A recent column featured a delicious, uncomplicated modern Bordeaux red, Chateau Cantemerle 2006. I refer to it as modern not because it is hip, or politically correct or features Carla Bruni on its label, but because it’s made in the modern style i.e. to be drunk young. This is in contrast to the traditional Bordeaux practice of producing wines that are harsh, tannic and inaccessible in their youth but which, in good vintages and with a lot of time, sometimes decades, can evolve into astoundingly complex miracles of winemaking.

The trouble is that the market for fine wine has changed over the last few decades and there aren’t that many people around who have either the patience or the cellars to age wines the way they did in the past. When you combine this with improvements in technology that make it easier for winemakers to produce more accessible wine, the temptation becomes irresistible for many properties.

This irks the traditionalists who fear that with more and more wine being produced for early drinking they are seeing the demise of classic, long aging clarets.

Wine Biding Its Time

Well, they needn’t worry unduly as while no one is making wines like the magnums of 1870 Lafite which took one hundred years to come around, there are people still making traditional, or semi-traditional Bordeaux for long maturing, and a fine example is Chateau Prieuré-Lichine 2006 ($50).

Lise Latrille, a spokeswoman for the chateau explained to me that they employ “traditional Bordeaux winemaking techniques in order to achieve the real identity of a Grand Cru Classé Margaux.”

This means a wine that’s difficult and unapproachable at the moment but will, in all probability – nothing is certain in the world of wine – evolve into a classic silky, earthy complex and elegant masterpiece – everything that a fine claret should be.