Definition: New French claret

It was thanks to the enlightened minds of a few Bordeaux residents and Anglo-Saxon merchants that the new "clarets" were created in the 18th century. Around 1630, Dutch settlers arrived in Bordeaux and introduced the younger generation of cellar masters to new techniques for ageing wine in barrels (topping up, sulphurisation, fining with egg whites, racking and drawing off). A further step was taken at the same time with the brilliant idea of Arnaud de Pontac, owner of Château Haut-Brion, to produce a "new" red wine, made exclusively from red grape varieties after a long fermentation period, whereas previously red and white grape varieties had been blended. This successful initiative coincided with a period when trade with Anglo-Saxon countries was flagging and new beverages, "colonial herbal teas": tea, coffee, port, sherry and malaga, were competing with claret, which was difficult to preserve. The vinification of a wine with little colour, few tannins and a short shelf life was slowly replaced by the technique of longer maceration of the grapes. This saw the advent of grands crus, which were aged in barrels for longer periods to improve their quality. There was a close link between this change, which resulted in a wine that was colourful, rich in extract and capable of being stored, and the search for refined tastes among London's high society. The first Bordeaux wines were bottled in England at the end of the 17th century, and enthusiasts became keen to store and taste them as old as possible. Around 1800, the almost definitive Bordeaux bottle shape appeared, allowing the bottles to be laid down, stacked and the wine to age better. It did not take long for Bordeaux to realise, following the example of the first English enthusiasts, that bottles laid down, tightly sealed with cork, could be stored for longer and, above all, improved. Thus was born the wine taster. People no longer talked about Bordeaux wine, graves or palus, but about vintage wine. Production became more personalised. The wines of Margaux, Lafite, Latour and Haut-Brion created an unprecedented sensation at the English court and paved the way for the fame of Bordeaux wines. However, storing wine in barrels was risky because of the diseases to which it was susceptible. In addition to Pasteur's genius, it took generations of chemists and then oenologists to discover all the care required for ageing and storing wine properly. Until 1945, châteaux sold to merchants in barrels because of the exorbitant cost of bottles, corks and cash advances. The Chartrons négociants aged the wines in their cellars and improved them, depending on their destination, by adding "auxiliary wines", especially in bad years, known as "médecins" (doctors), from sunnier wine-growing regions in the south of France, Spain or Morocco. Long before legislation put an end to these practices, a man of genius decided to change the course of Bordeaux wine history. In 1925, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the young owner of Château Mouton Rothschild, made a statement that shook the Bordeaux wine trade but, due to the crisis (1929), was not actually implemented until 1945: "Yes, I proclaim that all Mouton Rothschild wine will be bottled at the château, forever, without exception, every year, from every harvest." Gradually, bottling at the château became mandatory for all classified growths, then for cru bourgeois and the grands crus of Saint-Émilion.