The Market

The gift (for yourself) that you didn’t realise you needed…

By billn on August 11, 2024 #the market#vines for sale


From the BIVB:

The Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) is organising a special auction of old appellation signs. After renewing all its signs in the vineyards in 2023, the BIVB is looking to give the former ones a second life. So do you want one?!

On Tuesday November 12, almost 600 signs, divided into 300 lots, will be auctioned on the website of www.drouot.com and/or www.interencheres.com.

This is a unique opportunity for you to acquire a souvenir bearing the effigy of your favorite appellation(s). Open to all, the sale will be conducted by auctioneers Jérôme Duvillard and Alexandra Chaillou-Weidmann.

“An exceptional auction featuring 600 appellation signs that adorned the vineyards for 20 years! 300 lots have been assembled around famous names, including Grand Cru, Village and Régionale appellations. Whether it’s the Grand Auxerrois, Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits, Côte Chalonnaise, Mâconnais and whether you’re a professional, an enthusiast or a lover of Bourgogne wines, one of these signs could find its place in your home or garden, or even at the heart of your business!

Sale details:
• 29 signs Grand Cru appellations (1.30 m x 0.6 m)
• 280 signs Regional or Village appellations (1.90 m x 0.4 m)
• 280 signs of “Bourgognes” (1.90 m x 0.4 m) and the “B” logo of Bourgogne wines (0.45 m diameter)

So in this case, you don’t even need to steal one !!
Good luck if you are interested 🙂

‘China to protect the Mâcon and Gevrey-Chambertin AOCs’

By billn on May 08, 2024 #the market

From the BIVB:

Bourgogne, 7 May, 2024

The Bourgogne wine industry welcomes the recognition of the protection of the Mâcon and Gevrey-Chambertin Appellations d’Origine Contrôlée (AOCs) in China.

Coinciding with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to France, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has published the protection decisions for the Mâcon and Gevrey-Chambertin Appellations d’Origine Contrôlées (AOCs).

This decision is the result of a long process that began in 2023. It should serve as a model for the subsequent registration of all the appellations in Bourgogne*.

“We can only be delighted. This registration is very good news for our AOCs and the progress made in terms of recognition of our rights. It is the fruit of exemplary cooperation between those involved in the Bourgogne wine industry (Confédération des Appellations et des Vignerons de Bourgogne, aka CAVB, and Bourgogne Wine Board, aka BIVB) and government departments (Institut National des Appellations d’Origine, aka INAO, Ministry of Agriculture, French Embassy in China)” commented together Thiébault Huber, President of the CAVB, and Laurent Delaunay, President of the BIVB.

“In our view, this is a first step, and these two appellations are models for a more general registration of all the Bourgogne appellations.”

There can be no doubt that this decision will give the leaders of the Bourgogne wine industry the weapons they need to better protect the rights of Bourgogne producers in China.

*Bourgogne wines count 84 AOC and several hundred Climats classified as AOC Village & Premier Cru.

Now it’s official – Domaine Pierre Vincent

By billn on April 25, 2024 #the market

I first got wind of this in early December but not having yet visited Leflaive I wanted to ask Pierre personally about it – that, and out of respect for Fabrice and Sophie who have been running the Domaine des Terres de Velle these last years. I do now have my appointment at Leflaive – but in another month!

But now we have a press release:

Domaine des Terres de Velle becomes Domaine Pierre Vincent
Pierre Vincent 2023 Domaine LeflaiveIn the beginning, this was a project born out of three men’s passion for wine and for Bourgogne: Hervé Kratiroff, Eric Versini and Pierre Vincent. A friendship that developed into a shared dream – of owning a wine estate in the Côte d’Or with exceptional Climats as found in the Côte de Beaune.

So when Domaine des Terres de Velle with its magnificent parcels and outstanding vines came on the market, the decision was quickly made in the face of such a rarity. And on 18 July 2023 the Solexia Group took possession of the Domaine des Terres de Velle at Auxey-Duresses. The three men were associates in this new adventure.

