The Cru Confusion
On reason why I used to find wines complicated is every time I thought I had the rough hang of a region, someone mentioned Crus. And just like that, all of a sudden, there I was, sitting for my tenth board exams, trying to figure which king in which year did what and how can I sum it all up in 5 minutes and should I call for an extra sheet now or later!
Okay, nightmare passed. But that’s how it felt. Wine was already an alien subject and then the very mention of the word Cru was enough to send me reeling. Well, decades later, I can safely say that although I don’t know them all by heart, Crus don’t baffle me as much, or as such, anymore. So let me quickly share what I understand of them in the hope that it can similarly guide you away from confusion. For most parts, Cru loosely translates to pedigree.
That established, let’s take the easiest one first, Bordeaux. Here the word cru has nothing to do with the land. Napoleon drew up a charter of fine wines based on their average selling price. His logic was economically sound, wines which commanded a higher price were clearly of a better quality else people wouldn’t pay extra for them. This list, he further segregated into Crus; so there were 4 First Growth or Premier Grand Cru wines, twelve Second Growth, 14 Troisiem Cru, 11 Fourth Cru, and 17 int he fifth and final. Not to debate the relevance or correctness of this endeavour, safe to say it was authoritative. And the word cru here came to mean growth, or lineage. The word Cru was used with wines based on their price and not provenance.
Now lets’ shift to Burgundy, a region so confusion and yet so enticing, it can only be likened to a Shakespearean romantic tragedy. Here Medieval monks, over a thousand years perhaps, classified the soil types, by observing their behaviour and the result of vines grown on them over seasons and years. So meticulous and detailed were their interactions that the folklore is rife with rumours of how they actually tasted the soils but honestly, these monks created timekeeping and the systems of weights and measures, all that we use even today, so I doubt they would have been so gullible and non-scientific in their approach.
So here, the word Cru was used to reflect the quality fo the land. The logic being better land would yield better quality produce which would make for superior wine. See, scientific!
So Crus in Burgundy, in order or hierarchy would go from Grand to Premier and the various names are only to help identify them. It is normal to not remember them all, if you have seen the movie Somm, those nerdy cork-sniffers dedicate entire decades trying to mug them all up and even then they sometimes forget!
The idea of land quality being denoted by classifying it as a Cru is what can be found in Germany and Austria as well. Spain and Portugal may not use the same exact word but have their own system of denoting it. The New World goes more for single vineyard names or brand names that they create to signify special blends or wines. The idea is simple, the more we know our lands and grapes, the more we can tell the minute differences apart and hence feel inclined to classify them so.
And that, friends, it the idea of Cru, in a very tiny nutshell. From here, it is all about learning up names of regions and vineyards, but frankly, the best way to learn about Crus is through tutored tastings where someone can lead you through a series of quality wines and explain how a subtle change in the soil composition can show as an olfactory or gustative difference on the palate. Remember studying fine wine intricately is like looking at a fine timepiece with a magnifying loup - you don’t really need to do it to simply tell time but the knowledge that it provides makes the idea of possession (and appreciation) a lot richer.
