When will we see First Growth "spoofilation?"

Don’t get me wrong, I am fine with spoofifying things. Lots of wines come with fancier and fancier versions to maintain status and perhaps upwardly tweak their market prices.

Example: Champagne.

You’ve got yer Dom Perignon, but if you want ‘better’ Dom Perignon, you can kick it up to 11 and go for some Œnothèque. Now, if you wanna kick it up even more exclusive than Œnothèque had been, you can ball out and get P2.

So, Champagne has a built in and accepted ultra-special pathway. Bollinger and Krug are able to offer ‘upgrades,’ as well. To even higher levels with those two producers.

First Growth Bordeaux has second labels down below in the market, but it seems ripe, given their rather high production volumes, for ‘upgrading.’ You’d think there’d be room for even more special bottlings that would be priced above the regular offerings.

But, I don’t know how they’d pull it off without diminishing the perception of their regular top bottlings.

Do you think there is a niche for ‘Latour Especiale Tres Bon’ or ‘Château Haut-Haut-Haut-Brion?’ If they could do better, would you bite?

It’s gotta be coming, but how? What format could they use to make it happen?

Ask the Chinese

Seems very implausible to me that they would do something like this. Instead, they will just keep reducing the fraction of the crop in the Grand Vin, jack the Grand Vin prices up over $1,000 routinely, and try to promote their second wines as better than anyone else’s first wines so they can make their second wines more expensive than even the top Super Seconds.

Making something where they were basically saying that the Grand Vin wasn’t the best wine they could make would significantly degrade their brand, IMO. You won’t see DRC coming out with a “Turbo La Tache” and you’re not going to see Chateau Lafite coming out with “New Improved Super Lafite”. Their whole brand identity is based around their flagship cuvee already being the best of the best, so why would they suddenly voluntarily switch up to advertise their Grand Vin as second best even within their own production? It would be crazy I think.

It would be very anti-tradition to create “Lafite Super Reserve Ancient Vines” or the like, I agree. Never put it past them, but seems unlikely.

But I don’t think of that as “spoofilation,” I think of “spoofilation” as stuff like bringing in the RO machines, etc., so based on the title, and until I read the actual post, I was going to respond with “Haven’t they been doing so for years already?”

Because soon they will own the top chateaus? :wink:

I thought P2 was just the new name for Oeno and P3 was the even longer matured one.

I think they have already done this by putting more and more of their production into the second wines. The percentage of wine going into the second wine has gone way up since I was younger.

But, it is possible. Isn’t this essentially how le Pin was created - although not from first growths.

I think you are right.

I was imaging Rothschild doing things like Shafer and having ‘Mouton Old Sparky’ and just couldn’t see a trick like that working.

But, this was all motivated by the fascinating article someone posted about single vineyard vintage Champagne and I wondered about something like Mouton Rothschild “Philippe Block” or some such thing.

Cheers, thanks for a great take on it. [cheers.gif]

America’s First Growth, Ridge, did it: Monte Bello Steep Terraces and Monte Bello Historic Vines… I’d would be shocked if the First Growths did, but anything is possible.

In Bordeaux the Grand Vin is the best wine. Also, other wines from a classified growth would not be classified. So, simply put, no.

That’s crucial, isn’t it! Thanks for pointing that out.

There are examples in the Rhone of super cuvees that were created to “outrank” existing high-prestige wines: Chateau de Beaucastel - Hommage a Jacques Perrin and Chave’s Hermitage - Cuvée Cathelin. And those were created not that long ago.

They didn’t lose their appellation status, though.

There are different levels of “high prestige”. Before Parker got hold of it, the Rhone, especially the Southern Rhone, was seen as a sort of midranking bourgeois region, so even the best Rhones were not seen as ultra high end. The Rhone super cuvees were IMO meant to capitalize on the new cachet Parker created for the region and produce something for the new ultra high end market opening up for them. The Bordeaux first growth situation is totally different, those wines had practically defined the high end in red wines for centuries. No reason to step on their own prestige.

Thomas Jefferson wasn’t raving about Beaucastel in his diaries 250 years ago.

You never know, there seems to be quite a bit he left out of his diaries.

I basically agree with your take, Marcus. But by the time those two cuvees were created circa 1989, Beaucastel and Chave were at the top of the pecking order in the Rhone, so the risks entailed by creating those special cuvees were somewhat similar.

I thought the 2015s were starting to push 15% abv.

Perfectly stated.

When considering the prospects of the first growths doing a luxury cuvee, the best cautionary tale I know of is Domaine Roumier. In 1988, four barrels of the Bonnes-Mares were selected for a special Vieilles Vignes bottling. Granted, at the time Roumier was below the radar for the average wine consumer, but very much in the highest esteem among burgundy aficionados.

Christophe Roumier has been quoted on the decision after the fact many times, “Never again.”

I would hold back a fraction of each vintage’s production and then release at the 10 year and 20 year anniversary. The bottles would have a different label certifying the provenance and the aging at chateau. Higher price for the same wine…

Improper use of the term spoofilation, as creating a higher end cuvee would likely just involve a more strenuous selection process and a fancy bottle. Spoof is doing things like adding megapurple.

This is the way to go and they are already doing it, most notably at Latour. Guarantee provenance and take advantage of any auction escalation in prices since release. Crucially, allows you to manipulate the initial release price upward by reducing the supply.

I think the first growths long term ideal is something like – grand vin/flagship at $1,500/bottle with artificially maintained scarcity and periodic direct from chateau anniversary releases. Second wines at $300++ a bottle (like FGs used to be), in a tier clearly above super seconds. A long tail of associated third, fourth, fifth etc. wines (e.g. “Paulliac de Chateau Latour” etc.) that use the branding but offer different prices for different markets.

But it’s difficult to make this work in the face of the massive supply of Bordeaux from top chateau that are not FGs but can compete on quality in good years, and the difficulty in coordinating across multiple first growths. Classic problem of monopoly power being limited in the face of substitutes. I am priced out of the grand vin for first growths but wouldn’t buy a second wine – personally I don’t view the QPR for the second wine of a first growth as anything close to the QPR for the first wine of a good super second and I suspect there are many like me.