No amateur wine drinker, however enthusiastic, can be expected to know and remember all of the better Bordeaux vineyards—there are at least a hundred in the Médoc alone, nearly half that number in St. Emilion, and twenty or more in Pomerol and in Graves. The need for a classification of some sort was evident, even a century ago. Luckily, one now exists.
The Classification of 1855
A commission of wine dealers, courtiers, and experts, appointed in Bordeaux in 1855, was given the almost impossible and certainly thankless task of classifying, in terms of comparative quality, the more celebrated vineyards of the Médoc and the Sauternes country. No member of the commission, so far as I know, met a violent death after the classifications were published—which is a little surprising, in view of the way most growers feel about their wines. On the other hand, the commissioners never volunteered to complete their work by grading the vineyards of St. Emilion and Graves, and it has never been possible, since then, to assemble a committee possessing the necessary temerity, probity, and knowledge to revise this list, although (what with wars and phylloxera and the passing years) it obviously needs revising.
The members of the 1855 commission—specialists devoted to one wine, and having a lifetime's knowledge and experience of its variations—were vastly more competent in their field than any present-day American could hope to be. My own notes hereinafter should therefore be considered in the nature of addenda to an ancient and well-established Almanach de Gotha; and it is not by chance that the plus and minus signs which I have placed in front of certain august and famous and imperishable names are printed in light-faced type.
Nevertheless, wines after which I have placed a plus sign (+) are now generally sold, and I believe justifiably, above the other wines of their class; those with a minus (-), generally below. There are obviously, out of so many, a number of wines that I have not tasted often enough to judge competently, and about these I have either stated my ignorance, or implied it with the absence of comment. I have also indicated the commune, or township, from which each wine comes, and the approximate annual production of each château, in terms of cases.
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