Domaine des Terres de Velle first came into being in 2009. Highly representative of a ‘Burgundian’ mosaic, it produced 16 wines each year from the fruit of 7 hectares situated in the most prestigious villages of the Côte de Beaune.

They included notably exceptional appellations such as Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru; Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru, Les Chaumées; Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru, Les Referts: Meursault Premier Cru, Les Charmes; Savigny-Lès-Beaune Premier Cru, Aux Vergelesses for the white. For the reds: Volnay Premier Cru, Le Ronceret and Monthélie Premier Cru, Les Duresses.”

It seems that Pierre will retain his position at Leflaive until the end of 2024.

The great burgundy firesale…

By billn on December 11, 2023 #the market

In some places it’s already happened but be prepared for the wider ripple !!

I’ve been expecting it to happen, and it now seems that there’s a chain of events underway that will be difficult to halt, or maybe even to slow down.

Burgundy Wine MarketFor a while now the price of burgundy wines has been so resilient that you would rightly wonder what might be required – in a geopolitical sense – to apply the brakes to this runaway pricing train.

The region like to point out that the average price for their wine is quite low; after I published their most recent key figures, Vice-President of the BIVB, François Labet commented “This is a real blow to those who constantly say that Burgundy is too expensive. More than 70% of Burgundy’s production includes wines costing less than €10 (in French supermarkets). It is true however that a good 10% is more expensive….. but it is a very small part of the whole production.

But life is more complicated than this view – as phrased.

I will not use the names of the traders or producers that have provided the following info, as we have no beef with anyone who tells it like it is – but maybe their colleagues might prefer that this stays, for the longest time, under wraps:

The high-value secondary market
A merchant who has business in this market confides, for a large part of this year the secondary market for ‘high-end’ wines has taken a tumble, there was no immunity even for the blue-chip producers – for instance, Rousseau and DRC – their wines are still selling and are still seen as ‘safe bets‘ but their actual sales prices have been trading at a discount of 30-40% of ‘sticker-prices.’

If that’s the case for blue-chips, what about the much talked about new names? I could use Bizot or Lachaux as examples – an auction contact in ‘Asia’ tells me that those wines are currently unsellable – at least, not with the reserve prices wished by the sellers – and that’s largely because those sellers already bought high!

In the current context of the fine wine market, you can look at it like any other investment; if you bought at release pricing, or invested a few years ago, you can still be very happy with the resale value of your wines – if that’s an important consideration for you. If you bought at or near the peak of pricing – ie in the last 1-2 years and need to convert that investment to hard cash, I believe the appropriate metaphor is – you will be taking a bath!

Outwardly, this is not visible if you scan the price lists of the major sellers of traded fine wine, and that’s because, ‘If we were to update our spreadsheets with the actual prices that have been traded in the last 3-6 months, we may have to write down our whole trading book by close to 50% – which will, of course, affect the valuations of our stocks and so our company too! Currently, our worst nightmare would be a client who came to us needing to urgently ‘liquify’ a large parcel of named wines – they certainly wouldn’t achieve half of what our pricelists indicate – assuming we can even find buyers!

As another contact puts it ‘The people with the money and the interest in these wines still have both but they can smell the blood in the water and seem pretty confident that they will be able to buy all these same wines in the very near future for a much smaller price than today!

Anyone who has listed some of their cellar with traders in the last year will recognise the paucity of transactions…

New wine coming onto the market
I have, for probably too long, been suggesting that a pricing correction is inevitable. I still think there is the possibility of even higher pricing for some sectors of the market where rarity is an important factor – but we have to talk about the bulk of burgundy wine – the 70% that is regional and villages wine.

We, and the region, are more than happy to have seen the delivery of two vintages with volume – 2022 & 2023. To the largest extent, neither of those two vintages are on the market yet but the January – sometimes December – ‘en primeur’ offers (of UK merchants) for the 2022s will be winging their way to your inboxes very soon.

2021 pricing jumped (again!) due to frost and a very low volume. 2022 has returned to a normal volume. So 2022 can be cheaper? Nope!

