What About French Wines?       
Are They Worth It?   

In Most Cases ….Probably Not

If you enjoy wine with your food and are true to your roots, you probably drink a lot more wine from the Napa Valley than from France. Perhaps you think that most French wine is overpriced. That opinion is probably justified. However, if you better understand the 5 major regions of the French wine market, it will increase your appreciation of any wines that you consume. After all, with justification France is looked upon as the essence of enology.

The two major wine-producing areas of France are Bordeaux and Burgundy and they are totally different.  Whether we realize it or not, we are much more familiar with the wines of Bordeaux, located off the English Channel in Southwest France. About ½ of all French wine comes from here. This is where the Cabernet Sauvignon based red wines that we are familiar with are produced. This proximity to the shores of England made it a natural choice of the British from whom we also inherited the companion taste for overcooked red meat.  

Most of the wine produced in this region comes from two thousand individual vinyards and wineries located in a 100 mile by 25 mile strip through which runs the Gironde River.  Each Chateau is marketed individually and they are all tightly controlled. The quality and supposedly related price of the wines depends on the area in Bordeaux from which the wines come. This control by an arm of the French government supposedly insures quality and prevents fraud. Actually it results in limiting the production thus creating artificially high prices as world population and demand increases. This artificially induced high demand that doesn’t always relate to quality has created wine scandals every few years. 

The premier area of the Bordeaux is the Medoc and within that, specifically Pauillac, where the outstanding growths, Lafitte, Mouton and Latour are located.  5 other outstanding growths are in the Graves, St Emilion and Pomerol area.  All of these wines sell for $100 or more even for futures.

There are about 200 Chateaux at the next level down designated as exceptional and they are priced a bit below the top eight but still are at inflated prices induced by government controls. All of these wines are reds made principally with the Cabernet grape.

There is some white wine produced in Bordeaux made mainly from Semillon and Sauvignon grapes. These wineries are mostly in the Graves area but are not held in the same esteem as the reds. The exception is the Sauternes dessert wine with names like Chateau Y’quem, Suidiraut and Rieussec. They also command 3 digit prices.

Many wine aficionados actually prefer wine from the Burgundy region located in the eastern zone of France. It has much less capacity than Bordeaux and is a much smaller area of even smaller individual vinyards who often do not have the resources to produce and market their own wine. Thus, they sell the grapes to the powerful shippers in and around the centrally located Burgundy city of Beaune. These shipper-often- producers have the finances to bring the wines to market. The name of the minute area and the name of the shipper identify wines from this region.  Famous wine names such as La Tache, Grand Echezaux, Volnay and Romanee-Conti are in such limited supply that they command greater prices than most Bordeaux. They come from the Cotes d’Or area, are all reds and are produced primarily from the Pinot Noir Grape. Red Burgundy has been in such short supply that often it has been illegally diluted by heavy red Rhone or Rousillon wines. Many inexperienced consumers that rely on the high price instead of the taste have been fooled for so long that they think that if the wine does not have that heavy taste it is not true Burgundy. Exactly the opposite is true.

However Burgundy is equally famous for the greatest white wines in the world. They are made from the Chardonnay grape, which at one time was thought to be part of the Pinot family and was called Pinot Chardonnay. It is now just Chardonnay.  The finest whites come from a very small area called Montrachet with sub areas such as Chevalier, Batard, Chassagne and Puligny. Montrachet alone is always in the $100 plus category with Chevalier and Batard about 25% cheaper. Puligny and Chassagne are lower priced and a lot of poor quality has been shipped to this country at prices that are double the price of equal or superior California Chardonnay.

A decent Chardonnay called Chablis comes from the northern zone of Burgundy with a flinty taste because of the soil. This Chablis has nothing in common with American Chablis, which is made from the dregs of domestic white wine.  However a lot of bad French Chablis has also been shipped to this country at inflated prices.

Thus the shipper is as crucial as the name of the wine since he determines the quality. The leading shippers in Burgundy are Joseph Drouhin, Bouchard et Fils, Louis Jadot, Louis Latour and at a slightly lower level, Mommesin

Beaujolais comes from the south of Burgundy and is discussed at length in a previous review, which you can pull up in FrankAboutFood.com  Second Chances. It is one of the three French wine types France that is reasonably priced.

Red wines from the Rhone Valley, the third most important area, are now also priced very competitively due to the combination of a strong dollar and the need to overcome wine scandals of the past. Quality controls have been recently instituted and drinkable wines can be found in the $8 category with great wines in the $25-30 Range. The Rhone is also reviewed at length in FrankAboutFood.com Second Chances. 

For reasons that are unexplainable French Champagne from the fourth or Champagne region (that’s why they call it Champagne) north of Burgundy had remained fairly priced. Supply was sucked up a bit along with prices by the recent double millennium promotion. Good values are still to  be found. However some giants like Moet seem to have responded to widening demand by lowering grape quality in their brand names including Dom Perignon and recently acquired Veuve Cliquot. But now some American champagne makers are closing in on the French market. You can also read about champagne in that dreaded Second Chances section.

The fifth region has always been around but mostly for the French. It is called the Dordogne and is the Modesto of France. Up until recently wine from the Dordogne could be bought in France for $2 a bottle or less. As worldwide interest in wine increased and French wine sat on that pedestal, the French hustlers figured anything that said France on it could command a premium. They were right. Cheap French wine from the Dordogne is now being offered in the U.S. under a number of confusing labels. . Unless you must, must have French wine on the table, fuggedaboudit.  You are much better off with the value choices from Australia and  Chile or domestic names such as Columbia Crest, Napa Ridge and Gallo.