Indeed, we have neither the means, nor the time, to taste all the wines in a classification or in a region: moreover, who could seriously undertake this? We pay considerable attention to always offering wines of modest origins (but already known to professionals) to the shrewdness of our tasters, by the side of wines of reputed or classified growths.

How many times do we have to tell the wine lover that a Sociando-Mallet at 30 euros is easily, very easily, worth classified growths at double the price?
And, in addition, that it ages remarkably well (see our tasting of the 1982 vintage in Las Vegas).

How many times do we have to put a first growth Denis Mortet against the great wines of other producers before it is finally understood that in Burgundy, man comes before any other consideration: it is the wine maker who makes the wine and not the soil on its own.

We would not want anyone to be mistaken about our intentions: we are far from being simply iconoclasts! We know pertinently (and we say it again regularly in the case of Bordeaux) that, given time, some wines take years to bloom and sometimes find it difficult to show their true potential when still young. So with us as with other critics, we simply compare the notes given to early growths with the notes for the same wines some years later: there are some considerable differences!

Our tastings of old vintages quite obviously demonstrate this phenomenon: who could, in 1972, approach a La Tâche? Who can, for 1982 Bordeaux, approach the premiers crus, if not a superb Pichon Comtesse and an exceptional Sociando-Mallet? Who can, in the 1964 vintage, equal a sublime Haut-Brion where there is nothing lacking in offering you a unique emotion.

We should understand that the wine lover must retain an open mind, by providing himself with a critically argued tool. It is the aim of the GJE to bring him information that will be useful in building up his cellar.

We have never lost sight of the fact that, before all else, the work of the wine grower must be respected, the one who takes meticulous care of his vine stock, respecting the fruit, not crushing it in the cellar through rough if not dubious handling. To pull down a product, however imperfect, in a few seconds is not our role. The critic, whether of films, cookery, literature or wine must know how to combine humility, competence and rigor by never forgetting that it is men who judge other men with, like them, their defects and their qualities.