European vs American wine market: Romanee Conti pricing

I’m a novice in this business, but I permit myself the arrogance of doubt. Sometimes I have my reservations about our purchasing decisions, like in the last couple of days.

Being based in Italy, and trading in French wine, you would think that Europe had enough on offer that we wouldn’t have to search overseas; except on special occasions as in the case of Acker’s Hong Kong auction in May – after all you don’t find magnums of Mouton Rothschild 1945 just floating around on the market.

But in the last couple of days I have had reason to be more concerned about our wine purchasing strategy as we acquire a number of bottles of Romanee Conti 2005 from an American wine merchant.

One set comes in an open wine case (OWC) which is good for the collection, but we already have an ocean of Romanee Conti 2005 and even purchasing in the less favourable sterling currency we’d get it for less – in the case of the OWC a good 2000 euros difference. The only question is availability.

Then there’s the trip to be considered. My colleague expertly tells me that wines imported from the US have a lesser value, due to jet lag presumably. Just kidding, although this argument often amuses me as at its base lies the concern over less prudent transportation practices. Higher temperatures, dodgy packing etc. affects the quality of the wine.

I think it should be stipulated that it affects the drinkability of the wine, not its image. And lets face it, most of these wines are not purchased to be consumed, but to lie in wait for an increase in brand image before selling them on.

Anyway, fingers crossed we can get the wines delivered straight to our free port cellaring facilities. Otherwise a 20 percent tax haul means we could really be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Bag-in-box opposed by sommeliers

The Italian Sommeliers' Association has opposed the move to allow DOC wines to be packaged in carton. After my chat about whether the bag-in-box can be directly connected to quality or not, it appears that AIS perceives this is a definite negative image for Italian wine.

President of the Sommeliers Association, Terenzio Medri, has said that it opposes the philosophy of protecting high quality wines. "The decision ...risks damaging the entire image of Italian wine, which has proved itself to be excellent and competitive in recent years. Can you imagine a DOC wine from an important vintage being packaged in carton?"

Growing your own vineyard in Tuscany - not always what you think

I just got back from a holiday at the Italian seaside in a place called Monte Argentario, in the south of Tuscany near Orbetello. We had a hotel with half board and I must say the wine included in the price was not bad at all - a local Vermentino. Seeing as we were eating mostly fish, we stuck to the white.

One fascinating thing about Monte Argentario were the villas constructed around the promontory, that attempted to block public access to the beaches below the cliff faces. On driving around one day and getting lost we finally parked where there were lots of cars and followed some people down to a beach. Afterwards, we decided it would be prudent to make a visit to the tourist office in Porto Santo Stefano and get ourselves a map.

Luckily the map came with instructions on how to reach some of the more remote beaches of the promontory. Invariably the instructions read "You arrive at the gate with a sign 'Private Property' - enter the gate and walk down the road until you get to the stairs that take you to the beach"...

Some of the villas around seemed lovely, complete with swimming pool for those who didn't want to enjoy their coastal location. I leave you with a picture of one of the few cliff top vineyards we saw; you can decide how and for who they produce their wine. I have a suspicion that it's all part and parcel of the villa in Tuscany requirements.

Cask wine - in Italy?!

Apparently there is a move in Italy to start making, or bottling, high quality wine in boxes. You might be surprised when you think about the land of chianti and barolo, and I can’t see it ever really taking off; you don’t even see screw cap wine in Italy at the moment.

A couple of things to note however: obviously the first being that just because wine comes in a bottle, does not mean it’s high quality. Italy is a big table wine consumer, and has a history of drinking wine exclusively with meals. Could this just be a more convenient packaging...?

Italians are not snobs about wine, and unless you go to more up market restaurants, anyone asking for the wine list is likely to get a bottle dusted off from the cellar. Most of the time you have caraffe wine, which often comes out of barrel – it’s like wine on tap. And you can get it in nifty quarter, half litre or litre glass jugs.

In the supermarkets in Italy (sensible people who haven’t confined alcohol purchases to complicated and expensive licensing laws), you can get huge four litre bottles of wine, which I have always imagined are more for cooking but then I wouldn’t know – I’d never get through one quickly enough anyway.

Some families I know even make a special trip to a producer at the beginning of the year to buy what they call a damigiana – it’s this enormous bottle (the biggest size is 54 litres) which you take home with a special filtering system whereby you can siphon the wine off into bottles. The idea behind it is a year’s worth of table wine drinking.

So who knows? Maybe the humble cask is about to enter its heyday in the old world.

En primeur 2007: the chase

I think I may have finally decided I’m in the wrong business based solely on the en primeur acquisition we’ve undertaken in the last few months. To explain: we are traders in the fine wine industry and we advise a wine investment fund on its acquisition.

Our consultancy with the wine fund is recent and with the new found cash we have joined the en primeur race and have stocked up on a number of cases, including Lafite Rothschild, Leoville Las Cases, Yquem, and I’m pretty sure we’ve got some others floating around like Haut Brion and Lafleur.

Great for the investment fund, I imagine, despite the 2007 vintage being dubbed a difficult one. So far my boss has been pretty shrewd about his purchases, and these en primeur we only ever buy at convenient prices.

Call me a hopeless romantic, say I don’t what I’m talking about in terms of the wine industry, but I find it disappointing these wines are destined for investment. That is to say we have purchased cases of wine that will never be drunk.

I think en primeur purchases have their place in the industry if you want to secure your wine prior to commercial release, but I wonder who really drinks the above mentioned wines anymore. And does it bother the wine makers that their efforts go into wine that will never be consumed? Doubtful, given the money they're making.

I think there is a need to separate these two sub-industries within the wine sector itself: fine wine for investment and wine that people actually drink. I find it ironic that qualifications for my job included a knowledge of and passion for, wine. So far I’ve barely touched a bottle, and I certainly haven’t had a whiff of these wines, let alone ripped the cork out of one.

For me passion for wine is about challenging your senses, sharing your drinking, advising others on what you found worthwhile, seeking out new things to try, and exploring the efforts of producers who are interested in consumers experiencing their wine to the fullest.

But in our business we’re about growing the value of the portfolio, and our Lafite Rothschild 2007 is rushing off to wine storage in Geneva. So we’re achieving on the basis of our job, but when the fund suggests that investing in what you’re passionate about means you will have greater returns, it’s a marketing gimmick really. People who invest do it to make money, while people who are passionate about wine, drink it.

Image | The Wine Doctor