Whilst some domaines have indicated to me that they will not increase their 2022 prices – or may even reduce them a little – the vast majority of François Labet’s ‘70%’ will be based on the bulk pricing of wine: 2021 was a small volume vintage that followed 2 other small volume vintages (2019 & 2020) so the bulk wine of 2022 came onto the bulk market in the context of almost no stock – so increased in price again as people fought to have something to sell. But there is pushback:

  • Look at the new strategy of Artemis – owners of Château Latour and now Clos de Tart, Eugenie and Bouchard Père et fils; 80% of Bouchard’s production was a handful of, non-domaine, regional cuvées. In 2023 they refocus only on domaine wines – so the equivalent of millions of bottles of ‘Bourgogne’ have been released back into the bulk market – ie there is less bulk demand at the same time that there is more available wine.
  • Other large Beaune ‘maisons’ tell me that they have significantly cut their 2023 purchases on the bulk market, citing that they won’t be able to sell those wines at a profit.
  • Even exporters from the region are telling me that they are very pessimistic for the 2022 campaign to come ‘At village and regional level I haven’t been able to sell wine for 6 months but at the same time, some of our producers are preparing price increases for 2022!
  • One step closer to the consumer a UK importer told me that a well-known producer in the Côte de Beaune made a cuvée of Pouilly-Fuissé for them. In 2021 the price went up 25% – and the merchant understood and accepted – you can’t escape the frost and hail! When they came to talk about 2022 the producer was asking for an additional 30% – so the importer simply walked away.

Did I say that there was no stock? I should have been more precise – low stock in Burgundy.

Despite such a low volume vintage, you can still find plenty of 2021 on store shelves and from merchants in your region. This is an issue with the route to market for wine; the producers may successfully sell all their 2022 wine to agents/intermediaries and cavistes and assume that all is well – but if those wines don’t sell to the end-customers, those same agents/intermediaries and cavistes won’t be nearly so ready to buy any 2023s – so the producers have some period of insulation from the true market.

Here I can make parallels with Bordeaux: When I first moved to Switzerland in 2000, the wineshops were full of the 1997s – a modest yet more expensive vintage than the better received 1996s. The Bordelaise twisted the arms of their customers with the threat that there would be no allocations of the vintage with the magic number ie ‘2000’ if they didn’t also buy plenty of 1997. It was 5-6 years that those wines clogged up the Swiss supply chain – unloved and unsold – before we suddenly saw 50% discounts to move the seemingly unending stocks. Bordeaux soon became the watchword for expensive wine and lost much custom because if it – it was a reputation earned.

Reputations ‘Earned’
Today, the majority of Bordeaux is not that expensive – at least compared with the current pricing expectations of the Burgundians – but 20 years later, their reputation as ‘expensive’ endures – it was a reputation earned. You can also look at what bad Beaujolais Nouveau did to the market for Beaujolais’ best wines – another reputation earned. Is it too late for Burgundy to shake off the reputation for expensive? – have they earned that reputation? If they have, it will also hang around their necks for a generation…

Burgundy Wines – key figures 2023

By billn on November 13, 2023 #the market

2023 Burgundy Wine key figures

I’m not sure if I shared these with you (memory post-60 ;-)) anyway, I always find them fascinating – so just in case it slipped my mind:

HERE

2023 Volume!

By billn on November 11, 2023 #the market#vintage 2023

2023 Corton-Charlemagne
2023 Corton-Charlemagne

In Burgundy, 2023 production equalled the record reached in 2018, notably for white wine, while output was expected at a good level in Beaujolais despite some hail storms, it said.
Source: Reuters

Beaune’s Domaine Albert Morot changes hands…

By billn on October 14, 2023 #the market

Domaine Albert Morot

For as long as I can remember – certainly 15 years – whenever anyone asked me ‘who from Beaune makes the best Beaune wine?‘ my answer has been unchanging – Domaine des Croix and Domaine Albert Morot.

Of course these are two different styles of winemaking but they are honest and well made – one shows a bit more oak and the winemaking is a bit more traditional – but both offer a wide range of 1er crus and both have wines that sing after 10 years.

