No one that’s into wine much would argue that the Classification of 1855 was an important document, if for no other reason than it recognized great wine. Surely when it was created, no one would have imagined that it would still be standing today. The Classification of 1855 was an attempt to categorize Bordeaux wine from the very best châteaux in the region.

This list was seemingly innocuous and quite casual at the time. As Napoleon III was planning on hosting a Universal Exposition in Paris, the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce was solicited to create a list, in descending order, of the top wine producers in this very famous region. The most qualified candidates to fulfill the assignment happened to be the Bordeaux wine brokers, whose knowledge of all of the wine estates and markets buying from them, had been unofficially tracked for centuries. So the wine brokers created a list that ranked top estates from “1^st Growth” through 5^th Growth”. The list was primarily based on price and, to a lesser extent, reputation and popularity. And just like our current-day system of economics, wine back then was priced according to demand and demand was established because of the quality of a wine. The list became known as the Classification of 1855. For more in-depth information about the Classification of 1855, please visit here: http://www.classof1855.com/The_Classification.html.

Initially only four châteaux were classified as 1^st Growth, with Château Mouton-Rothschild being elevated from a 2^nd Growth to a 1^st Growth in 1973 after decades of Baron Philippe Mouton petitioning the minister of Agriculture to do so. This is the only change the Class has made since 1855 and today the Class is hugely controversial.

Recently I attended an amazing wine event created and organized by Brian Owen (I will be posting a full report on this coming up) and the theme of the event was “Definitive Bordeaux”; no wine event could have been better tailored to my love of wine than this one. Here, about 36 very knowledgeable enophiles tasted through well over $10K of excellent Bordeaux and a number of flights were tasted blind. One of the flights I tasted blind was aptly named “Super 2^nd vs. 1^st Growth” which had the following lineup:

Château Haut Brion -1995 – 1^st Growth

Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande – 1996 – 2^nd Growth

Château Cos d’Estournal - 1995 – 2^nd Growth

Château Léoville Las Cases - 1995 – 2^nd Growth

Super 2^nd is a phrase that wine critic Robert Parker coined some years ago and refers to consistently high performing 2^nd Growths that has become part of the controversy. And the heated debate is this: should some of these 2^nd Growths be elevated to 1^st Growth status? Which then begs the questions, should some 5^th Growths be elevated to 3^rd or 2^nd Growths? Should the whole Classification be thrown out and disregarded as no longer relevant or maybe reshuffled to reflect vin de la journée (wine of the day)?

Well, to answer the first question, no! Although the so-called Super Seconds are indeed ‘Super’, there is not one of them that consistently outperforms any of the five 1^st Growth châteaux. Tasting blind makes it even more obvious – there is something deeply visceral about 1^st Growth Bordeaux, almost another dimension. Even though all of these wines had been very evenly rated by the critics (all were 94-95 points), spotting 1^st Growth Château Haut Brion amongst them was not guesswork at all. It’s like comparing the difference between film and video; sure video captures the notes, the colors, and the detail but it lacks depth that only film can create. There just is nothing else in the world like a 1^st Growth – it truly is the equivalent to a Rolls Royce.

The answer to the second questions is also no. If after 155 years, the Classification of 1855 were changed, really what purpose would it serve? Everyone knows that there are some lower ‘classed growths’ that continuously outperform other estates within their classification and even some that outperform others in a class or two above. But doing what Right Bank Bordeaux did 100 years later (in 1955) when it finally classified its châteaux, only created a useless list, as the order gets shuffled around at least every ten years. There is nothing that can be relied upon here – no solid ground. And most estates work hard to live up to their precious image, if not above it, so it keeps quality high.

The answer to the third question is no again. The Classification 1855 is alive and useful. If you really want to explore the best wines in the world, go down the list and try them – there will be very few disappointments, which cannot be said for any other wine region in the world. It is really life altering once you understand what great wine can be. Yes, there are some of the Classified estates that have been sold off or declined for some reason and don’t live up to their historical potential. But eventually these châteaux too will be sold to someone that is willing to bring them back to what they once were. The Classification of 1855 has been a much-imitated guide to the finest wines in the world, officially and unofficially for centuries. It is to wine, what our constitution is to our nation’s body of law.

Photo: Châteaux Haut Brion, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild, Latour,and Lafite-Rothschild