Due to be officially unveiled at the London Wine Fair on Monday 22 May, BDX is sealed with a screwcap, prominently features the term ‘claret’, and comes with “funky packaging”, according to GCF, the group behind JP Chenet, France’s best-selling wine brand.

The company – which is also the largest independent supplier of French wines into the UK – adds that the new brand has been created “exclusively” for Britain’s on-trade and independent retailers, and has a suggested retail selling price of around £6.50.

Of course, GCF isn’t the first French wine group to try to demystify Bordeaux with a branded offering aimed at newcomers to the region and/or a younger generation.

For example, three year’s ago, Bordeaux négociant Yvon Mau created Le Petit Grand – a Bordeaux red and white wine sealed under screwcap with an RRP of around £9 in the UK.

Speaking to the drinks business at the launch of Le Petit Grand in June 2013, Yvon Mau’s marketing manager Frédérique Lenoir said, “It has been created for the consumer who doesn’t drink Bordeaux because they think it’s too complicated.”

Le Petit Grand was created for the wine drinker who thinks that Bordeaux is too complicated

Although the brand still exists, it has since pulled out of the UK market.

Meanwhile, Bordeaux’s most famous mainstream wine brand, Mouton Cadet, unveiled a new look at ProWein in March this year, following a major project to fully secure grape sourcing for the wine, which produces 12 million bottles annually.

Speaking to db at the launch of the new Mouton Cadet, Lechanoine said, “This is the achievement of more than a decade of technical homework, so that’s it, we’re done, and we’ve got new packaging too.”

Continuing he said, “It is a wine that the Baroness would drink, even at the château,” adding, “I am just so sorry that she is not here to see it.”

While Bordeaux is deemed to be too complicated for young people who are new to wine, the limited success of entry level ‘branded’ wines from the region, particularly in the UK, may have more to do with a feeling that the famous wine region’s price-quality ratio lags the competition from other parts of the wine world, as well as the sense that Bordeaux is not seen as ‘cool’ or ‘trendy’.

Read more at source: The drink business