This episode begins with a smile: the victory of 1945, and we will stop at the terrible winter frosts of February 1956. Things are less simple than they seem: after the victory — but at what price — everything was lacking, the economy was in ruins, the country had to be rebuilt, while the frosts, though terrible, occurred at a time when the economy was restarting. The most difficult period was not necessarily the one we think of at first.
Everything began well, however: 1945 was a sumptuous vintage, ideal for celebrating victory. Many vats reached or exceeded 15°. The musts were so rich and powerful that some winemakers, at a time when temperature control equipment did not exist, added ice, which had the double advantage of lowering the fermentation temperature and increasing yields without probably harming quality.
The broker Lawton, speaking of the best classified growths, described them thus: “They are good, but enormous.” Négociants rushed to reserve the wines, but this appetite for buying soon calmed, because the very strict regulations put in place by the Vichy regime had not been repealed. The implementing decrees issued in January 1946 created a confusion unfavourable to business: the property had to sell 15% of the crop at a frozen price for export and the rest at the market price.
The négoce was willing to buy at regulated prices, whereas the property wished first to sell at the market price. A blockage of transactions ensued and the 1945 wines, despite their exceptional quality, remained unsold in the cellars. A few rare deals were done on earlier vintages.
Once the euphoria of victory had passed, economic reality soon appeared. Pijassou sums up the situation thus: “Under-consumption owing to the reduction in consumer purchasing power, rising cost prices… and consequently export prices that are too high… enormous taxes on the domestic market are among the main reasons for the current gloom”.
The country lacked everything and ration tickets had to be handed out, which lasted until the end of 1949. It was also a time when table wine had a considerable importance that is hard to imagine today. It was served in school canteens; farm workers were entitled each month, by contract, to a quarter-barrel of wine, that is 56 litres!
Between the economic crisis on one side and, on the other, the heavy consumption of basic wines, the price scale between entry-level wines and the grands crus had been squashed and ran from one to two, or from one to three at best, as Pijassou reports.
From this period dates the abandonment of new barrels by many quality crus. Indeed, if, for a Premier Cru Classé, the purchase price of new barrels could rise to 10% of the wine’s selling price, for less highly valued crus this expense was simply no longer conceivable.
In reality, table wine producers fared better than the grands crus. The former cultivated direct-producer hybrids which gave heavy crops and required little care since they were little sensitive to cryptogamic diseases, downy mildew and powdery mildew, whereas the latter brought in only small crops at high production costs. Thus one better understands the remark of the négociant Dubosc, quoted by Pijassou: “Owners of the small wines of the palus and the Côtes are prospering thanks to very high prices.”
We had, a very long time ago, concordant testimonies from various Bordeaux growers of Côtes wines, precisely, to whom, in the years immediately after the war, the same Premier Cru Classé was offered for purchase at a derisory price, and who refused!
In this difficult atmosphere, the 1946 harvest came to its end. The vintage was judged “average” by Bordeaux et ses vins; Franck Dubourdieu, with the passage of time, describes it as “short, hollow, acidic”. The négoce remained extremely cautious and bought little. The 1947, a great vintage, at once very supple yet capable of long ageing, should have relaunched the market had the crisis not intensified. From the first days of 1948, strikes broke out everywhere and tax increases paralysed business. The broker Lawton lamented: “Our primeur business is dead. Our former buyers have disappeared.”
The situation of the grands crus was difficult, and that of the Crus Bourgeois and unclassified wines pitiful. At the end of 1948, the situation had deteriorated further and the government was forced to carry out another devaluation, after the one at the beginning of the year.
The 1948 vintage, which got off to a very bad start following a cold and rainy summer, was saved by a superb late season, combined with a deficient quantity that allowed the few grapes on the vine to quickly set right a situation that seemed compromised. The wines of this vintage are very good, while being inferior to the legendary 1945 and 1947.
