Intellect & Senses: Bordeaux With Time

BY NEAL MARTIN | MARCH 4, 2025

“Life is short, we do not waste our time on bland indifferent wines; we would rather share half a bottle of something with character and quality than drink six bottles of plonk.”  

– Michael Broadbent, Vintage Wine (2002) 

I do not begrudge anyone drinking Bordeaux in its flush of youth. It is a free world. I am guilty of infanticide myself. Winemaking techniques have been modified over the last two decades, with claret reconfigured to be more malleable, more approachable from its opening pages. It is a bit like parents mashing up their kids’ food. Good things go to those who cannot wait.

Nowadays, claret kowtows to aficionados with shortened drinking horizons because the bottom line is: money talks. A lost sale simply because a wine mandates an extended period in bottle has become an anathema in contemporary winemaking. Expediency is all the rage.

But I would like to say this… 

It is like buying a Ferrari 250GTO and never driving above 30mph.  

Like sailing a yacht around a harbour and ignoring the open sea. 

Like watching a football match to look at the linesmen.