Swirls: Bordeaux-crazed China not ready for Burgundy – yet

Hardly a day goes by without a headline about the frenzied wine market in Asia, particularly China. This week, Wine Enthusiast Magazine announced that it will produce a Mandarin edition for circulation to 100,000 “Chinese VIP consumers.” France’s Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters announced a 29 percent increase in shipments to Asia last year with a value of $3.3 billion. And in the city of Bordeaux, a négociant that specializes in Bordeaux sales to China and is staffed by seven Mandarin-speaking employees, opened a street-level shop to increase its visibility to the growing number of Chinese buyers coming to town, according to Decanter.com.

Indeed, the red-hot Chinese market for all levels of Bordeaux shows no sign of cooling. But what you hear almost nothing about is the Chinese and Burgundy. I had the chance to discuss this last week with Vincent Avenel, export manger of Domaine Faiveley, one of Burgundy’s biggest and best-known producers, at a dinner featuring some top new releases from Frederick Wildman and Sons, the New York importer that has been bring wines from the region to the United States since the 1930s. When I asked him whether the Chinese were taking to Burgundy the way they had to Bordeaux, his answer was quick and emphatic: “Not at all.”

In fact, China accounts for just 1.5 percent of Faiveley’s exports, Avenel told me. This surprised me as we tasted some top Burgundies, among them Faiveley’s 2009 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru “Les Cazetiers” and Alain Burguet’s 2009 Chambertin Grand Cru “Clos de Beze.” Don’t wines like this qualify as the kind of luxury items the Chinese are embracing? What followed was a fascinating and candid conversation about money, taste, and sophistication.

For the Chinese at the moment, Avenel said, the hot wines are from Bordeaux and Australia because they are “bombs in a glass” and more easily understood and embraced than Burgundy. “We all started with Bordeaux,” he said, “because it’s the entry-level thing. The U.S. started with Bordeaux. The Japanese started with Bordeaux.” He said that Burgundy, on the other hand, “is never love at first sight. You need to build some maturity in terms of taste.”

He continued: “Burgundy is not about power. It’s about charm and secret things. You need to improve your ability to taste subtle things.” How long does it take? “It’s not something you get in just a couple of years,” he said. “I think it takes 10 to 15 years.” His conclusion: for all its newly minted wealth, China is simply not yet ready for Burgundy. “What we notice,” he said, “is that very often Burgundy is about old money and that Bordeaux is about nouveaux riches.”

(For some of my latest wine suggestions, go to my new weekly column on the Bites on Today blog at MSNBC.com)

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Swirls: A call for a little humility in the wine world after shopper drops $85K on 5 bottles and auctioneer announces $6.5 million holiday ‘gift guide’

Before having some second thoughts, I began this story as one more gee-whiz  item from the increasingly crazy world of wine sales. Here’s what I wrote:

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found many wine bargains in recent years at duty-free shops in France. But then again, I’m not shopping at the level of a certain buyer who recently purchased five bottles of French wine for – take a deep breath now --  $85,000. The sale took place at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and was announced – trumpeted, really -- by the airport operator, which identified the buyer only as “an Asian,” according to AFP. What did he buy? Click here to find out, and then let me know if you think the shopper got his money’s worth buying these “duty-free” wines.

I was going to leave the story at that, an odd tidbit from the eccentric world of wine. But then I started thinking about it:  imagine, spending $85,000 on five bottles of wine. I couldn’t help but wonder how this buyer might have spent the money, or even part of it, on something else, perhaps something that might have made a difference somewhere in the world. I thought of the buyer, sitting in a first-class lounge at Charles de Gaulle, waiting for his plane home to Hong Kong or Shanghai or Singapore. I also thought of people waiting to fly to Lahore, or Kinshasa or Delhi, places where $85,000 could have a real and immediate impact on the lives of ordinary people.

I don’t begrudge anyone the right to spend money as they see fit. But in these still challenging economic times, when so many are having such a hard time, should we be flaunting such excess so shamelessly? That was going to be it for this story  until I received a press release this morning from Acker Merrall &  Condit, the wine merchant and auction house. It made the story about the wine buyer in Paris seem like small potatoes. The release announced a “Twelve Days of Christmas” gift guide aimed at “the world’s most passionate wine lovers.” Twelve wine packages, all of them featuring rare bottles of Bordeaux and Burgundy, starting at a $29,000 and going up to $2,070,000 for “the one gift to end them all.” The packages add up to a total of $6,458,000.

