A lot happens in a week at wine-searcher so thank the Lord it’s Friday – am in need of a rest from wine news, which flowed like a raging torrent in the past seven days.
It was the sexily-titled Organisation of Vine and Wine’s annual get-together this week, held in renowned winemaking country, Turkey. According to the latest statistics, as reported in my article on wine-searcher.com, the world’s total vineyard area is at a new 10-year low (7,585,000 hectares). Hooray you might shout but there’s a crux: due to an “upwards trend in yields, favorable climate conditions and continued improvements in viticultural techniques,” global grape production in 2011 was the highest seen in a decade. So much for reducing the oversupply.
Next, Burgundy is in a state of disarray. Firstly, one of the regions top negociants Labouré Roi hit the headlines for mislabelling wines, illegal blending and falsely claiming wines had won prizes, as reported here. Local newspaper Le Bien Public reported that between 2005 and 2009 Labouré-Roi may have sold more than 2 million bottles with labels that did not match the wine within. Innocent until proven guilty but even the prosecutor has said they’ll likely be charged.
As if that wasn’t enough trouble for a region, which rarely hits the headlines, Chablis then brought Burgundy to the world’s attention again. Chablis launched a breakaway from the rest of Burgundy in mid 2011 and the final vote was held this week. Some producers were pissed off that while contributing more than a quarter of the budget to the Burgundy Wine Board (the BIVB), the regional marketing campaign was centred around the Cote d’Or. Having gained concessions, Chablis producers voted in favour of remaining part of the BIVB – likely playing a larger part in regional marketing from now on (mainly to keep them on side, one presumes).
On the other side of the pond, prices of Screaming Eagle’s first-ever sauvignon blanc have increased by almost ten times on the secondary market. As a result, the cult winery has decided to limit future production to prevent speculation.
The producer recently offered 600 bottles of 2010 sauvignon blanc at $250 (ouch) to customers who are on its “active list” on the condition that the bottles would not be offered on the secondary market. That hasn’t prevented some opportunistic clients who are trying to profit from it: the same wine is now being sold at an eye-watering $2,150 a bottle by Californian fine-wine retailer Cult Wines, while a six-bottle case listed by Spectrum Wine Auctions has an estimate of $7,000. The highest bid at the time of writing was $5,650. You can read the full story here.
So that was the week that was.
Bon weekend mes petits pois.
