06 Bordeaux, Time to send a message?

Of course.
But your original comment wasn't about your options, it was about how the vintner should price his wines. That means someone else has to be the ultimate judge of when a wine is "only half as good" and I'm here to tell you that the vintners in Burgundy and Bordeaux will NEVER agree that any vintage is "only half as good" as another. They are like parents--all their children are beautiful. And they are sometimes fonder of the child who is a little slower, a little more timid, a little harder to raise.

Let him put his wine out there at the cost he needs to survive and make more wine, while living comfortably. Then let the marketplace decide if it's enough or not.

Jenise, I cannot deny the logic of what you say about putting it out there to let the market decide.

However, has there ever lived a wine maker, or grape grower, or vintner of any sort, from anywhere, that can not tell that is current vintage is not up to the usual quality of his wines? Maybe I am being naive, but it seems to me that if I had a product that I knew was faulty that was obviously not of the quality I would want my product to be, regardless of the reason for the lack of quality, I would not risk damaging my reputation by increasing prices (or even holding the price steady) from the level I sold the excellent product for.

When I make a comment like my first in this thread, it was just an opinion, and was probably not clearly expressed, but my opinion never the less. Let me give you a scenario and ask a question. Lets say you buy a bottle of XYZ wine that you are familiar with, and one that you usually buy a few of every year. The last you bought cost you $35 per, now you see that the next vintage is out and on the shelf. So, knowing the wine (if not the vintage) you pick up a couple bottles and the wine now costs you $40 per. a few weeks pass and you decide to try one of the two so you can decide whether you might want a couple more. You open the wine and you find a thin, weedy, wine with little if any of the fruit you are used to in the wine. Hmmm, you say, I don't think this wine is corked, but I am not getting much from it, so you open the second bottle and find it identical to the first. Do you smile and say (to yourself) something like "well, Joe the wine maker made the best wine he could make from the fruit he grew, and he needed the $40? If you do, then you and I are as different as day and night. If I saw that kind of (chicanery?) I would probably write that winemaker off my list off wines to buy, and I might not revisit the label again. There are too many wines in the world for me to spend that kind of money and find little if any satisfaction from the wine.

[Jenise]

that can not tell that is current vintage is not up to the usual quality of his wines?

Here we go again. "Usual quality" according to who? Just for instance, I know a Bordeaux winemaker who believes me made a far better wine in 2001 than in 2000. Parker disagreed and awarded the '01 five points less. But Parker likes big fruit and my winemaker acquaintance prefers traditional claret austerity. He couldn't get as much for his 2001, though he believes it will ultimately prove to be the more elegant wine, and elegance is what he craves. You would require that he instead bow to Parker pressure to produce more flamboyant wines or price his wines less according to a standard that's not his own. My, would he have words for you!

Maybe I am being naive, but it seems to me that if I had a product that I knew was faulty

Faulty? We weren't talking about faults, we were talking about vintage variations. Vintage variations are not faults. If you think they are then we have a core disagreemtn that makes all further discussion moot.

I would not risk damaging my reputation by increasing prices (or even holding the price steady) from the level I sold the excellent product for.

I'm the farmer again: X is how much it costs to make the wine. Y is how much money I need to support my family and maintain this crumbling old Chateau. X + Y = how much I'm going to charge for the wine. Whether that's up or down from last year, or up or down in your currency because your dollar's in the toilet, ain't my problem.

Let me give you a scenario and ask a question. Lets say you buy a bottle of XYZ wine that you are familiar with, and one that you usually buy a few of every year. The last you bought cost you $35 per, now you see that the next vintage is out and on the shelf. So, knowing the wine (if not the vintage) you pick up a couple bottles and the wine now costs you $40 per. a few weeks pass and you decide to try one of the two so you can decide whether you might want a couple more. You open the wine and you find a thin, weedy, wine with little if any of the fruit you are used to in the wine. Hmmm, you say, I don't think this wine is corked, but I am not getting much from it, so you open the second bottle and find it identical to the first. Do you smile and say (to yourself) something like "well, Joe the wine maker made the best wine he could make from the fruit he grew, and he needed the $40? If you do, then you and I are as different as day and night.

YUP. I do. Finally we agree on something. I don't presume it's "chicanery", I don't take it personally. Unless I know otherwise, I presume they're doing the best they can. My costs this year are higher than last, why would theirs not be?

I would probably write that winemaker off my list off wines to buy, and I might not revisit the label again.

That is your right. They won't miss you.

