Ramblings of a wine buyer
Author: Simon Staples
Every year the time between when we taste the wines and when we get the prices to sell them to you seems to get longer and longer. I just wanted to express how I understand your frustrations with the ludicrous and seemingly pointless nature of this delay. I have to say this is the most ridiculous way for any product to get to “market”. We tasted these great wines at the end of March, we told you about their various merits the 2nd week of April. Ok, so then we have to wait for good old Parker to release his edict, marvel at the stunned awe etc. etc., but that was the end of April…….it’s June 14th!
We still have about over 60% of the wines to release their prices. Also let’s face facts, they are getting pretty chunky on price now and this tactic is only partially working – eg. Calon Ségur released its price 110% up on last year today and sold out in minutes. Prieure Lichine came out at the négociants 50% more than last year and not a case sold so far. My fear is that as the Bordelaise try to cram all the releases in before July we shall have a huge “bus effect” which doesn’t help you very much as you are bombarded by tedious emails from your account managers and makes buying a nightmare.
It has always been a strange phenomenon that the châteaux’s reluctance to just “get on with it” and bring a price to market is in part economics but mainly because they can’t be seen to be cheaper than their geographical neighbour. I do see it from the châteaux’s point of view of course: if you make 30,000 cases of a top Médoc, a few Euros either way is a large amount of cash, HOWEVER it should never take this long to take that leap of faith.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here comes another bus…..what a shocker! We can’t get enough people aboard…..ie. not enough allocations!! Don’t get me started……..Keep an eye out for your account managers’ emails and the homepage updates. It’s going to get pretty frantic from here on in…
I’m ready…
For whatever you can give me…
R
I am frustrated, too. The price this year seems very high and close to bottle sales in some shops….Not attractive at all.
Hi Rob,
I’d still look at Grand Puy and Giscours. There are cases left and are going to look cheap when the other names come out in tiny supply. Thanks Simon
Is technology part of the issue here?
With twitter and the blog, it’s now possible to get critics and merchants’ views on wine literally within minutes of them being tasted, certainly within hours. Following the en primeur tasting week, it becomes quite easy for someone in London to be caught up in the excitement even from a PC at home.
So that process is happening faster than ever: if the buying process could match it, it would make a lot of sense: and yet the delivery of the product to market is even slower.
To use a sporting analogy, once the technology is in place e.g. Hawkeye, the old methods (a human umpire) seem rather obsolete: some will say “Oh, the human element is so important”, but actually what we really want is a game to have accurate decisions, and you can’t un-invent technological advances.
In this case, you can’t now stop doing your twitter reports on tastings: people will want them, but that makes the delay between first tastings and wine to market all the more excessive. Eventually, that will have to change, though it may take decades.
One complicating factor, I guess, is the Chinese market. It’s all very well for us in London to be frustrated, but frankly, in the future, who cares about us? If I were Chateau Cos d’Estournel, I’d be much more interested in my reputation in Shanghai than here.
All the same, for what it’s worth, the 2009 pricing and slow selling has put me off.
Off the back of reviews, a friend and I were going to club together to get a case of Pagodes de Cos but we set an upper limit of £375. Seemed like a pretty safe bet and yet it’s come out at £400. Had it come out in April, I would probably have bought anyway: I was sufficiently excited by all the hype. Yet in the cold light of day, it’s not worth it, is it?
I think I’ll head off to the Rhone.