Thought this might be relevant .
Too much wine/grapes in France.
There are many different layers of Bordeaux, and the problems outside of the top couple of hundred wines have been festering for years. Families who have made wines for generations, were holding on in the vain hope that things will get better, and they never did. It’s tragic, and I feel for them, the generation that lost the family patrimony.
When we talk about Bordeaux, it’s short for the top wines, the ones that have world wide demand. With so much great wine competing, there is a huge amount of well priced interesting wines to choose from. Unlike Burgundy, where quantities are much smaller.
Burgundy has a mystique that I have never quite understood. There is a sense that there are a few wines that transcend any other sensory experience. Of course those wines happen rarely, in fact almost never, but has led to an incredible thirst to try and find them. A few of the threads here show the angst created by this. “The next new great Burgundy “ “the I know it’s Burgundy but…” threads. I did a double take when a Griotte Chambertin from Duroche, a grower I like was offered north of $4000 in Commerce Corner. No reflection on the offer, it was the right price, but God, who drinks four grand wines, arguably from a second tier producer?
Given one category to drink, it would be Bordeaux-not even close. I have had those transcendent experiences in the last year probably half a dozen times (VCC 1949 and 1953, Trotanoy 1961, La Tache 1972, Tremblay Chapelle 2008 and a Keller TBA). No need to buy Burgundy to find those wines.
It’s all about supply and rarity. Do I think that Petrus is better than Latour? No, but there is a lot less of it. The tiny amount of great Burgundies drives the market. And of course that fictitious canard that only Burgundy can produce the seeing angels experience.
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My sentiments 100%
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Interesting about your recent great experiences with ‘49 and ‘53 VCC, I had a phenomenal ‘64 VCC recently, as good as any Pomerols that I have ever come across.
Mark, I think that’s a conflation of market pricing vs trends. There’s no question that the pricing of certain Burgundies are driven by their rarity, but this is equally true in other less trendy regions - Le Pin isn’t getting any cheaper despite Bordeaux being less trendy than Burgundy.
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Yeah, but is it not the other way around? Not sure if there is a particular trend to Burgundy, but a trend to fine wine and ever more rich people and fine wine lovers and just because there is less Burgundy prices have increased more and people conflate that with Burgundy being more in trend.
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No, I think that’s wrong. Take a look at how Champagne is moving more and more from blending to single vineyard expressions* - just about everyone in Champagne is more interested in expressing terroir. There are more single vineyard cuvees in the northern Rhone too. As William has mentioned, the conversation in wine at the moment is fundamentally based on a Burgundian conception - terroir rather than estate.
*To be clear, I don’t think there’s any reason for Champagne to be made in blends vs single vineyards - that Champagne used to be a mostly blended product is just a historical artifact of the commercial pressures of making Champagne, not a conscious choice made in consideration of the quality of the product.
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I don’t deny that the concept of terroir is what is dominating the fine wine conversation these days. But I suspect that the ever more wine lovers and millionaires (x30 in the past 25 years, with China alone bringing 350m+ people to the middle class) paired with Burgundys scarcity are responsible for the huge price increases. After all, there are roughly 1.6m bottles of red Grand Cru produced every year, which corresponds to the combined production of just the Pauillac heavyweights of Latour, Mouton, Lafite, Pichon Comtesse, Pichon Baron and Lynch Bages.
The cynic would say that the market confuses this simple supply and demand dynamic with a trend and that is why the terroir concept is spreading everywhere. But reality is not that balck and white in my opinion. I guess the truth is somewhere in between but with the scarcity and increased wealth/demand being the main reason for the price development.
This is, again, not the same. The prices for Le Pin and Petrus have also gone through the roof, but it isn’t “trendy”. There is no question that scarcity causes prices to go up, but thats not the question.
Not sure if evidence supports that claim. Look at the most searched wines on wine searcher: 1) Mouton, 2) Dom Perignon, 3) Lafite, 4) Petrus, 5) Margaux.
I thought I made that point in the final paragraph when I wrote about Petrus and Latour.
I’m not sure what point you’re making. These are all wines made in far greater volume than any Burgindy; what exactly is Don’s ubiquity meant to tell us?
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I obviously misunderstood your point above and we talk past each other. Let’s move on. 
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Given one category to drink, it would be Bordeaux-not even close. I have had those transcendent experiences in the last year probably half a dozen times VCC 1949 ($736) and 1953 ($869), Trotanoy 1961 ($3193)
I’m certainly not saying that Burgundy isn’t wildly priced and these are basically the going rate for a few current vintage Arnoux-Lachaux wines but given that you just described almost $5k for three wines (CAD $ WS-Low) I don’t know if this quite compelling as an argument.
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I was describing those wines which stopped time, and transcended analysis, not just great wines. A very different category.
And the fact that you are as likely to find those wines in Bordeaux as you are in Burgundy. Unfortunately as far as Arnoux Lachaux is concerned, you would have to kiss a lot of frogs, and you may be lucky enough to find one. I have had a few of his wines, and honestly, never had one that was remotely close.
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Shut down the thread after this! I’m glad a read it before making a professorial comment. Now I’ll just carry on sitting here at the back of the class and try not to draw attention to myself.
Cheers,
Warren
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