Who It's For: this class assumes a basic introductory understanding of Bordeaux. If you are brand new to the region, we recommend starting with one of our foundational classes first, then coming back for the deep dive.
Bordeaux has a reputation for being intimidating, and honestly, it earns it. Two banks, dozens of appellations, layered classification systems, château politics that go back centuries, and a pricing structure that rewards knowledge. Most people pick it up in pieces over decades. This class is a shortcut.
Eric Palmer, wine specialist and 2023 scholar of Bordeaux Mentor Week, has spent years studying the region seriously. He is joining us to break it down the way it should be taught: patiently, in order, and with wine in the glass at every step so the theory has something to hold onto.
We start with Bordeaux's history and its long role in the export market, which is the key to understanding both La Place de Bordeaux and the En Primeur system. From there we take on the misconceptions the region has picked up along the way: that Bordeaux lacks terroir (recent soil mapping across the Médoc terraces suggests otherwise), that it is a monolithic block of classified growths (the historic estates are quietly modernizing, and the small grower-producers are worth knowing), and that the château are not doing anything interesting in the vineyard (the shift toward organic and biodynamic farming across the region says the opposite). We close with the classifications themselves, focusing on Saint-Émilion, Cru Bourgeois, and Cru Artisan, and cover both the value and the controversy each one carries.