“We’ve had an amazing year,” John Kapon, Acker Merrall’s CEO, says in the release. “With estimated sales in 2011 in excess of $110 million, we will be the first wine auction house in history to breach the hundred million mark.” The holiday sale, he says, is “to celebrate Christmas and the close of the year.” And with it, he proclaims, “we’re going to deliver astonishing delight to wine lovers worldwide.” Perhaps he forgot that the vast majority of wine lovers worldwide are looking for a good bottle at perhaps $10 to $15.

The issue here is not that wine merchants – Acker Merrall, the Paris duty-free shop or countless others -- are selling wines at these prices or that buyers are willing to scoop them up. So-called fine wine, after all, is increasingly seen as a good investment, one that can compete with real estate or gold or stocks and bonds. It is the gushing manner in which these sales are being announced that  gives me pause. Wine is all about elegance and grace and lends itself to a little contemplation. As we count our blessings at this time of year, those qualities are worth remembering.

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Sips: Bordeaux for the 99 percent

Although Bordeaux churns out oceans of wine, most of the headlines go to the top grand crus that sell for prices that require membership in the one-percent club or in China’s new elite with its insatiable thirst for the wines (China is now Bordeaux’s biggest importer by volume). 

But beyond the storied names, Bordeaux doesn’t get much buzz these days in the United States. You hardly ever hear young people talk about it,  which is regrettable given that Bordeaux can be among the best sources in the world for very good red wines under $20 and even under $15. I gained a new appreciation of this when I toured the region extensively a few years ago.

One category currently being promoted in this country is the wines simply called Bordeaux or Bordeaux Supérieur, the region’s two broadest appellations, in contrast to wines that come from smaller, famed appellations such as Margaux or Saint-Emilion, which command much higher prices. While “Bordeaux” suggests a generic quality that is unfortunately the case with many of the wines, some rise well above that status, particularly those bottled as Bordeaux Supérieur, which may come from older vines and are required to have at least one year of aging in oak.

For example, Château Timberlay’s 2009 Bordeaux Supérieur illustrates the pleasures of young Bordeaux. Although the wine has the potential to age well for three or four years, it is drinking beautifully right now, showing quite opulent fruit and a tannic structure that California imitators can only dream of at a suggested price of $11 for an estate-bottled wine of this quality.

The blend is 7o percent merlot, 20 percent cabernet sauvignon and 10 percent cabernet franc. The wine was an excellent match with lamb chops grilled in our fireplace, showing blackberry, black currant, raspberry and fig notes and a touch of chocolate. There’s lots of complexity here for the money.

Another standout is Château de Parenchère’s 2008 Bordeaux Supérieur from an estate on the eastern edge of Bordeaux near the Dordogne. Again, what jumped out was a tannic firmness that is a hallmark of Bordeaux, even at the lower end. This one is a blend of 80 percent merlot and 20 percent cabernet sauvignon with a blackberry core and some cedar, cocoa and herbal notes. At $13, it’s another excellent value with good fruit, good structure and the potential to age nicely over the next couple of years. Want further proof of value in inexpensive Bordeaux? Put together a mixed case of reds in the $10 to $20 range. I’m sure you’ll find a few that stand out. Wines received as press samples.

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Swirls: A defense of genuinely cool-climate wines from a pioneering winemaker

Back in the 1970s, Louisa Hargrave and her husband Alex were the pioneers of wine on Long Island, proving that very good wine could be grown in the cool, maritime climate of Long Island’s East End, particularly the North Fork. Since then, a thriving  industry has developed, with some 60  wineries growing grapes on thousands of acres that were once farmland. I partly attribute my own interest in wine to occasional visits to the Hargrave Vineyard in Cutchogue over the years and to tasting and enjoying many vintages of Hargrave wines.

A good number of the older wineries and vineyards in the region have changed hands, including Hargrave, and newer wineries have established roots in the region, perhaps most prominently Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck, which is now producing some of the area’s most exciting wines and is a pioneer in its own right as the first Long Island property to move toward organic and biodynamic  farming.

As for Louisa Hargrave, she is now a consultant and writer (her 2003 memoir, ‘The Vineyard,” is worth reading), and what got me thinking about all this again was her most recent column in the Suffolk Times, the local North Fork newspaper. In it, she makes a compelling case for cool-climate wines from such regions as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Collio in northern Italy, the North Fork and genuinely cool-climate areas of California, where the so-called diurnal shift between the day’s hottest and coolest temperatures is least pronounced.

