DRC juice from Petits Monts. Where does it go?

WINE TALK
1

Roche de Bellene? Laurent? Le Moine? Other? Or is this a ‘Fight Club’ thing?

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Peter,
In an appropriate year, I bet in the VR Duvault-Blochet. Otherwise, I think you are right about fight club.
It seems that Mounir Saouma has some connection on occasion that might allow him to pick up a few things that they don’t use. Where this stuff goes isn’t really common knowledge and I am not sure DRC really wants anyone to know. I would have no idea for sure.

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I figured it was Screaming Eagle. :wink:
TIC,
Peter

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Well, if/when it doesn’t end up in their own 1er, and if somebody did said it it out loud, and correctly, you can be pretty sure that AdV would move the contract. They prefer discretion…

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Yep, makes sense. Fight Club. Given the mystery/rumors around some of the Potel ‘Gaudichots’ bottlings, I thought maybe some of the same would be around the Roche de Bellene ‘Petits Monts’…

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I don’t want it to look like I was outing Mounir. I wasn’t and don’t want it to look like that. I don’t have any idea where this goes. My point was that this is a pretty secret thing. Most likely it goes to a negociant. They all have their connections. Just making a clarification.

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Why is it that there is so much secrecy in the business of selling grapes in Burgundy? Is it that the seller (DRC in this case) doesn’t want others knocking on the door offering higher bids? Whether it is logical or not, it seems if the sources were known in many cases prices of the final bottlings would be driven even higher and this would then benefit both the grower and the producer.

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Well Rick, if you you know that ‘a’ is a seller of grapes, you can knock on the door and offer a higher price, and keep knocking until they accept - pretty simple. I remember when M&M set up as a négoce in Aloxe, they thought it would be a good idea to give lots and lots of information on their labels, including the name of the grower they bought their grapes from. Good grower, good marketing - no?

Unfortunately they lost a bunch of these contracts very quickly because those growers were targeted by those willing to pay much more than ‘market’. It’s one thing guessing that a grower might be selling, it’s something else to know ‘definitely’.

The second aspect of this is that it actually drives price increases if people get a whole new bunch of higher bids every year, bypassing the traditional, discrete courtier…

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Thanks Bill. I figured as much.

Ok, off to yoga…

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For the older vintage, no idea. Meadows reported that since vintage 2008 the compostion of DRC -1er cru changed :

*** in 2008, the composition has changed and includes the six grandscrus and the premiers crus of Gaudichots, Petits Monts and Au Dessus des Malconsorts.

Gerhard reported and posted : as far as he is concerned …since vintage 2004.

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Worth keeping in mind that just because a negociant buys DRC Petits Monts doesn’t mean they aren’t also buying Petits Monts from others, so you couldn’t be sure you were getting a DRC wine even if you were able to ID the buyer.

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And according to both Jacques Lardière and Véronique Drouhin, half of PM is not at the level of the rest :wink:

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The better question is who gets all the RSV DRC doesn’t bottle.

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???

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For this I credit Steen Ohman’s excellent article on the history and owners of RSV: Romanee-Saint-Vivant - the wines, domaines and negociants

Who is selling Romanee-Saint-Vivant to negociants

The list above suggest that others than the Poisot family is selling grapes to the negociants. In some years quite a lot of different negociants are making Romanee-Saint-Vivant.

Normally the domaines don’t publish details about selling grapes of to negociants. But looking at the vineyard map, one source seems quite obvious – Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

According to Allen Meadows only 66% to 75% of DRC’s Romanee-Saint-Vivant reach the final cuvee from DRC. He concludes the rest must be sold off to negociants. If this is true, then 4000 – 6000 negociant bottles of Romanee-Saint-Vivant originates from Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in the vintage 2009. If some of the grapes from RSV are used in the Vosne-Romanee 1er cru Duvault-Blochet, then this number could be significantly lower.

Still it’s fair to assume that quite a lot of the negociant Romanee-Saint-Vivant is from the DRC vineyards. Please note that according to Allen Meadows, one plot of DRC’s Romanee-Saint-Vivant is never used in the final cuvee – due to the quality/nature of the terroir.

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My guess is : the declassied RStV does to 1er when 1er was releasded. When no 1er was releasesd…to … [smileyvault-ban.gif]

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When was the last time they didn’t make the 1er Cru? 00? 98? Something like this?

This smells like a wive’s tale, but I could be really wrong.

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It was widely rumored on the boards that Potel was getting the chunk of RSV that DRC never uses. I must say I always found the Potel RSV disappointing for the vineyard, which might explain why DRC didn’t use it.

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Precisely. Why should we care where it goes? Just because DRC owns it doesn’t make it ‘special’. If it were, wouldn’t AdV make wine from it himself?

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All based on price. If the Potel version is $150 per, then worth buying to see if the juice seems like DRC juice. If $600 per, not worth it!