par Daniel J. Berger | Mar 3, 2013
By ERIC ASIMOV – The New York Times, Feb 28, 2013
Not so long ago, quite a few young New York sommeliers might have been seen high-fiving one another as they disparaged the big bully Bordeaux. In their view, and in the minds of many other young American wine drinkers, Bordeaux was a smug, wealthy, self-satisfied emblem of a bygone era, once the hallowed standard-bearer for great wine but now unfashionable and, worse, irrelevant.
How quickly things change. No, the Brooklyn vinoscenti have not adopted Bordeaux as an ironic symbol. But the widespread dismissal of Bordeaux seems to have achieved the result of casting it (still the world’s leading wine region) as an unlikely underdog. Many who so recently wore their disdain of Bordeaux as a badge of honor are now embracing the region and its wines.
“I think it’s almost become this Jura-type thing,” said Daniel Johnnes, wine director for Daniel Boulud’s Dinex restaurant group and an importer, referring to a long-ignored region in eastern France that became the darling of the wine vanguard in the last decade. “It was so uncool to drink it, that you’re now cool if you do.” (suite…)