It is in these regions, she reminds us, that the most balanced wines are produced over long, even growing seasons -- wines not dominated by massive fruit (and alcohol), wines with good natural acidity that doesn’t require adjustment in the laboratory. Although “big” wines “often score high points with wine critics,” she says, “I often find something lacking in them. What’s lacking is energy — the very element that makes wine come alive on the palate, that makes it evolve as you drink it.” For me, such wines have what I like to call “soul” and provide a life-enhancing connection to the earth and climate from which they came. You know these wines when you taste them. They are robust but not overpowering, complex yet elegant, refreshing and also interesting. They are, in a word, irresistible.

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Sips: Raymond’s excellent Napa merlot

California merlot still suffers, I believe, from a somewhat undeserved reputation as an easy-drinking but largely undistinguished red. Raymond’s delicious 2007 Napa  Valley “Reserve Selection” Merlot belies that status and should be considered whenever the need calls for a distinctive and elegant Bordeaux-style wine. The first thing that appealed to me about this wine is that it is not overly alcoholic. The label lists alcohol at 14.2 percent, compared with some California merlots (and other reds) that exceed 15 percent and can suffer from an alcoholic hotness (Bordeaux reds typically weigh in at 13 percent ). Sorry, but it’s just hard for me to contemplate such wines as refreshing food companions. Second, Raymond’s merlot (with the addition of 15 percent cabernet sauvignon) is notable for its complexity, with concentrated tastes of ripe fig, plum, cherry and black cherry with background notes of earth, mocha and vanilla. Third, oak treatment is subtle and well integrated with the fruit, which is supported by a good tannic structure and ample acidity. All of this makes Raymond’s merlot an excellent companion to a variety of foods, including many beef and lamb, pork, chicken and vegetarian dishes. And its price, $23, is just right. Received as a press sample.

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Sips: Finding excellent value in an easily dismissed French white

We have a French friend who sniffs at the thought of wines from the corner of the country where he lives – the Dordogne in southwest France. When it comes to such local appellations as Cahors or Bergerac, he dismisses them as country bumpkins of  French wine, preferring, among others, wines from Bordeaux, the Dordogne’s illustrious neighbor to the north. He is, of course, entitled to his opinion, and it may have been largely true at one time, but I will suggest to my friend the next time I see him that this is old thinking.

What got me focused on the region once again was a bottle I bought the other night at my local wine store, Martin Brothers on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I like to start most evenings with a refreshing white while cooking and unwinding, and I find myself chronically short of them. One that will easily fill the void is Grandissime’s 2009 Bergerac, a dry and elegant Bordeaux-style blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon. The $10.99 price will make it easy to keep on hand as an aperitif wine and well beyond. Light but with nice complexity, it shows pear, green apple, apple skin and herb notes. Alcohol at 12.5 percent and little or no oak  make it effortless to drink. Enjoy it with fish, shellfish and simple chicken dishes.

This is the kind of wine that makes me turn to France time and again, especially to the lesser-known appellations that offer some of the best values around. And when my friend is in New York, perhaps I’ll pour him a glass of a wine practically grown in his own backyard. Imported by Gabriella Importers, Bohemia, New York.

Technorati Tags: Bergerac,Grandissime,Grandissime Bergerac,Southwest France,Edward Deitch,Bordeaux,French white wines,French wine values,Bordeaux-style blends,Sauvignon-semillon blends,Sauvignon blanc,Semillion,Garbriella Importers,Martin Brothers Wines

SIPS: Reflecting on ‘True Grit,’ the movie and the wine

I usually ignore wine and pop culture tie-ins, such as the one I received not long ago for “True Grit” featuring the re-make of the movie classic and the wine of the same name. In this case, however, not only did I thoroughly enjoy both but was fascinated to come acros s the back story of just how True Grit wound up on the a wine label.

True Grit the wine is a $30 Petite Sirah produced by Parducci Wine Cellars, part of the Mendocino Wine Company in California’s Mendocino County. It turns out that the idea for the name came in 2005 when a publicist suggested to Tim Thornhill, Parducci’s proprietor, that petite sirah was a “John Wayne among reds,” Thornhill related to Wine Spectator. The publicist was Jo Diaz, who has promoted petite sirah for years through her “PS I Love You” campaign (but who does not represent Parducci itself). I’ve always thought the slogan was a bit hokey and  haven’t referred to it until now, but it seems to have worked well for the variety, and Jo, I’ve discovered, has a very good ear for this sort of thing.

She recalls the Parducci experience on her own wine blog  and reprints a release on petite sirah she wrote at the time in which she called it the “all-American variety” and a “burly, manly wine.” The description may have fit well with the petite sirah campaign and the True Grit narrative, but I doubt Jo will mind if I say that it doesn’t quite do justice to the 2007 True Grit, which is a wine of elegance and complexity (along with a little brawn). It is marked by herb-infused black cherry and blackberry notes, an earthy core and unsweetened cocoa on the long and considerably tannic finish. Although alcohol is 14.5 percent, this is not a big or heavy wine, with the overall impression bright rather than ponderous. As I breathed in the  aromas again a few days after opening the bottle, Bordeaux even came to mind.