I’d heard the rumours from a friend before this year’s harvest but it was confirmed to me when I visited the domaine to taste their 2022s on Wednesday this week; I was greeted not just by Geoffroy Choppin de Janvry (right) – who I’ve known for about 20 years – but also Pierre-Jean Villa (left) of the Rhône – who you may remember from Decelle-Villa.

Pierre-Jean had quit his partnership with Decelle already a few years back but has returned with a bang as the face of the group that has bought Domaine Albert Morot. They promised me a press release for Thursday when the acquisition would become official – I’m still waiting for that but thought it timely to post this.

Geoffroy did the 2023 harvest but hasn’t been involved in the fermentation of these wines – but will remain at the domaine until the end of January.

Pierre-Jean explained “The plan is; you know it’s a domaine only with 1er cru wines, so we intend to have entry wines too – Bourgognes Rouge and Blanc. Apart from from a couple of wines – at least from 2022 – where we will, as was traditional here, bottle before Christmas – the rest of the wines will get longer elevage with bottling in the Springtime.

I believe that they are already planning updates to their marketing image/labels etcetera and we will see where this leads. I wish luck to all…

When I have their communiqué I will update these details

Things that have been announced but not yet finalised and things that have been finalised but not yet announced :)

By billn on July 18, 2023 #the market

It’s been about a week since the press release was set free into the wild but the Artémis Domaines and Domaines Barons de Rothschild Lafite have announced that they have entered into exclusive negotiations for the sale of Domaine William Fèvre from the former to the latter. A bit of a coup for the latter and I can’t help but feel a bit of a shame for the former. A shame? Well, it seems that they don’t value Chablis – one of the iconic wines of the world and they already have in their hands one of the greatest Chablis domaines – I’m sure DBRL will be very happy!

And things not yet announced? Well, the vineyard workers will always talk, won’t they?

It seems that my favourite domaine in Monthelie has a new owner – I suppose that the announcement is imminent but it seems that American couple – Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré – who, were also owners of Leclerc Briant in Champagne and more recently Domaine Belleville in Mercurey and the Château du Clos de la Commeraine are also the new owners of Domaine Monthelie Douhairet Porcheret.

I’m sure it’s not going to harm the quality of those excellent wines chez MDP – only the price that you might now be expected to pay for them 🙂

New owners of the Château d’Etroyes in Mercurey

By billn on April 26, 2023 #the market

News came out, yesterday, of the acquisition of the Château d’Etroyes by the Bollinger group of Champagne. As you will see, the actual Press Release (here) positions this more as an acquisition by Domaine Chanson of Beaune – who are, of course, Bollinger’s arm in the Côte d’Or.

Despite a production covering more than 50 hectares in the area of Mercurey & Rully, plus producing over 20 different cuvées – it’s a name that I confess to not having stumbled across – except for here – and I have one more!

I expect that this will change over the coming years, as this acquisition more than doubles the surface of vines of Domaine Chanson. I also expect that there are multiple synergies to be unravelled in the coming years.

A patchwork of history of the Château d’Etroyes
Whilst the château and some vineyard ownership dates from around 1720, the existing winery of d’Etroyes was founded in 1930 by François Protheau. Following the death of François in 1955, his son, Maurice, took over and expanded the family holdings – in the 1960s the domaine ran to ‘only’ 35 hectares – it was double that at its peak – though only 50 of those hectares were in the Côte Chalonnaise. After 50 years at the domaine, Maurice passed away in 2005, leaving the winery to his children Michelle, Martine & Philippe. The domaine and château had new owners in 2016 – the Helfrich family – who resold in 2018 before the chateau found its latest owners. There are some additional aspects to this transaction in that François Protheau had also a négociant operation with about 10 hectares of vines which produced Mercurey, Montagny and Rully – I’m unsure if this part of the business/vines is also part of the Chanson-Bollinger transaction, or whether they remain in the portfolio of the Côte d’Or’s François Martenot – i.e. the old Maison Béjot.

Burgundy Report

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