“The term claret was widely used in Britain for Bordeaux wines throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and it still appears today as a marketing term, though much less commonly,” writes RICHARD CALVER.

Sometimes life is full of strange synchronicities. 

The audiobook I was listening to in the car, A Traitor to His Blood by MP Wright, had the protagonist and his gangster cousin visit a club that offered facilities that involved seedy parties in private rooms as well as food and drink. 

The club’s grub was not described other than to say that the two cousins ordered fillet steak with potatoes and “expensive French claret”. 

That is just as we described some French wine in New Zealand in the 1970s. 

The term was widely used in Britain for Bordeaux wines throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and it still appears today as a marketing term, though much less commonly.

The weird link was that I had reached that part of the book at the same time as I parked the car in order to attend a wine tasting at a club (without the seediness) featuring Bordeaux wines.

Such synchronicities are often dismissed as merely a mental phenomenon.

This is a phenomenon in which people interpret two separate but seemingly unrelated experiences as being meaningfully intertwined, even though there is no evidence that one led to the other or that the two events are linked in any causal way.

The psychological explanation lies in confirmation bias: obviously I seek out information that confirms my interest in wine. It seems it was pure coincidence that mention of Bordeaux wine arose contemporaneously in the context of the ways I spend my time. Or is it just like when three conspiracy theorists walked into a bar? Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence. 

But back to claret: the internet tells me that the word derives from the medieval French “clairet”, meaning a pale or clear red wine. English drinkers began using the term when Bordeaux was closely tied to England after the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II in 1152, which stimulated large exports of Bordeaux wine to England. Over time, the meaning shifted from the original pale wine to any dry red Bordeaux wine.

There were 12 Bordeaux wines to taste on the night, with merlot being the principal grape variety used, with occasional blending of small amounts of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc.

The main impression that I got from tasting a small quantity of each of the wines from three different appellations was that they were especially suited to accompanying food, particularly those wines with more tannin than I cared for.

But generally these wines are a better expression of the merlot grape than I had encountered when drinking some Australian produced merlots.

Unfortunately, Australian wineries have sometimes struggled to produce consistently good merlot because the grape’s ripening requirements, climate issues, and vineyard economics do not always suit the regions where it has been planted.

For example, the Australian Wine Research Institute notes that merlot needs careful vineyard management to avoid herbaceous flavours caused by methoxypyrazines. These are chemicals that  impart aromas and flavours such as leafy herbs that may be pleasant in small amounts, but when in higher concentrations can make the wine taste “green” and unpleasant. 

But back to the pleasant Bordeaux wines: my favourite of the night was the Chateau Saint Sauveur Duplessis 2020.

This is a wine that seems to be at the top of its mark at six years old, given wines of this style. By that I mean an accessible, relatively inexpensive (circa $33 retail), fruit-forward wine.

This one was supple and had good balance. I can certainly see myself drinking this claret with fillet steak and potatoes, even though I don’t have a cousin who is a gangster.