Need Advice--gifted 78 Ch. Talbot

[joeyz6]

Hi Ianaman,
Here is a link to a web site that was passed along to me from another member of this board a while ago ... it explains the Bordeaux classification pretty well:

http://www.klwines.com/1855_classification.asp

I have to say, I don't completely agree that French wines are trying to maintain an exclusivity. Wine here is so different ... as Roberto has said on different threads, wine is a grocery in Europe. I've observed that now quite a bit here. American wine companies often seem to want us to think that wine is for special occasions, and thus should be expensive. Here people think that wine should be cheap and that it should still be good. And it usually is.

In addition, it seems to me that part of the reason why French and Italian wines are so expensive in America is that there are so many taxes imposed on them. A 10-euro bottle here that people would serve with a nice formal dinner probably ends up costing about 20 or 25 in the States and
'intimidates' people.