Ah, Panos, you do not understand. Jeffois’ squeaky little ego demands that HE be the bearer of all such news, and when he is scooped by you or Lempert-Schwartz, his petty, knee-jerk reaction is to denigrate your content. Shame on you, Jeffy, you little ITB pimp, you! Maybe your BORING Asimov interview or lame coverage of the Parker-Galloni litigation caused you to miss this golden opportunity to break the Figeac-as-Frankenwine-to-be story!
Thanks for the explanation!
Bill, I do not see Jeff denigrating my content… And I do not take any credit for this news per se as it was already apparently published on the Parker board last week, and then there was a Tweet from John Gilman. I first heard about it on Facebook. In any case, tis true that Jeff and I do not always agree about wines - now that would be truly boring. Jeff is a good man who is passionate about the wine he likes, although he does not generally like Burgundy, which I find a bit nuts 
. But occasional polemics make life interesting 
.
Here by the way is my initial “take” on this story, with several relevant links, including an earlier “opposite case” at Latour Martillac, which used to have Michel Rolland as a consultant but has since hired Denis Dubourdieu for their reds, since the 2006 vintage. I really think that this is a big wine news story, in that it signifies a small sea change in the world of Saint Emilion implicating a high profile château with a specific style and unique terroir (for Saint Emilion) and a talented international winemaker with a different style. We should not put any carts before the horses. Because Figeac has so much Cabernet, which is harder to make “ultra ripe” than Merlot, it will be interesting to see how the wines might change with Michel Rolland consulting.
http://www.connectionstowine.com/bordeaux/michel-rolland-chateau-figeac/
You are right, my sincere apologies. Somehow I was in CT on Pape Clement, not Figeac. And I can’t even blame wine - there was no drinking last night as I had to pick up my daughter at the airport at midnight. I should have known your fairly amazing memory for ratings would not have allowed this mistake. Again, apologies.
PS. I was kind of surprised at your (wrongly attributed) ratings, as I’m not a Figeac fan, and they seemed way too high. Again, sorry for the mis-attribution.
It’s no surprise to see who posts what here as agin all of our own preferences in wine come into play. I obviously tend to like “bigger” wines than many posting here. I don’t know if it use “boring” to describe Figeac as Jeff said, but for MY preferences they missed the mark on some vintages where I didn’t think such was necessary. But a large part of this was their style and the related tendency to harvest quite early. 2000 is a classic example to me.
I will say that Jeff makes interesting point in asking if those of you that decry the change have bought the wine over the past 10 vintages. It seems to me that SOME of the people that rail against “these” wines are not necessarily bordeaux enthusaists anymore. My point is, right or wrong, Figeac is now $240+ per bottle. So that is obviously their target audience. The fact is that the preferences of group that will buy Figeac at $240, may be different than those that will/have bought at $100 (adjusted). I wonder if some of you that liked the pre-2000 Figeac (and they have already chnaged over the past half-dozen years without Rolland) would pay them $200 if they bottled the wine as you like it?
My initial reaction to the change was that, even though I will probably like the Rolland changes, in the big world of wine it might be nice for there to remain a wide variance in styles and the IPOB camp need some bordeaux to drink. But Figeac would have to be able to sell the wine at their target price to justify the choice of style. Yes they could lower the price significantly, but that probably isn’t in the cards.
I think what is interesting about it, is that despite many threads on this board about Parker’s waning influence, here is someone who looked at the recent classification and realized how closely the promotions were tied in to the high Parker points. As a result he decided that if he wanted the promotion, he needed to make similar wines, hence his decision to go with Rolland. It will be interesting to see what comes out of it; I am not quite ready to say Kaddish yet.
Oh please. First you condescend to Figeac fans, wondering if they’re actually buying it, while calling it boring. Then you want to claim that hey, it’s cool, can’t we all like different things?
Your first point implied that no one who buys it would actually like it.
A little myopic.
I think Figeac is one if the most misunderstood wines in Bordeaux for a variety of reasons that beguiles a linear narrative. I find this to be very sad news as I’m in The camp that all things Rolland/Parkerised will lead to inferior wines at age 30+ which is where Figeac truly shines.
Clearly this is a move for PGCC A status; a move that I believe Mssr Manoncourt would have eschewed. For shame.
