Flying fifths: in a class of their own

The 1855 Bordeaux classification might well be considered one of the earliest examples of a wine rating system. Classifying wines by six categories – including “unclassified” – might seem restrictive now (compared to Wine Lister’s 1,000 point scale), but the classification has proven to be highly influential and durable. This week’s Listed section focuses on the five Bordeaux fifth growths with the highest overall Wine Lister score, giving us an opportunity to see how the 160-year-old classification stacks up today.

Listed - Top Fifth Growths Image

Whilst the 1855 classification used price as the yardstick by which a wine should be rated, Wine Lister’s holistic approach also takes into account quality, brand strength, and other economic metrics. The outcome is that with an average Wine Lister score of 881, these flying fifths outperform both the top five performing third growths and fourth growths (average of 863 and 834 respectively), beating the two classes across every category. Nonetheless, the top fifth growths trail the most highly-rated second growths and the five first growths by 48 and 86 points respectively overall.

Pontet-Canet is the leading fifth growth, with a score of 912. While all five wines perform well in terms of Brand score, Pontet-Canet’s first place position is supported by an excellent Quality score of 905, nearly 60 points above Grand-Puy-Lacoste, the second highest rated of the five in terms of quality.

Lynch-Bages comes next. Whilst it performs well in the Quality and Economics categories, it is in the Brand category that it comes into its own, with a near-perfect score of 998 putting it alongside first growths Haut-Brion and Margaux.

Grand-Puy-Lacoste takes third place with 886, scoring well across the board. It is one of the four Buzz Brands of the group, a fact which confirms that these top fifth growths currently confer more prestige than their third and fourth growth counterparts, which see fewer Buzz Brands within their respective top fives.

The last two spots are filled by wines from the Baron Philippe de Rothschild stable – Clerc-Milon and d’Armailhac. The former achieves the highest Economics score of the group – 908 – thanks to excellent price performance over both the long and short-term. Meanwhile, d’Armailhac’s score of 840, whilst 30 points below Clerc-Milon, puts it above all but four third and fourth growths.

These results blur the lines between the traditional classifications, demonstrating that price can no longer be looked at in isolation, and suggesting that a more nuanced and flexible approach needs to be taken in rating wines.

Remember that there are many ways to search Wine Lister, including by score, geography, and classification – which is how we calculated the findings above.

 


Mouton and Petrus top list of Bordeaux crus

In our third blog post exploring findings from Wine Lister’s recently released Bordeaux Market Study, we look at the top scoring Bordeaux crus as at 28th April 2017. These are the overall Wine Lister scores comprising the three category scores for Quality, Brand, and Economics. They are applied at wine level (an average of the last 30 vintages, with the highest weighting for the most recent vintage – 2016 – and so on).

Top Wine Lister scores Bordeaux

Nine of the top 25 are from the right bank, and 16 from the left bank. As in last year’s study, the top eight spots are occupied by the five left bank first growths, as well as Petrus, Yquem, and Cheval Blanc, but with a significant reshuffle among these wines. Mouton gains 18 points and climbs two spots to join Petrus at the top of the table this year.

Haut-Brion comes third, one position higher than in 2016. Next come Margaux and Lafite, separated by just one point, although Margaux has surged up the ranking this year, gaining four places.

Yquem, the only white wine in the top 25, drops four places this year, while Latour and Cheval Blanc are also down on last year’s positioning. Ausone comes ninth, up three places from last year, and Léoville Las Cases rounds out the top 10 as the highest placed deuxième cru.

The two newer Saint-Emilion premiers grands crus classés A also feature in the top 25, although Angélus and Pavie have dropped two and eight spots respectively since 2016. Meanwhile Pichon Comtesse and Figeac make their debut into the top 25 this year.

This is just a taster of the Bordeaux Market Study, but you can download the full 48-page report from the Wine Lister Analysis page (subscribers only).


The power of searching by category score

In response to user feedback, we have added a simple new piece of functionality that will help you get exactly what you need from the Wine Lister website.

The ability to search and sort by category score means you can now access Wine Lister’s uniquely rich database in a more tailored way. Whilst we have done the hard work by computing all the data that matters into a single Wine Lister score, we recognise you may want to delve deeper into its composition.

Now, on the advanced search page, you can search and sort by each of our three score categories: Quality, Brand and Economics. This empowers you to dissect the Wine Lister database to suit your specific needs or question.

For example, what are the highest quality reds in Australia with low brand recognition (Brand score below 500)?:

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What’s your question for Wine Lister? https://www.wine-lister.com/search