!1 !2 !3 Drops & Dribbles: Wine Trade Through Civilization Part Four N’Palm d’Or Impérial oƒ the LIBERAL EMPEROR Bordeaux Virada_California ! www.virada.com ! [email protected] La Mer Merlot du Bordeaux The Central African Empire’s Eternal Flambé of Ephemeral Fame & Uncle Sam Walking in the Footsteps of France The old showman’s smoke and mirrors still linger on today April 20, 2020 !4 Vino Business The Cloudy World of French Wine By Isabelle Saporta [Grove Press; New York] 2015 Pg. 87-93 “A Very Nice Carnival” In-mid April, the excitement in Bordeaux is at its peak. It’s the time when everyone is here. Welcome to wine’s fashion week, where hot-button issues such as classifications, pesticides, and other gray areas are all off the table. As in the fashion world, it’s clear that the master already knows what’s what. Plus, he already came to taste one month earlier. The merchants and all the big importers have already had their premiere. In other words, most of the deals are done, until the crowning glory, Parker’s scores, which come out, as always, at the end of the month. But even if the en primeur sales are a gigantic farce, it’s unthinkable for any self- respecting merchant or wine journalist not be there. It’s the place to be to maintain your network, to go to fancy dinners and lavish parties, and show the world that you’re part of the crème de la crème. So the wine world rushed to Bordeaux to taste the samples that have been tailor- made for the visitors. The samples are the wines from October’s harvest that are tasted in April. These wines are much too young to really be appreciated, but a handful of critics and or experts are supposed to be able to sport their future potential. “It’s guess work. !5 They show me babies, and I have to guess if they’ll become Olympic champion javelin throwers, pianists, teachers, or politicians,” James Suckling describes it waxing poetic. In any case the baby must be good-looking and in the best shape possible to attract future buyers. The consultants run frantically from one vineyard and one estate to the next, making sure everything in perfect and offering carefully prepared samples to the press, the importers, and the merchants. Stéphane Derenoncourt compares these wines to pretty dolls specially prepared for the event. The dolls have been prematurely aged and made appealing for this crucial week. “They’re babies that have to be trained, educated, and civilized,” summarizes Jean- Philippe Fort, a consulting oenologist at Rolland’s* lab who believes one must accept the fashion week atmosphere. “At a fashion show, you make sure the girls are beautiful and in good shape so the dresses will look divine on them. With wine, it’s the same thing.” * Rolland mentioned in Part One as an example of châteaux by Sade Everyone has tricks up their sleeves to make those prepubescent girls the most beautiful in the world. And since Bordeaux wines are assemblages (blends) of different batches (different plots of land, different barrels), the first “trick” is to offer only the batches that taste the best- even if you know perfectly well that for the final assemblage of the wine, i.e., what the consumer will buy, all the batches, even those that were rejected for the en primeur sales because they didn’t quite taste good enough, will go in the bottle. Basically, for tasting you offer only the very best, but you’ll sell a blend of everything. Jean-Philippe Fort defends the practice, saying, “It’s not deceptive.” He explains that if he removes one or two batches that will be present in the final assemblage, it’s only because they don’t taste right at that specific moment, that they’re not smooth or sexy !6 enough. “The people who come to taste, the journalists and the professionals, won’t be able to understand these subtleties.” Basically, you have to impress the journalists- them again- who aren’t competent or imaginative enough for you show to show them the reality of the wine at a specific wine. So you have to blow them away with a wine that’s especially made for them, which, ultimately, isn’t the one you’ll sell to consumers. Another strange practice for the enchanted kingdom. Some estates even offer samples that have been put together especially for a particular journalist. In an article in Decanter, Yann Bouscasse the owner of Château Cantinot, reveals that he makes samples from new barrels for American journalists, who are supposed to like their wine more full-bodied and oaky. Then he makes samples using old barrels for the Europeans. “It’s well known and it’s always been done,” smiles a defrocked winemaker who had to sell his vineyards after an estate battle. “Most of the winemakers make tailor-made samples to please one journalist or another!” “It’s a deal for willing fools,” Dominque Techer, the rebellious farmer of the Pomerol plateau, says ironically. “It’s a mass lie. When you want to marry off an ugly daughter, you need to fix her up a bit. So you make her pretty. Once you get her home you discover the fake boobs. The deal is intrinsically like that from the beginning. The fool is the final customer, the people who read the scores and think that it means something.” Today, people play the market with fine wines as with risky stocks. Plus, some vineyard owners think they aren’t making enough money on the deal and have gotten out of the en primeur market to reap the incredible profits all alone instead of sharing them with merchants and others. In particular, that’s the case with the legendary Château Latour, a !7 premier grand cru classé in 1855 that is owned by François Pinault. It must be said that the money is insane since some vintages have smashed the ceiling. But the bubble is starting to burst now that the prices no longer make sense. Bordeaux’s eyes were bigger than it’s stomach when it realized there was a way to take advantage of China’s thing for red wine. In fact, the auctions have gradually moved to Asia. Parker caught on when he sold his magazine to investors from Singapore. As for Suckling, he spends half the year doing business in Hong Kong. “The Chinese realize they have bought at much higher prices than everyone else. They have the unpleasant feeling of having been had,” says Gérard Margeon, Alain Ducasse’s sommelier. It’s the last straw. Now, the wine stored in these distant lands hangs over Bordeaux grands cru like the sword of Damocles. “I visited the old military tunnels in Hong Kong, Gérard Margeon relates “They’re filled to the top with wine. The idea is certainly to bring it out one day. There’s a lot of wine there, and the market is growing less quickly than anticipated.” Indeed, this is enough to make Bordeaux winemakers worry. It’s highly unlikely that the Chinese investors will continue to buy on a massive scale if the results aren’t up to snuff. Pg. 81 However, the media aren’t pulling the strings; it’s the owners and the three or four powerful winemakers. Any critics who get out of line will find themselves punished. If you write one or two bad reviews, or don’t behave respectfully enough, you’ll be exiled. And if the journalists are banned from the châteaux and no longer have the right to taste, what will they do? How can they do their job? … !8 “The critics realize there’s a red line they can’t cross if they want to still be welcome at the châteaux. None of them will cross it,” says Franck Dubourdieu, a former Bordeaux wine merchant who is very knowledgeable about the industry Basically, we shouldn’t expect the critics to revolutionize the establishment or take foolish risks to point out the decreasing quality of a grand cru classé. “Thanks to us, these poor bums live like billionaires. Why should they bite the hand that feeds them?” this great winemaker tell me scornfully. Jean-Luc Thunevin makes no apologies for the banishment he inflicted on “two or three journalists whom I refused to allow to taste Valandraud.” I don’t even want to name them; it would give them too much attention. At first, they tried to come back every year, but, after finding my door closed, they gave up. It told them it wasn’t worth the their trouble to come. ‘Why do you want to taste? You don’t enjoy it; you don’t like what I do or what I am. So spare yourself this unpleasantness.’ Not being able to taste Valandraud when you call yourself a great critic is upsetting. It would be even worse if it were Pétrus, Ausone, or Cheval Blanc. So you put blinders on and support the icons. Too bad for the outsiders, who have little chance of emerging under this system. The way tastings take place also says a lot about the hidden hierarchies. You go to Cheval Blanc, and Ausone, to Derenoncourt and Bouard. But you have the wine from everyone else- the small vineyards, the nobodies- delivered to your room so you can taste it, or not. Pg. 48-52 National Institute for Origin and Quality: Bogus Authority Winemakers are wonderful storytellers. They love to tell tales by the fire to warm their hearts, hurt by the trials and tribulations of the current system.