Absolutely not
L O L
To me it appears that Figeac owners implicitly recognize that the quality of the Grand Vin was not at the level expected for a Top Grand Cru. I’m not sure that the late Thierry Manoncourt would have approved. I find quite sad the recent evolution of Figeac :
1/ Prices get a tremendous boost with the 2009 vintage
2/ they follow the same trend with the 2010 vintage without convincing
3/ figeac does not get the holly grail following the revisited St Emilion classification
4/ owners decide to hire a new consultant to become 1st growth within a 10y time.
As greedy as you could be…
Pretty interesting for me to see what looks like more negative feedback than positive on where Figeac may be headed.
There is no doubt in my mind that Rolland will seriously raise the quality of wine here.
I do feel a bit sorry for those Bordeaux Lovers that liked Figeac’s historically “Classic” slightly underripe reds, trending to the herbaceous side, with a backbone of not overly rich/ripe tannin, & usually of no more than medium intensity (although the '09 was nice), since Rolland will undoubtedly alter this style.
I’m excited to see what Figeac can be under Rolland, with more intensity, richer/riper fruit, & bigger/softer/richer tannins. I think we can all agree it’s not too shabby a terroir.
Maybe 20 years in the future, or so the positive legacy of Ribereau-Gayon, Peynaud, & Rolland will be more appreciated & respected.
There is absolutely no doubt we’re in the most golden of Golden Ages of top quality fine wine.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Still, something is unclear to me: the “premier grand cru classe A” status is not awarded by merchants, collectors, or professional tasters like Parker. It’s a jury of local guys /expertd who should normally know better than anybody else the differences from a terroir to another. In 50 years of Manoncourt era, Figeac has not be elevated to the cult level wine and I did not see any critic stating that a particular vintage was a legendary wine that deserved a better status, but i’m maybe blind or at least short sighted… Would it just possible that Figeac does not own the terroir of a 1st A growth ? A wine consultant is not a magician, he will just give a few piece of advice but wont learn people of Figeac how to make wine…
Emmanuel
I really don’t think there is much doubt that Figeacs is one of top terroirs of st. Emilion and at least as good asPavie and probably better than Angelus. They have been making gloriously unfashionable wine that is far less ripe than the two who did get promoted.
The problem with this is:
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The wines are not consistent. You have extraordinary success’ such as 1982, 1995, 1998, 2005 and 2009. But you occasionally have a clunker; I prefer the 2000 to many others here, but can see why they dislike the wine.
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St. Emilion has changed- and the riper wines that can be drunk in ten years or so are the new paradigm. Figeac makes wonderful wines but they are not as user friendly, and they really need to be cellared for decades. I know Panos also has tasted some of the old Figeacs from the 1940s and 1950s, and they are magnificent.
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Whoever did the tasting followed Parker’s scores almost completely. The promotions were in line with the scores, and the wineries adjusted the prices, and sold for a lot more, another factor, taken into account by the committee. Figeacs has fought the good fight, but alas, there comes a time when they realized that their style of winemaking was a tough sell in the 21st century.
The fact that the wines are not consistent, is this something that figeac owners admit ? Or do they say that their wine is only for the patients and it will reveal following decades of cellaring ?
What you call inconsistency, is this the result of wine making or terroir ? By hiring Michel Rolland, owners seem to acknowlege that the problem is wine making. But afficionados of Figeac never complained about that before.
To me, it just proves that these guys are obsessed with the prestige and brand and not with the idea of terroir and wine identity.
A few months ago, there was a rumor in the French newspapers stating that LVMH (Bernard Arnault) had made an offer to Figeac owners. I would not be surprised to see figeac put on the block following a couple of good tasting notes from Parker. What a nice equity story to sell to potential investors: “an outstanding terroir well positioned to access to the first growth status following X years of restructuring”.
For me this is a purely academic discussion. I love Figeac and its restrained style. It’s a classic St. Em. I would hate to see the style change to accommodate the whim of the day. Realistically for me, though, I am not willing to pay $250+ for Bordeaux these days. There are plenty of fantastic Bdx in the under $100 class, or if I need my Figeac funk on, I’ll keep buying more wonderful Chinons, the best of which are all under $50.
My only hope is that Figeac doing this does not cause the last hold-outs to sell-out. The style pendulum swings two ways, and eventually comes back. Just yesterday I bought a pair of Sperry topsiders. Remember those? They are back.
For some of us Robert, they never left.