If I had a euro for every time a wine producer or wine merchant used the word classic, or more often classique, to describe the 2004s last week in Bordeaux, I would be very happy.
But we all know that 'classic' can cover a multitude of sins as far as red bordeaux is concerned – particularly after 2003's record-shatteringly ripe, soft vintage. It could mean tough, scrawny, stringy, hollow, green, herbaceous, structured, long-lived, appetising, refreshing, lively or all of the above.
And indeed in practice it does. There are wines which answer to every one of these descriptions among the hundreds of...