No, True Grit the wine may have a pair of cowboy boots with spurs on its label, but I can’t imagine Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges or John Wayne) trading his bottle of hooch for a glass of this sophisticated and just slightly gutsy red. (Received as a press sample.)

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Thanksgiving wine lists: what Randall Grahm and others in the business are thankful for

There is no shortage of Thanksgiving wine advice out there, so instead of joining the pack, as I have for most of the last decade with my own pronouncements about Thanksgiving wine pairings, I decided to do something different this year. What were some of my friends and colleagues in the wine business planning to serve or recommend – from wine styles to regions to individual bottles? A set of email queries prompted a quick response and a broad range of possibilities, which included wines from California, Oregon, Washington, many parts of France as well as Italy, Austria, Germany and Chile. If one theme emerged, it is this: when it comes to Thanksgiving, there are very few rules about wine. Like the stuffing or the gravy, everyone’s tastes and preferences are going to be different. I would add (and the responses largely bear this out) that the wines, whether red or white, will work best when they are on the leaner and less  alcoholic side. Beyond that, my friends seemed to gravitate toward wines with finesse and individuality, as you’re about to see.

The most enviable response came from Joshua Greene, editor and publisher of Wine & Spirits Magazine, for which I occasionally serve on tasting panels. Josh said he would raise a glass, in absentia, from Spain, where he will be meeting on Thursday with the owner of one of the great Rioja producers, R. López de Heredia. “Will think of turkey, native Americans and pilgrims,” he said, “as I toast with a 1981 Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia.”

Randall Grahm, the founder and self-proclaimed president-for-life of California’s Bonny Doon Vineyard, put Thanksgiving in the context of his own wine evolution (or is it revolution?). He wrote: “These days – and I’m more or less counting on this being a semi-permanent state of affairs – I’m pretty much only interested in wines that might be called vins de terroir: wines that express a sense of place, but also wines that exhibit a quality of minerality or life-force (two sides of the same coin). As it turns out, I do think that these sorts of dynamic ‘vital’ wines are in fact a great foil to turkey, which is itself, shall we say, somewhat static.” Among whites, Randall is thinking about a dry riesling from France’s Alsace, perhaps an older example from Fréderic Emile, or one from Austria’s Wachau, or a grüner veltliner, perhaps a Prager Grüner Alte Reben. For reds, he said, “it will most likely be infanticide of an ’05 red Burgundy,” perhaps from Fourier, definitely decanted, or maybe a Cornas from the northern Rhône. As an apéritif, he’s going to try to get his hands on some of Eric Bordelet’s Poire “Granit,” a pear cider from Normandy.

Swirls: Discovering the hidden charms and values of South West France

Yesterday I moderated a panel discussion here in New York on the wines of South West France. This corner of the country, which has long lived in the shadow of Bordeaux to the north and even Langudeoc-Rousillon to the east, deserves much more attention for its unique, terroir-driven wines. The region is  large, framed by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, Spain and the   Pyrenées on the south and the Massif Central mountains on the east.

Despite its relative obscurity, it happens to be where some of the most popular international varieties, including merlot and cabernet sauvignon, originated as relatives of cabernet franc, although these grapes are but minor players there today. Malbec, which has enjoyed so much success in Argentina, also originated in the South West and remains an important grape there, most notably in Cahors. Tannat, négrette and braucol among reds and colombard, gros manseng and ugni-blanc among whites are used in some of the more popular wines.

A tasting of a dozen or so wines after the discussion revealed a range of red styles, from the lighter, fruitier wines of Fronton, Gaillac and Marcillac to the bigger, more brooding wines of Madiran and Cahors. The whites were on the fruity and citrusy side, including nice examples from the Saint-Mont and Irouleguy appellations. The whites will serve splendidly as refreshing aperitif wines and will match well with fish, shellfish, sushi and other lighter fare. They are nice alternatives to sauvignon blanc and many are considerably less expensive. In fact, most wines from the South West are in the $10 to $20 range or even less. I’ll have more to say in coming weeks about specific wines from this exciting and distinctive region.

Technorati Tags: South West France,South West wines,Malbec,Tannat,Negrette,Braucol,Cahors,Madiran,Gaillac,Marcillac,Saint-Mont,Irouleguy,Edward Deitch,Bordeaux,Langudeoc-Rousillon,Gros manseng,Ugni-blanc,Colombard

Swirls: wine news – wine-searcher.com, Lafite-Rothschild in Asia, Pa.’s wine vending machines,

SWIRL: Patrick Comiskey has a must-read article  in today’s Los Angeles Times  on wine-searcher.com, the price comparison and availability search engine that has transformed wine commerce. 

