We scored every vineyard plot in Bordeaux on what it is made of and how it sits: rock, drainage, frost, sun, the river. No prices, no classifications, no names. The order that comes back is not the order on the label.
Each plot carries one score out of 10 for the place itself; the vintage is added when you name a year. Nothing you can buy moves a score: not a price, not a classification, not a château name.
Pauillac's middle plot scores 5.80. Entre-deux-Mers, the cheapest big appellation in Bordeaux, has 7,916 of its 49,571 plots at or above that line; Blaye has 3,413. Ranked by average ground, Haut-Médoc comes first at 5.88 and Pomerol last at 3.69. The classed communes are the highlighted rows.
None of this says a Pauillac first growth is a bad wine. It says the ground under a great deal of unfamous Bordeaux is as good, and nobody has told you.
Castillon runs from 1.04 to 7.79; Saint-Émilion from 0.92 to 7.62. The best plot in a modest appellation outscores the average of any famous one. The worst sits near the bottom of the whole region. The name on the label narrows it less than you would think.
That is why a bottle gets scored on its plot when we can place it there, and only falls back to the appellation when we cannot.
Bordeaux's reputation was built on gravel, and the 53,840 plots on gravel average 4.94. The 65,510 plots on limestone average 5.28, the 82,381 on clay 4.34. Height tells the same story on flat land: plots under 10 m average 4.46, plots above 60 m average 5.04.
Place is eight-tenths of a wine's score; the year is the last two. The twelve most recent vintages on the Left Bank track, 2024 back to 2013.
The score, the ground it stands on, the year, and what else on the shelf stands on better ground for less. Free, no account. Merchants: put it on your list and every guest gets the same answer.
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