Primeur week craziness has set in. I have also just moved apartments and am relying on wifi in cafes until get internet connected, so bear with me...
Press dinner at Guiraud last night, off to Pessac Leognan tastings today.
Seem to be conspicuously less buyers here than usual, but some good suprises about the quality - and there are a lot of French supermarkets out in force, no doubt hoping to take advantage of more flexibility on pricing, no matter what the chateau owners are saying right now.
Go to Decanter.com today for their Parker story... I am sure their annual april fool. last year they did one about Paris Hilton becoming the new face of Bordeaux campaign, and it was their most read story of the year!
I also sent this story over to them yesterday, hopefully will go up today:
The 2007 vintage is likely to be strong for the traditional markets of France and Europe, and for emerging markets such as China, according to initial comments from the en primeur week in Bordeaux.
‘This will certainly not be a speculative vintage,’ assessed Saint Emilion owner and merchant Jean Luc Thunevin at his annual tasting, ‘which means that US and to some extent UK buyers will be less interested. But this opens the market for those looking for drinking wines.’
Fabrice Matysiak, buyer from French supermarket group Auchan, told decanter.com, ‘We are confident that this year they will be room for negotiations. Even if chateaux do not want to bring down their prices, they may be more willing to move on payment terms, or other rewards for buying in volume.’
Chinese buyers in particular are in Bordeaux not just for the purchase of 2007 futures, but also to buy wines that are already in bottle – namely prestigious vintages such as 2005 – that can be delivered in time for this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
Ida Huang, a buyer who sells to high value hotels, restaurants and individual clients in Beijing and Shanghai, said, ‘There is a lot of expectation in China this year across all industries to benefit from the Olympic Effect. We are looking to buy twice as much en primeur as last year, to meet higher long-term demand, but we are also looking for ready-to-deliver wines to cater for the greater demand that the Olympics are creating.’
The Chinese market entered into top 10 for Bordeaux exports for the first time in 2007, both volume and value, an increase of 82% on 2006 in volume and 158% in value to 45 million euros.
