(Source: Bordeaux Wine Council)

A new type of Bordeaux wine is about to appear on shelves, and it’s not a new appellation or new grape variety, but a recognised way of making red Bordeaux. From the 2025 vintage, the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB) will officially recognise a lighter red style called “Bordeaux Claret”, a move mainly driven by changing viticultural practices due to warming climate, and modern drinking habits.

The Maison Gobineau head office of the CIVB (Source: Per Karlsson)

If you’ve ever heard someone, usually British, refer to Bordeaux red wine as “Claret”, you’d already have encountered the word. Claret has long been part of wine language used by English wine merchants, shaped by centuries of buying, drinking and talking about Bordeaux (any style of Bordeaux red). And while it traces back to the French word clairet like many travelling words, it picked up a life of its own once it crossed border - just as Korean “soju” and Japanese “shochu” mean distinct types of liquor even as the characters used are essentially the same.

Now, Bordeaux has now decided to reclaim that English habit and give it a very specific meaning. “Bordeaux Claret” is now a recognised and protected style within the existing Bordeaux appellation, and this new rule is to apply to the 2025 vintage. This does not redraw maps or create a new region. “Bordeaux Claret” is to sit alongside existing styles of Bordeaux wine already recognised – including red, rosé, dry white, sweet whites and the slightly confusingly-named Bordeaux Claret (without an ‘i') which is, in brief, positioned something of a cross between rosé and red wines. The newly-recognised “Claret” is a style positioned much closer to the Bordeaux red most drinkers already know, just handled with a lighter touch.

In practice, a “Bordeaux Claret” is expected to be similar in colour to the standard Bordeaux Red, but lighter in profile, less tannic, lower in alcohol and made with shorter macerations than the more extracted and powerful Bordeaux styles. It is supposed to be enjoyed younger and served slightly chilled from around 8°C to 12°C.

Officially recognised styles of Bordeaux wine by the CIVB.

This recognition does not invent a style, but formalises something that has already been gradually happening in recent Bordeaux winemaking. Warmer growing seasons have made ripeness more consistent, but that same ripeness pushes alcohol up, and producers are watching those numbers climb to up to 15% in some wines. As a way to keep wines drinkable even in warmer vintages, producers have begun picking grapes earlier, leading to a fresher, less extracted red style – rather than simply accepting ever bigger, heavier reds as the default outcome.

Wines made this way have already been sold, but currently wear the broad “Bordeaux Red” label. To be sure, before the 2025 vintage, the word “claret” might still appear on export-facing labels aimed at the UK and other English-speaking markets. However, this would carry no legal meaning or promise about how the wine was actually made or how it would taste.

Alongside climate, there’s also an acknowledgment that the way people drink red wine is changing. Analysts suggest that lighter, fruit-driven styles tend to be more approachable to newer wine drinkers, who may also be less interested in collecting age-worthy bottles and more interested in wines ready to drink now. Bordeaux Claret is intended to appeal to that audience, without replacing the structured, age-worthy reds that remain central to Bordeaux’s identity.

There is some irony in Bordeaux moving forward by embracing an old English term. If you see “Claret” on a Bordeaux label from 2025 onwards, you should have a clearer idea of what to expect in the glass!

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team