Bordeaux’s 2008 Vintage Gives Chateaux a Headache: Elin McCoy(1)
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Last week, I sipped and spat out more than 300 barrel samples in Bordeaux’s annual en-primeur tastings, and the number of rich, ripe, complex reds and bright whites took me by surprise. That’s a problem for chateau owners.
While this isn’t a stellar vintage like 2005, nobody expected the 2008s to be any good at all after a poor summer. So buyers were hoping the futures for the latest vintage would reflect economic realities. But dropping prices dramatically in a good vintage? It’s not in the Bordelais DNA.
That’s why for the media and merchants in attendance, the mood of the week flip-flopped between certainty that sanity would prevail, and concern that it wouldn’t.
Like the other journalists, my days were split between morning tastings organized by the Union des Grands Crus, whose 131 members represent the top Bordeaux estates, and afternoon appointments at the first growths and others that snobbishly refuse to show their wines outside the chateau.
At every stop, tastings were followed by talk centering on how soaring prices over the past five or six years for the 20 most-in-demand chateaux badly need adjusting down. Naturally, almost none of the chateaux think they belong on that list.
Buyers agreed that the exclusive first-growth properties have to lead the way by releasing their wine for much lower prices as soon as possible to keep the fine-wine market moving. In Chateau Latour’s elegant, modern tasting room, where you spit their ultra-pricey juice into a discreet stainless trough washed by constantly running water, I sampled the perfectly balanced, smoky-fruity first growth and listened to managing director Frederic Engerer.
Portents of Disaster
All business in a gray hand-stitched suit and skinny French eyeglasses, he spun the tale of a poor spring, a warm, humid July and cold August, clear portents of disaster. Then a late September and October Indian summer saved the day for those, like Latour, who wisely waited to pick the grapes.
But with price trumping quality this year, would he confirm the rumors that Latour would offer 2008 futures at 100 euros ($133) a bottle, half the initial cost of the unloved 2007s, which were nowhere near as good?
“Whatever I decrease, it will never be enough in this environment,” Engerer said. He might release a very small amount to start and if Latour didn’t sell at the price asked, “we’ll hold the wine for three, four, five years, until people smile again.”
