'm sold on it, gonna check it out.

[AlexR]

Hi,

Yes, I read the book some time ago and kept notes on all the points where I was in disagreement (I have not kept them).

There were a number of factual errors and one basic thrust that lacked nuance and therefore deserves to be discredited in my opinion. While it is true that the vineyards of some great growths have changed significantly since 1855, it is quite a stretch to say that the châteaux are only brands and that terroir doesn’t matter. In fact, that thesis very much got my goat. For every château whose outlines are very different, there’s another whose vineyards have hardly varied. What the book lacks is balance and a good overview. You can take specific examples to make a point, but the author cannot see the forest for the trees.

Best regards,
Alex R.