The Revamped 2020 Crus Bourgeois Classification Includes Excellent Value Wines

The Crus Bourgeois wine classification of Bordeaux in France—originally initiated in 1932—was relaunched in February this year on the date of 02/20/2020. It covers only red wines produced in eight appellations on the ‘left bank’ Médoc region that were not associated with the 1855 classification of wine, but which are today considered of excellent quality. This classification is renewed each five years. During a recent livestream tasting of wines, I spoke with Armelle Cruse—fourth generation co-owner of Château du Taillan (owned by five sisters) and Vice President of Crus Bourgeois du Médoc. She explained her role in helping to promote these Bordeaux wines renowned for providing good quality to price ratios, and the overall role of the Crus Bourgeois du Médoc organization.

“We’ve existed since the first classification in 1932. We need to show that we are the modern part of Bordeaux—always involved in new projects. The last classification was done in February 2020, and as we have 249 members—all from the Médoc on the left bank region. It was important to clarify what we offer to the consumer. We do the classification through a sticker on the label, so the consumer can recognize three levels: Cru Bourgeois; Cru Bourgeois Supérieur and Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel. The tasting is done blind through five vintages to know about the style of the winery, and the capacity of the wine to age through years.”

Why Should We Care About The Snyder Cut?

Years of campaigning for a director's cut that was repeatedly labelled a “pipe dream” by industry insiders has finally come to fruition, as Warner Bros. is using the fabled Snyder Cut of Justice League as a springboard to launch its new streaming service, HBO Max.

Cost estimates for completion of the director’s cut range from $20 to $30 million - a big investment for a film that is barely considered canon nowadays - the DC cinematic universe has since transcended the storytelling constraints of continuity. 

But this isn’t just a treat for dedicated fans of Zack Snyder, and his specific vision of Superman and Batman - the complete cut also offers a peek behind the curtain, an opportunity to see how marketing forces reshape stories during production.

Regardless of how you view his storytelling abilities, or lack thereof, Snyder did have an ambitious plan for Justice League, originally involving time travel, the arrival of Darkseid, and “evil Superman” being a major plot element, rather than a single scene.

Personally, I’m not sure that Snyder’s finished vision will be particularly cohesive - but at least it will be the story he wanted to tell. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather watch a hubris-laden disaster from a place of genuine creative intent, rather than a generic, corporate crowd-pleaser.

The best example of an auteur-driven disaster overshadowing soulless storytelling is surely the two most-loathed Star Wars trilogies - the prequels and the sequels. At this point, the prequels have been so widely mocked that they’ve inspired an uncountable amount of memes, every single scene mined for unintentional humor. At the same time, said prequels are unironically enjoyed by many; after all, there are plenty of good ideas in there (just badly executed).

In contrast, the sequels are unlikely to spawn a meme community, or be admired for their ideas, because they were studio-driven films, treated as extended toy commercials, rather than stories. There is no singular vision, or even a theme, to unite them; hence, the wildly shifting tone between Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, as Disney desperately tried to steer the ship into calmer, more profitable waters.

Just like Rise of Skywalker, the original Justice League isn’t offensive, or hilariously awful; it’s just ... boring. The edges were sanded off, the weirdness whittled away, as the film was reshaped into an empty echo of a Marvel movie.

The Snyder Cut isn’t likely to inspire a new wave of rain-spattered, Randian interpretations of superhero stories, but it is going to highlight how the market distorts stories, showing the audience exactly what the studio chose to remove.

Most film fans are interested in this sort of thing - it’s always intriguing to be offered a glimpse behind the curtain. Kevin Smith once brought this up while discussing the Snyder Cut, comparing the situation to the advent of behind-the-scenes DVD extras, and the misplaced assumption that audiences weren’t interested in seeing how films were made.

“I think there's a common thought process, probably within the studio - and again, no studio has said this to me, but I would assume that they're like, ‘We can’t show people this ... no audience would be able to look at this and see what the director's intent was.’ I disagree ... I think the audience now, particularly the audience that would consume the Snyder Cut, and discuss it at great length, can watch a workprint. They can watch a work-in-progress and fill in the blanks in their heads.

Whether the Snyder Cut is “good” or not is almost irrelevant - it’s an opportunity to see how the sausage was made; it might still be inedible, sure, but at least we’ll get to see the state of the processing plant.