From the Back Cover
BORDEAUX AND ITS WINES® - XVII
th ÉDITION
This prestigious book, like a fine wine polished by time and accumulated experience, is part dream and part emotion. A veritable invitation to awaken the senses, it distinguishes the giver as much as the person who receives it.
IN THE SERVICE OF BORDEAUX WINE FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY-AND-A-HALF
1845: First English edition of Charles Cocks' book.
1850: First French edition. In 1868, Bordeaux and Its Wines becomes a reference work which comes under the direction of Edouard Féret. With time, users baptize the book the "Féret".
2004: A practically perfect comprehensiveness, an extensive updating (more than 200,000 changes among the half-million details of the last English edition) and an enlarged scope of the information presented make this work indispensable for understanding the Bordeaux vineyard.
THE MOST COMPLETE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BORDEAUX WINE
More than 50 researchers have edited the pages on basic knowledge to give the reader indispensable information necessary to understand Bordeaux wine. Professionals, researchers, engineers, professors, recognized and established specialists in each of the fields discussed have written chapters about the history of the vineyard, the grape varieties, vine pests and illnesses, vinification, barrel-aging, the art of choosing, drinking and storing Bordeaux wine, professional organizations, wine and health, vintages, etc. Each appellation is presented with an overview of its principal characteristics and production figures, as well as any pertinent classifications that apply. Thus the reader can look at the entire Bordeaux vineyard scene with all the necessary information: from the most modest to the most grand, from the most prestigious to the least known, here is an incomparable vision of Bordeaux's production.
Bordeaux and Its Wines is a basic tool for the wine professional, an indispensable guide for the amateur, meeting the most varied needs and answering the most diverse questions. Whatever the status of the reader, specific answers will be found here: a search for a particular wine, an address, the existence of a Property, its history, its reputation, its official classification, the evolution of its production.
Three main indexes enable easy access to the information sought:
branded wines and château names (almost 15,000entries)
directors, owners and managers (more than 15,000 entries)
winemaking communes (more than 500 entries)
These are the three essential keys to the discovery of:
more than 7,400 growths (over 1,800 of which are described and illustrated in detail)
more than 190 négociant houses.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From the preface by Hugh Johnson-- "If a priest were asked to write a preface to the Bible he would be wise to limit himself to recommending attentive reading." That was how I began my preface to the 13th edition of "Le Fret". This unique work has been referred to as the Bible of Bordeaux for so long now that it may seem perverse to take issue with the description. But there is, I now realize, a highly significant difference between Bordeaux's essential reference book and holy writ. The Bible is a finished work, sealed, permanent, never to be changed, added or subtracted from. Le Fret, in contrast, is a positive ant-heap of constant change and revision. It comes as a surprise to most people to learn that the origins of this quintessentially French repertoire of wines started with a book written by an Englishman and published in London. The still-recognizable original was "Bordeaux, its wines and the Claret Country", by Charles Cocks, a free-thinking schoolmaster (and evidently claret-lover) about whom not very much is known. His book, a guidebook until half-way through he turns to wine, was published in 1846. It was clearly a great success, because in 1850 the Bordeaux bookseller Michel Fret published a French translation. This was the Golden Age of Bordeaux, the pre-phylloxera period fixed for ever in history by the official classification of its wines for the Paris International Exhibition in 1855. Cocks had anticipated that event by nine years with the list he published of the wines of the Mdoc divided into five ranks. There are few significant differences between Cocks' list and that of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce. What Cocks created the Frets followed up as a family business. It was admittedly 18 years before Michel's son produced a second French edition, but then they came in a steady stream, in 1974, 1881, 1886, 1893, 1898, and 1908. In 1881 the engravings and descriptions of properties, now so familiar, were introduced. The 1881 and 1898 editions were also published in English. The first half of the 20th century was not a prosperous time for Bordeaux. The pace was slower and profits hard to find. Editions appeared in 1922, 1929, and then at 20 year intervals in 1949 and 1969. But the 1970's and 80's saw a new prosperity emerge and grow. The 1982 edition (the 13th) was also published in English. Another edition appeared in 1991, then only four years later in 1995. It is this, the 15th edition, substantially up-dated in detail, which now appears in English as a summary of the state of Bordeaux, its communes, properties and their wines at the close of the 20th century. Le Fret is regarded and used, first and foremost, as a list, or rather _the_ list, of the 8,000 or so different properties producing wine in France's largest department and largest appellation (for the Gironde and the appellation Bordeaux have the same limits). Where they are, who they belong to and who runs them, the size of their vineyards and their average production of red and white wine is listed here, with a complete cross-referencing system. More boldly, the producers of each commune (the characteristics of the commune are also set out) are listed in order of their merit in the eyes of the editors. Some of their views will surprise wine-lovers who follow the Anglo-Saxon wine critics. They make turning the pages all the more rewarding. Merit and depth of treatment, it should be understood, are not directly linked. If a proprietor declines the editor's invitation to a full description the name of his property still appears in the place assigned to it by merit. But Le Fret is not only the full repertoire of producers and their properties. The first 250 pages of the book are an exhaustive and fascinating account of how Bordeaux works, how its wines are made, under what regulations, and even what food to drink them with. Each edition of Le Fret is a new portrait of Bordeaux. Taken all together they are the most complete record of the evolution, over 150 years, of the world's greatest wine region. In using Le Fret (it lives beside my desk) I find myself constantly amazed by the richness and variety of what Bordeaux offers - far beyond the too-well-trodden paths to the door of certain fashionable chteaux.
--Hugh Johnson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
