Bordeaux Pirate boarding Bordeaux bashing

The Flakon team had the opportunity to meet Jean-Baptiste Duquesne, one of the creators of the Bordeaux Pirate Winegrowers association. We tell you...

What is Bordeaux Bashing?

To fully understand what Bordeaux Pirate is, we must first talk about Bordeaux bashing, this mainly French movement which consists of sulking, if not boycotting, Bordeaux wines. It is, of course, not an organized movement but a state of mind which concerns more urban and rather well-off consumers who are tired of the institution that is Bordeaux when it comes to red wine .

Difficult accessibility

Whether purely snobbish or truly revealing, Bordeaux bashing is based on very understandable reasons. Already, the difficult accessibility to these wines with a thousand-year-old heritage: the classified estates sell at high prices and the wines are made to be kept, but not everyone can afford such expensive bottles or wait fifteen at twenty years old before being able to taste his wine.

A market that is too concentrated

Then there is the atomicity of the market: more than 7,000 properties among which many choose, to ensure credible competition, to focus on quantity rather than quality. It is therefore difficult, as a simple amateur, to easily discover a good and affordable Bordeaux if on the one hand we regularly come across inexpensive but very average bottles, and on the other hand certain winegrowers cannot even offer their wines. in cellars or in supermarkets due to market saturation.

Little diversified wines

Finally, there is the question of the similarity of all Bordeaux which is due to their work in subtlety rather than diversity, and therefore requires real training to fully appreciate them. Many consumers today seek to be surprised when they taste a wine, and Bordeaux no longer surprises them.

Bordeaux Pirate strikes back!

The origins of the movement

This is where Bordeaux Pirate comes into play. Initially a Facebook page which brought together thousands of Internet users, it has become an association in its own right, at the initiative of Jean-Baptiste Duquesne, Laurent David, Laurent Cassy and Fabien Lapeyre, all from very different Bordeaux châteaux. and all children of Bordeaux bashing. Their goal is to renew the image of Bordeaux, to transcend the systemic problems encountered by the industry and to promote original wines, whether in their grape variety, their vinification, or their sales method. There are no rules for claiming Bordeaux piracy other than having the desire to offer a good, organic wine, and to think outside the box of Bordeaux tradition.

Promote novelty and originality

Bordeaux Pirate aspires to give its letters of nobility to winegrowers who fall into the appellation "wine of France" (having bad press because it is too generic) for having tried something new: a wine vinified in amphorae or made from a grape variety forget. Because if the majority and praised grape varieties of Bordeaux are Merlot and Cabernet-Sauvignon, there have been more than forty grape varieties in the region and Duquesne intends to bring them back into fashion. He has replanted twenty-six of them on his Château Cazebonne estate and already offers vintages from five of them.

A brand new “Pirate” label

At the end of the year, the winegrowers who are members of Bordeaux Pirate came together to create a “Pirate” label. To do this, a jury of oenologists, sommeliers and other professionals met to taste and evaluate 72 vintages proposed by privateer winegrowers. Based on the criteria of quality and originality of the wine, 52 vintages were honored with the “Pirate” label. The attack seems to be launched against the institution, when will the talks take place?