And let me sign off with a story: years ago I had a mentor in wine who was both a distributor and importer, who had a huge collection of Domaine Romanee Conti (his favorite wines in the world) and tasted at the winery every year. When the 92 came in, I tasted the entire line. All I knew of DRC was the rich ripe opulent '90 vintage, and I thought the 92's were thin and uninteresting. I didn't buy any, and when some afficionados on the original Compuserve Wine Forum far more expert than me opined that this iconic Chateau should never have risked their reputation by releasing that horrible, horrible vintage, I thought I had evidence to agree and I parroted that for years. Well, over a decade later, in spite of the fact that I'd since left that faulty vintage nonsense in the past, I never revised my opinion re the 92 DRCs and I made the mistake of parroting that again here on WLDG in front of no less than Mr. Claude Kolm. Well, you may think I'm being tough with you, but it does not even come close to the slapping I got from Claude, and rightly so. The wines had apparently evolved beautifully. Was a 'great' vintage? A legendary vintage? No, and that's beside the point. They made the best wine they could under the circumstances, and those wines had plenty of appeal to offer those with foresight and patience.

Bob, no winery has the ability or the obligation to make sure that every bottle of every vintage you open is going to taste exactly the way you expect it to be when you decide to open it. No wait, there is one: it's called Gallo Hearty Burgundy.

[I am very happy to have a decent Bordeaux cellar that could meet my wants until I myself 'am more than a little "bricking around the edges"! Which of course doesn't mean I won't keep an eye out for those bargains Jenise promises...Hey, a decent cellar is a nice thing to leave one's kids, right?

I likewise have built a Classed Growth cellar to meet my needs until the age when my taste buds probably won't care what I drink (except I have read recently that one's olfactory capability does not diminish all that much with age). My strategy now is seeking out lesser-name Cru Bourgeois to drink two to one against Classed Growths. It's a wonderful strategy in that these "lesser" properties have gotten much better with modern technology and when I do drink a "better" wine, it tastes much better than Classed Growths used to when I drank them predominantly.

I passed on the kids; however, when I tried to interest nieces and nephews in fine wine - and then, later, every pretty young girl I met, with the idea of leaving whatever was left to any one of them, it didn't take (I think I will Will it to the Albany homeless for the fun of the idea [while I am alive] that the gesture will probably make the local news). I think it is as rare to have a kid follow your interest in wine as it is to find such an interest in a neighbor, or co-worker, which I have yet to have happen.

Then I must count myself a lucky man. Not only does my wife appreciate my interest in wine, but so do both of my daughters, though their tastes differ quite a bit. Additionally, one of my co-workers has an appreciation that exceeds my own.

Now, if only I could afford to buy something better than I can...

I'm the farmer again: X is how much it costs to make the wine. Y is how much money I need to support my family and maintain this crumbling old Chateau. X + Y = how much I'm going to charge for the wine.

Jenise, do you really believe that this is always the case? That few, if any, winemakers instead charge whatever the market will bear, whatever the quality? That seems unlikely to me.

Jenise, with this, my last on the subject, I really think that it might just come down to money. I can't and you can., so we may as well let this thing die a peaceful death. It seems to me that you are saying that no matter what the wine is like it is alright, and I say I ain't buying either the wine or the philosophy.

But your original comment wasn't about your options, it was about how the vintner should price his wines. That means someone else has to be the ultimate judge of when a wine is "only half as good" and I'm here to tell you that the vintners in Burgundy and Bordeaux will NEVER agree that any vintage is "only half as good" as another. They are like parents--all their children are beautiful. And they are sometimes fonder of the child who is a little slower, a little more timid, a little harder to raise. .

I disagree. I've met dozens of winemakers/owners from Bdx and Burgundy, and can't remember one who had ANY problem declaring favorite vintages. Can you name me one Burgundy producer who won't say his 2005s or 2002s aren't better than his 2004s or 2000s (excluding statements the months that those were mostly for sale, and I'm excluding the big taste/locality difference vintages of 2001 and 2003)? Or a Bdx producer who names his 1997 as equal to his 2000? Or his 1984 equal to his 1982? Any one?

Surely, any producer can cite the virtues of any vintage. But that doesn't mean they declare them "equal."

This has nothng to do with outside arbiters. It also has nothing to do with costs. Part of recent increases in US has to do with weak dollar, but a big part has to do with price boosts due to "great vintages." But, if like virtually every winemaker in Bdx and Burgundy, you reserve the right to raise prices in great vintages, shouldn't that by implication mean you should lower prices in less-great vintages?

I've never had a problem with drinking '97 Bordeaux. Still don't. But the release prices were ridiculous. I for one don't pay as much for a pleasant early drinking vintage ('97) as I do for a wine that is classic and structured ('96 LB).

