Kermit Lynch -"Bordeaux Trembles"

I wouldn’t typically think that a retail newsletter has much discussion worthy content, but I found this particular blurb from Kermit Lynch interesting:

"Bordeaux trembles…or so it seemed to me a couple of weeks ago. I went to Bordeaux to taste and heard a lot of gossip in the cellars. The fear and trembling emanates from the elite, expensive, classified growths—expensive enough to price themselves out of the huge American market once the Bush recession hit in 2008. The châteaux turned their sights on the Chinese market, which was greedy for the wines even at unheard-of prices. One top château sold over 60% of its production to China! Ten other châteaux sold their vines, wines, even their châteaux to the Chinese. Huge profits were enjoyed by all. Everything was hunky-dory.

However, in 2014 the Chinese market simply closed. The curtain fell, boom, no one knows why, and sales stopped. The top châteaux must now be asking, where do we turn next? As if that weren’t enough, they are worried about life without Robert Parker. No one ever enriched the Bordeaux coffers more than he has for the past thirty-three years. I’m not sure why, but his presence in the wine market is not as gigantic as before.

Those two absences, the Chinese and Parker, could have an earthquake-like influence on Bordeaux and its wines. Prices are sure to come down, perhaps drastically. Maybe, hopefully, their winemaking recipe (singular, not plural) will change. The sameness of the taste of the classified growths dulls my palate and my spirit. It’s a downright shame. Shameful, too. Where is that impressively sinister, tannic bite that I used to love? Where the aromatic complexity? Where the vivid differences between the wines from one château to another? Where is a goût de terroir?

But what, me worry? When I go to Bordeaux, I don’t go to visit the famed estates. I go to visit vignerons. When a plutocrat or a bank or an insurance company or a dot-com firm buys a winery, they have no roots there. They don’t live there or work there. Mostly they hire someone out of enology school to come and apply the one-hundred-point recipe of the year. Bah, humbug!"

Kermit goes on to tell the story of producers that they carry, but wasn’t sure how to take the above. None of it is surprising - after multiple bad vintages many expected the Bordeaux bubble to burst, but it’s the first I’ve heard of the Chinese market simply shutting down. A significant price reduction (correction) would certainly be welcome on the prestigious classed growths, but we’ve really yet to see another high quality vintage (past 2010) on the market to gauge the next real market price. Not only that, but could we see some stylistic changes among the classed growths as Parker’s influences wanes?

Is this just Kermit adding some interest and commentary to his monthly newsletter or is this more substantive and real? I’m really not sure.

Since the anti-corruption push began in China with the “election” of Xi Jinping, conspicuous consumption is at a low point. Wine, cars, etc are all suffering in the Chinese market.

Plus economic growth has slowed there.

Here’s a story on the trend: Luxury Goods Sales Set to Fall in Russia and China (WSJ 10/14/14)

They deserve it (at least the top ones who gouged buyers).

I can’t feel one bit sorry for the top Bordeaux names having to drop their prices by 50-80% to compete with other markets discovered by their previous consumer base when they raised prices so high as to alienate that consumer base. I started out as a Bordeaux drinker. There will be the argument that the little guys may unnecessarily suffer but the little guys probably haven’t been able to cash in on the Bordeaux bubble the same way the big names have and pricing on their wines have not ballooned as much.

Pretty much the same way I feel about Uber taking away market share from cab companies.

Wonder if that means Burgundy will stop using the China excuse to raise prices.

I think he’s sharing what he heard & I don’t doubt what he wrote. The “life after Parker” thing seems palpable. Change is inevitable.

Yes, that must really loom over things in Bordeaux.

It’s funny that Kermit should make that point since Parker helped to make Kermit’s reputation outside the Bay Area with a glowing article on him in WA back in the 80s.

I didn’t really read him being negative about RMP, rather a market observation. just thinking about it- I can’t call to mind another critic who champions Bordeaux like Parker does.

Not necessarily negative (though I’m fairly confident Kermit isn’t a Parker fan). Just ironic since Parker also brought attention to Kermit – to his producers and the fact that he used refrigerated containers, which was not the norm in those days.

He also applauded Kermit for convincing his growers not to fine or filter and for promoting domaine bottling. Lots of references to Kermit in “Parker’s Wine Buying Guide”.

Yes, I was just going to add that.

I think Kermit is probably more upset about Michel Rolland’s influence in Bordeaux than Parker’s, when it comes to style.

I am not sure I agree with KL’s assertion, though, that top end BDX all tastes the same. I don’t see how anyone can say that a 2009 Margaux and 2009 Latour would taste anything alike. Just like Harlan and Schrader taste nothing alike. And I am not sure that the lack of “sinister tannins” are something most people miss. Generally speaking, most people don’t like to wait 10-20 years to drink what they have spend money on.

any one see “Red Obsession”? VINTAGE. That’s it, 11, 12 and 13 are not worth buying.

They’ve grown up and started reading vintage charts. This is not as economic as it sounds, as opposed to wine savvy.

Same difference.

One other thing you can’t forget is that Bordeaux hasn’t had a vintage of the century in a few years. Last one was what, 2010? Four whole years without having the best vintage of the last hundred years is bound to affect their sales somewhat.

I’ll have to see if I can conjure up a few tears for them.

Nope. Not happening.

It’s about time (some, not all) classed growth producers started getting realistic about their prices. I pretty much grew up drinking Bdx because of my father, but, the past several years, have materially shifted to Rioja and Burgundy* - not so much because of price-sensitivity, but due to my feeling that, with all due respect, prices were being abused. Nobody likes feeling like they’re being “taken for a ride”.

• So much so that some fellow founders of my country’s branch of the Commanderie de Bordeaux started commenting that I buy/drink so much less Bdx these days.

Best,

N

G-damn right.

Interesting that KL was in Bordeaux at all; in his book Adventures on the Wine Route, he notes, almost in passing, that when he got to Bordeaux he didn’t see any hills, which he considered essential to growing top quality grapes, so promptly left the region.

With Bordeaux, as in other wine regions, when things move to a more pure supply/demand and short term profit maximizing pricing model things go both ways. I don’t rejoice or or feel sad about either as there are always wine I love to drink from a variety of regions and price ranges. The changes “force” me to expand my vision and learn elsewhere.

Thread drift - I have a problem with this issue. Parker made his bones with the 1982 vintage. In the 1970s, Bordeaux was more the king than it is today. Luxury wines from other countries existed, but were rarely available, and even more rarely written about. I do not know the numbers, but I would bet that a higher portion of the “premium” wine category was Bordeaux in the 1970s than it is today. Portugal was Lancers and Mateus. Italy was cheap Chianti in Raffia bottles and Bolla. Germany was Blue Nun, Liebfraumilch and Moselblumchen. There were some good Cali producers, but they got no respect. Thus, I think for the Bordelais it is more the post-ignorance era brought on by the age of electronic information rather than the post Parker era. They just happen to coincide.