This May, for the very first time, Bordeaux did something extraordinary – it came right out and acknowledged a part of its history that it’s done its best to hide for centuries. Gee you hate to kick her when she’s down, but how the mighty have fallen. Bordeaux, once the Mecca of great wine is getting her ass routinely kicked by little upstart nations. No matter; a Mouton, Lafite or Margaux is still good currency anywhere in the world. Whatever else they may be, Bordeaux wines are respectable.
But there’s a decidedly un-respectable facet to the Bordeaux story that domain owners would just as soon sweep under the rug. That they’re still closed-lipped on the topic, some three hundred years later, is something Americans would find hard to understand. Most of us are lucky to trace our roots back two generations. If we discover a rogue ancestor, a pirate, maybe, or a cannibal, we’re kind of proud of the old rapscallion. After all, his misdeeds are no fault of ours.
But in Bordeaux, three hundred years is but a thin ring on the family tree, and the sins of your fathers might as well have been committed by, well, your father. The skeleton that the Bordelaise keep locked in their closet is none other than the slave trade, and the crucial role it played in launching their wine dynasties.
In the 18th century, Bordeaux was a thriving port city, one of the main shipping gates to France. Sugar came in from France’s colonies in the Indies and wine went out. Before long, Bordeaux was the major supplier of the world’s fine wines, and it was this new exposure that kick-started the reputation it still enjoys today.
But the ships held more than wine and sugar. From 1700 to 1800, over five hundred slave ships sailed from Bordeaux. The triangle trade (really a polygon when you study all the routes) was good to Bordeaux merchants. The first leg brought weapons, cloth and trinkets to African kings who handed over their own able-bodied subjects in return. These slaves were crammed into ships, packed like sardines and shackled down for months with little air and no sanitation. Those who survived the crossing were traded in the Indies for sugar, coffee, chocolate and cotton, which were shipped back and sold in Europe.
The traders made out like bandits. More than a few ploughed their fortunes into wine estates, many of which remain in the same families today. Although France abolished slavery a full fifty years before we did, they still refuse to admit its part in the making of Bordeaux. Imagine pretending the anti-bellum plantations in Georgia were built by teamsters making time-and-a-half!
Since many streets in Bordeaux are named after prominent slave traders whose subsequent wealth made them prominent citizens, the topic’s a little hard to ignore. Yet not one of the town’s numerous museums and exhibits devoted to wine goes down this road. In fact, the tight-knit circle that comprises the upper echelon of Bordeaux houses is so averse to the subject that a year ago, my local source, who has access to reams of historical information and has done piles of research, begged me not to reveal the names of the Chateaus involved, lest his job be in jeopardy.
It does seem odd that while we bend over backwards in America to flagellate ourselves for historical injustices that few of us had anything to do with, in Bordeaux they blackball you for digging up bones. But suddenly this year comes the first commemoration of the slave trade, complete with three days of solemn speeches, moments of silence, and history walks around the city.
What took them so long to fess up, apologize and take full responsibility, the way our politicians do here? Maybe the wine had gone to their heads, or maybe it’s just vertigo from the dizzy height Bordeaux has so long occupied in the wine world.
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