I do understand though Jenise that you are just playing the devil's advocate....aren't you?

Of course I am, but I was also serious about who gets to be the arbiter of good in your case. I'm fine if it's the farmer. But if it's anyone else, or if it's based on some kind of vintage generalization which may have nothing to do with a given product, then forget it. Or to put it another way, I'm pretty comfortable with supply and demand: if there's not enough demand, the prices will come down. If there's strong demand, prices will go up. I say, let them!

I think that there are Mars and Venus perceptions in this dynamic. Mars guys swagger around in a world of bargaining, where one person wins and the other loses. Venerians identify more with both sides, and part of the enjoyment of wine is putting herself in the wine maker's shoes, understanding the property, tasting the effort in the glass, respecting the terroir's struggle, feeling compassion with passion and a certain sense of completeness in the wine experience, which takes in all the past and all the future, easy vintages and hard.

[Jenise]

I'm the farmer again: X is how much it costs to make the wine. Y is how much money I need to support my family and maintain this crumbling old Chateau. X + Y = how much I'm going to charge for the wine.

Jenise, do you really believe that this is always the case? That few, if any, winemakers instead charge whatever the market will bear, whatever the quality? That seems unlikely to me.

Isaac, oh they absolutely do to a large extent--no one wants to be poor. And a lot of producers are not farmers but large corporations, and their wine is simply a product. They charge whatever they think they can. And such is the American marketplace, anyway, that the more the wine costs the more prestigious the wine, so there's additional incentive to charge the most you can.

But Bob wasn't talking about corporations, he was talking about the winemaker who individually sets the price of his wine. And I've known a few of them, and the equation's more complicated than I represented and there's peer pressure and concern for long-time customers if he raises his prices involved in all that, but yeah, that's kind of how many of them think.

[David M. Bueker]

Just remember that the Bordelais really don't care what 8 people on the WLDG think. They are not having a problem selling their wines. If they ever do have a problem then prices will fall. But failing that this is all so much tilting at windmills.

Just remember that the Bordelais really don't care what 8 people on the WLDG think. They are not having a problem selling their wines. If they ever do have a problem then prices will fall. But failing that this is all so much tilting at windmills.

Tilting at windmills huh? David, is there something not right about tilting at windmills? Or even in posting an opinion or a feeling on a subject? even though it may be misinformed. I say buy any wine you want to, and smack your lips if you like it. if you don't like it, and it is 180 degrees out of alignment with the historical quality of the wine, call it a bad wine, or a poorly made wine, or a wine not worth the money it cost, heck even call it a ripoff, or call it however you want to call it. I call it a bad wine, and I can not believe there is one amongst us that has not done so at some point in time. I call it a bad wine, I know some who post on this board and other boards who would call it a four letter word.

[David M. Bueker]

Just remember that the Bordelais really don't care what 8 people on the WLDG think. They are not having a problem selling their wines. If they ever do have a problem then prices will fall. But failing that this is all so much tilting at windmills.

Tilting at windmills huh? David, is there something not right about tilting at windmills? Or even in posting an opinion or a feeling on a subject? even though it may be misinformed. I say buy any wine you want to, and smack your lips if you like it. if you don't like it, and it is 180 degrees out of alignment with the historical quality of the wine, call it a bad wine, or a poorly made wine, or a wine not worth the money it cost, heck even call it a ripoff, or call it however you want to call it. I call it a bad wine, and I can not believe there is one amongst us that has not done so at some point in time. I call it a bad wine, I know some who post on this board and other boards who would call it a four letter word.

Bob,

Three things:

1. You have not tasted the 2006 Bordeaux, so do not make judgements about their quality. You sound presumptuous, if not worse. (If you have tasted them I apologize in advance, but I sorely doubt you have.)

2. Whatever you think of what I said, it changes nothing. The Bordelais still care less than 0 what we say here, and as far as the worldwide market for Bordeaux, we are not even a drop in the bucket.

3. I was posting my opinion. Deal with it.

Hi David, Sorry if I sounded as if I were being pointed toward you. I did not mean it that way. And I was not talking about any particular vintage 2006 or otherwise. My whole thrust was that if the quality is down, then IMO the price should be too. in years past, it was.

[David M. Bueker]

No problem Bob.

The thing is that quality is never down the way it used to be. There are no more 1992s in Bordeaux's future unless something truly tragic happens with the weather. The standard of winemaking and the rigor in selection of healthy grapes is so much higher that quantities may be down, but quality will rarely suffer too much.