Every year is the same game and the same thing. The same sentences are pronounced by professional « Wines this year are marvelous and they will be more expensive than last year » or « I don’t fix the prices, the market does ». Finally what is a Primeur Wine : it’s a wine that just finish is malolactic fermentation (the second fermentation after the alcoholic one), so not finish yet. Of course those days all the chateaux cheated and showed at the Primeur wine perfectly transformed by their best “oenologist” (chemical product and blending of only a small part of the production). But wine sphere still in admiration in front of this, these perfectly build financial process that made the richest estate even richer. Those estates make lot of profit because in contrary of the multiple smaller chateaux from Bordeaux they don’t need to have a selling team or selling themselves their own product. Those products call “de luxe” are diffuse in so much quantity (100000 to 200000 bottles for a majority of the first growth) and the exclusivity is not really at the “rendez vous” because you can be sure than in few year you will find those “first growth” at your local supermarket. The prices of a product are most of the time justified by the market law but for Bordeaux wine it’s a bit more complicated and nothing justified the astronomic price neither the offer neither the demand.
Bordeaux Wines (I talk about first growth) are not anymore a product that is synonymous of pleasure and friendship but a speculative product more bankable than a BP share. Also since few years, some banks offer a financial placement in wine, safer and more profitable than a placement in the Stock Exchange. All this in prejudice of the consumer, because all those wines will not be drink but just stock will waiting for a resale to make a capital gain. Of course this business doesn’t take care of the maturity and drinkability of the wines.
At the end, what about the wine, the “terroir” or the expertise ? Can somebody give me the name of a Bordeaux Vintner ? Can you explain all this buzz about an event that few years ago was concerning only chateau owner and negociant ? Can you explain the interest of critics and journalist about wines that are trafficked, not ready and too young ? All those question and all their answer seems very abstract and unjustifiable.
After all, I understand why lot of wine area in France and around the world envies the Bordeaux Wine market system and the primeur. Because if every wine area had the opportunity to adopt this system in the past, no winemaker would have been poor.
