After much tasting and deliberating, the Bordeaux wine authorities have confirmed the Cru Bourgeois classification for the 2009 vintage.

Cru Bourgeois was originally brought in to recognise quality wines from the region that did not make the sacred Grands Crus Classes list of 1855.

After the 2003 Cru Bourgeois classification was annulled by the French government in 2007, use of the term was banned. But it returned in 2010 to grade the 2008 vintage, and is now in its second year in the revised form.

A total of 304 Bordeaux estates applied for their 2009 wines to be recognised as Cru Bourgeois, and 246 chateaux made the final cut, Decanter notes.

These included 19 properties from St Estephe, five in Pauillac, nine in Margaux, 16 from Moulis, 13 in Listrac, 85 from Haut Medoc and 99 found in Medoc.

Frederique de Lamothe, director of the Alliance des Cru Bourgeois du Medoc, told Decanter that due to the high quality of the 2009 vintage, now revered as one of the greatest ever made in Bordeaux or anywhere in the world, a total of 32 million bottles were submitted for consideration.

This represents an increase from the 25 million offered up for inspection last year.

All the samples are graded by blind tasting, with an initial panel deciding the benchmark by which all other competing wines should be judged.

Such has been the popularity of the Cru Bourgeois list, Ms de Lamothe revealed that plans are already being discussed to tweak the rules.

This would include assessing chateaux every three or four years, rather than annually, as well as splitting the estates into two tiers.

The old Cru Bourgeois classification had three tiers, with the Exceptionnel and Superieur designations separating the higher-quality wines from the other recognised estates.