New – last? – somersault in the tragicomedy of the Saint Emilion classification

A new court ruling (will it be the last in a dozen or so?) has established that both the classification from 1996 and the one from 2006 will be valid. In other words, the chateaux that were classified in 1996 will all retain their honorific label and those that were upgraded in 2006 will keep it too. However, no downgrades will be done. Of course. Depressing. One wonders if the main purpose of classifications (in general, and this in particular) is to blow smoke in the eyes of the consumers. Read more: www.decanter.com and www.winealley.com

(BTW, I quite like the illustration. Try and figure out the relevance!)