  

If you haven’t used it, you should. I’ve relied on wine-searcher  for years to find out what retailers charge for wines I review. It also give you a good sense of the availability of any particular wine. It’s simply the best reality check out there. The basic version is free and is more limited than the “Pro Version,” which costs about $30 and is money well spent. As of yesterday, by the way, wine-searcher had 18,072 wine stores listed worldwide with 3,952,617 wines offered.  In 2009 it had 56.5 million pageviews. You  begin to get an idea of the site’s scope and influence.

SWIRL: “No other wine has captured the imagination of the  Chinese wine connoisseur like Château Lafite-Rothschild,” begins   an item in artdaily.org. With that in mind, Sotheby’s in Hong Kong will hold an auction of almost 2,000 bottles of Lafite on October 29. The famed winery will supply vintages from 1869 to 2008 from its cellar. Estimates of the sale range from $1.5-$2.5 million.

SWIRL: On the other side of the sales spectrum, sales at Pennsylvania’s two pilot wine vending machines in supermarkets have gone better than expected, says the head of the state’s Liquor Control Board. Plans are moving ahead to  install almost 100 more of the machines, whose sales require a breathalizer test and are monitored by Control Board employees via a video hookup. Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek and my recent commentary on the machines.

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Swirls: Manchester United, Gordon Ramsay, China Rising

Some wine news from all over, starting with something I doubt you’ll see anytime soon in the United States: an official “wine sponsor” of a major sports team. But in England, Manchester  United has just signed up Chile’s biggest wine producer, Concha y Toro, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Meanwhile, the scandal over nasty-mouth restaurateur Gordon Ramsay’s alleged unpaid bills to wine and food suppliers continues to grow. The Huffington Post touches all the bases in its latest roundup.

And … thank God for China, legions of winemakers are saying from Bordeaux to Napa and beyond as the country’s thirst for expensive wine continues to grow. Sealing a business deal? Break out the Petrus. The San Jose Mercury News quotes one private club owner as saying that opening a bottle of Bordeaux worth thousands “shows generosity and indicates you are cultured."

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Swirls: China’s love affair with Bordeaux

There is a great deal of buzz in the wine world these days about China, which, with its exploding wealth, is developing a taste for wine as never before. This demand is fueling a growing domestic industry and, perhaps more importantly, it has provided a new and vitally important market for foreign producers, most notably those in Bordeaux. When I was in Bordeaux two summers ago, I noticed the attention that growers were paying to the Chinese market, with some telling me that their wine sales in China had become far more important to their businesses than those in the United States, where Bordeaux has been a tough sell in recent years.

Several articles have taken note of all of this in recent days. From  Bordeaux, Claude Canellas of Reuters notes that there was unprecedented attendance by Chinese wine buyers at the just-concluded “en primeur” tasting of the 2009 vintage, which is being heralded by some as an exceptional one. Chinese investors are also starting to buy wine properties in Bordeaux.

Charles Metcalfe of the Telegraph notes the Chinese presence as well and colorfully describes what it’s like to taste your way through such a large-scale event (exhausting, as I can attest).

Meanwhile, Jancis Robinson writes in FT.com of her recent stop in China. With the country’s love affair with Bordeaux, she says, the Chinese wine industry is obsessed with producing home-grown cabernet sauvignon (or trying to). But she does find several successful domestic wines, including a nice little white to go with a range of Chinese cuisines and, yes, a Chinese pinot noir.

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Swirls: Jefferson’s wine and “liquid” assets

Two items in the news caught my attention today, both involving wine values. No, we’re not talking about inexpensive wines, but wines purchased for investment. First comes the results of a fascinating study on the relative value of an investment wine portfolio versus the performance of a well-known stock index. Let’s just say I hope you didn’t dip too deeply into the Bordeaux collection to relieve the stress when times were at their toughest. The story is covered by The Globe and Mail and Reuters, among others.

And, speaking of Bordeaux, there is the matter of the wines once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Or were they? That is the essential question in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York this week by the billionaire William Koch, who claims to have evidence that four bottles he bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars through Christie’s International, the auction house, were fakes. Were the initials “Th. J” carved into the bottles in Jefferson’s time or were they made by a modern engraving machine? It’s the latest chapter in a continuing good yarn and the coverage reflected that, ranging from Wine Spectator to New York’s Daily News.

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