The Big Spill

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One of the conundrums for Bordeaux is its renown. The region's top wines command investment-banker prices because of their quality and limited supply. These makers have no interest in being associated--even remotely--with down-market plonk. Why would they when Château Cheval Blanc and Château Lafite-Rothschild, for example, are currently selling their 2005 vintage for about $700 a bottle? But producers in the middle aren't happy. They worry that the massive price increases pushed through by the likes of Château Pontet-Canet will give consumers the message that all Bordeaux are expensive. "What does it do to Bordeaux's image to see people doubling their prices?" asks Marie Courselle at Château Thieuley, who is barely managing to avoid cutting her prices. "They are sabotaging Bordeaux's image. It's crazy that we are all put in the same basket."

Indeed, one of the big concerns around Bordeaux is less about how to move aggressively into a bright new future and more about how to avoid a damaging fragmentation between those who are doing well and those who aren't. "It's almost like a Latin American economy, some very rich and some very poor. This could cause a revolution," worries Pierre Lurton, who runs two of the most exclusive properties, Château Cheval Blanc in the St. Emilion region and Château d'Yquem, the world-famous sweet white Sauternes. Back at Château Pontet-Canet, Tesseron sits down for dinner with his wife Isabelle and a decanter of his house 1996. In the Bordeaux hierarchy, Pontet-Canet isn't one of the very top châteaux, but it's still a name, thanks to an official classification dating to 1855, when the French got the jump on market segmentation. Wine merchants that year carved out the top wines, awarding Pontet-Canet 5th grand cru classé. With it came brand equity and pricing power that have lasted more than 150 years.

Tesseron is acutely aware that historic status alone isn't enough. "I'm in a privileged situation, but it's not a given," he says. "I must continue aspiring to be the best." That means more investment as well as a lot of savvy marketing. This year, for the first time, Tesseron threw open his château doors to visitors, by appointment only, and hired three people to receive them. One of the three speaks Chinese. "Yes, there are new clients, but the real business still comes from our old ones," he says. "I'm sure in the next 20 to 30 years, people will be interested in products that are top. And I'm doing all I can to be top." In Bordeaux these days, that's a mantra for survival.