Over at Sotheby's, international-wine-department head Serena Sutcliffe evokes the 1990 vintage in winespeak. "This is true first-growth beauty, with its projection of silky, approachable fruit and sleek bilberry taste," is Sutcliffe's verdict in the catalog for the auction house's September 2010 London sale. "Utterly tempting and full of black fruit, it has perfect balance and irreproachable class."
Mentzelopoulos takes another sip and conjures up her own memories. "My dad and I first arrived at Chateau Margaux in a taxi in 1977," she reminisces. "I thought I was Simone de Beauvoir. Dad owned the Felix Potin grocery chain and heard that the place was up for sale. We had lunch with the owners in a dark dining room and it was spooky. I'd never seen a grand wine cellar and dad had never tasted Chateau Margaux."
Feminine Wine
As Mentzelopoulos tells it, Chateau Margaux drinkers never forget their first taste. "Chateau Margaux is a feminine wine, sexy," she says. "I'd like to think that all those speculators are trading our wine in order to pay for what they're drinking."
Although Mentzelopoulos guarantees that Chateau Margaux is hangover free, there is one headache that won't go away. "We can't afford to go from exceptional to average," she says while pruning a vine. "All of this can stop suddenly if the vintages aren't good. What the businessmen don't understand is that we are farmers and everything depends on the stupid land and the stupid climate."
And on the risk of being eclipsed by Bordeaux rivals as they compete for high-net-worth customers in China, Russia and the U.S. "Margaux as a style is lighter, more refined" than the heavyweight top wines of Pauillac, Lunzer says. While that helps define the wine's characteristics, he says Lafite and Latour are doing more to woo the lucrative Chinese market.
Chinese Labels
Lafite last year put the Chinese figure eight on its 2008 vintage bottles, a lucky number in Asian culture, while Mouton, known for bottle art by a different artist each year, selected an image by Chinese artist Xu Lei for its 2008 label.
Mentzelopoulos says marketing maneuvers make her queasy. "Some experts from Harvard Business School advised me to brand other products with the name Chateau Margaux," Mentzelopoulos says. "They failed to grasp that this would accomplish nothing but our losing focus and diluting the energy of Chateau Margaux. Can you imagine?" she huffs. "They wanted me to create Petit Chateau Margaux. What would come next, perfume and toiletries?"