Hopes & Expectations for 2013

What will 2013 bring?  Here are a few things that I would like to see happen during this year along with the odd stab at trying to guess what will happen.

Firstly I hope that 2013 will be kinder to wine producers in the northern half of France. Generally vignerons in Burgundy, Champagne and the Loire had a very tough time in 2012, although quality in some places is good, volume is generally well down. It will be very interesting to be able to start tasting some of the 2012 Loires now that many of them will have finished their alcoholic fermentation.

Vinexpo will be declared a huge success, although there will some complaints from non-European exhibitors that they were dealt a raw deal. Attendance at Prowein will continue to grow but this will be dismissed by the Vinexpo organisers as not a threat to the ‘most important wine and spirit fair in the world’.

It would be good to see the end of 1855 along with its associated companies Cave Privée and ChâteauOnline. However, I suspect that the apparently tortuous process of French justice will allow Emeric Sauty de Chalon and Fabien Hyon to keep their‘arnaque’ afloat for another year despite Jean-Pierre Meyers bailing out.

I trust you all have Pancho Campo’s forthcoming marketing seminars in your diaries. Despite many setbacks – an unsuccessful tennis school with links to Nick Bollettieri, to forced to flee from Dubai, the short-lived CIE Marbella, and most recently the much-vaunted Future Economy Barcelona 2012 cancelled at the last minute, Campo is a feisty entrepreneur. On the plus-side he persuaded Robert Parker to speak in Rioja and Hong Kong for a substantial cheque. I’m sure his Marketing, Sales and Event Management for the Wine Industry courses in Madrid (8th and 9th February – 290.00 EUR) and Marbella (22nd-24th February – 675€) will be full of invaluable insights, especially if Campo can persuade his defrauded ex-partner Jackie Wartanian to do a session on organizing events.

  

2012: a vigne large in the Baumards’ section of the Quarts de Chaume

Some 13 bunches – a viticultural triumph in a year of very low yields

The yield under the new décret is set at 2.5 kilos per vine for les vignes larges

It would be excellent news if France’s Supreme Court threw out the Baumards’ challenge to the Quarts de Chaume Grand Cru. It would be equally good if the Baumards just withdrew their challenge. I would have more sympathy for the Baumards if firstly the other members of the Quarts de Chaume Syndicat had been unreasonable. Instead they tried hard to find a compromise giving the Baumards plenty of time to phase out cryoextraction or cryosélection as they prefer to call it. Secondly the Baumards have an obvious preference for a generous yield in their Quarts de Chaume vineyards as photos from both 2011 and 2012 indicate. In the summer 2011 they were ordered by the INAO to cut off some of their grapes because of excessive yields.

I have asked Florent Baumard for details of their Quarts de Chaume yields over the past ten years, which I believe are customarily close to the maximum permitted under the décret. This used to be 25 hl/ha and now under the new décret is 20 hl/ha. I have yet to receive these details but Florent is not alone here as I have also asked some other Quarts producers for the same data and am still waiting. To have a complete set of yields for all the producers in the Quarts de Chaume would be fascinating.

The valuation of the Elite Advisers Nobles Crus wine investment fund will probably continue to be questioned. It would seem unlikely that the recent Ernst & Young report into their valuation methods will still the doubts, especially as its findings are confidential.

Let’s hope that Natalie MacLean honors her promise to give proper attribution and that she gets permission to use writers’ tasting notes before putting them on her blog.

Lastly I’m supremely confident that Bordeaux will enjoy in 2013 another finest vintage of the third millennium.

Jim Budd

Some memorable stories from 2011

Since this is my last post of 2011, it is time to glance back at some stories or themes that have held our attention this year.

Natural wine

Natural wine is surely the only serious contender for the theme of year even though there is yet to be an agreed definition of the term. In the UK, May saw the three-day Natural Wine Fair held in London’s Borough Market. In capital there are now a number of wine bars whose focus is on natural wines.  Two books have explored the meaning of natural wine: Alice Feiring’s Naked Wine: Letting grapes do what comes naturally and Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop MW’s Authentic Wine.

If you define natural or authentic wine, as Goode and Harrop prefer, as reflecting place, site or its terroir it’s difficult to see how a wine lover could object, especially when contrasted with the type of brands designed specifically for supermarket discounting. Rather it is the level of non-intervention that can pose the problem. There is no point in hailing a wine as natural when it is so faulty that all authenticity of place has been obliterated. Apparently there was a popular French joke in the early part of the 19^th century which ‘suggested that it took three to drink a bottle: one to hold the person, a second to pour it down his throat, and finally the victim himself.’ (James Simpson: Creating Wine – the emergence of a World Industry, 1840-1914).  A return to these days would hardly be progress!

I look forward to a more nuanced debate in 2012.

Loire: the remarkably mild spring and early flowering
Following a prolonged and very warm spring, some vines in the Loire started flowering in early May – remarkably early. On 9^th May I was in Bourgueil and there were certainly signs of flowering – amazingly three weeks in advance even of an early year. Much talk of 2011 being the earliest harvest since 1893. In the end a wet and cool July delayed the harvest but even so a number of Loire producers completed two harvests within twelve months.

1855 – 1855.com

It will be amazing to discover that 1855 has delivered all the 2008 Bordeaux en primeur its customers ordered. It is equally remarkably that 1855 has been allowed to continue to ‘trade’ despite years of failing to deliver Bordeaux en primeurs ordered and paid for by their frustrated customers.

Unfortunately I expect this will continue into 2012 with further technical delays and promises of deliveries that aren’t kept. It would seem very likely that Jean-Pierre Meyers will continue to supply sufficient capital to keep the company afloat. Equally probably that Le FEVAD will admit them as full members. One new element may be the discovery that there are delays in the payments due to suppliers of châteauonline.

Pancho Campo MW – Campogate

Just before Christmas Campo surprised some people by revealing on Facebook that he was testing a new McLaren prototype as part of a new project. Surprised that the organiser of several Climate Conferences should flaunt such an ‘ungreen’ thing as this series of tweets from Robert Joseph indicates:

Robert is only the latest of many who have taken Campo at his word only to realise that they have been taken in. All too often they forget that Campo is a promoter – a showman, whose commitment to the issues surrounding climate change was only as deep as was needed to sell the conference concept.

It may well be that Campo has recognised that his career in wine is now either over or, if it continues, will be far less lucrative and so is looking to move on again. I can’t imagine that Campo thought for a moment what Al Gore’s reaction  might be, even though it is believed that Gore gave Campo the names of a couple of American lawyers who might be able help him out over the Interpol wanted notice.

The only long-term conviction Campo holds is the one handed down in absentia in Dubai in early June 2003.

Jim