May 2008
Champagne
As we've seen with bread and petrol, the increase in demand for Champagne has led to an increase in price - the growers are holding out for the highest prices. The contracts are completed in May, and the price per kilogramme is finalised. This year it seems that the growers will be asking the top houses around €3.00 to €4.00 per kilo. A bottle needs roughly 1.5kg of fruit; therefore we can all see the cost of the raw material.
So what does this mean? OPEC feels oil extraction is at its maximum capacity at the moment, by contrast, the INAO has just allowed an expansion of the land permitted to be a part of the Champagne region, instantly raising the price per hectare. The result is a 200 fold hike overnight, causing much rancour amongst those communes still left outside the boundaries; one side of the fence your vine could get you around €5000 per hectare, just the other side, and your vines are now worth €1M per hectare. However, the fruit will not be available for sometime, so this will not alleviate the pressure on demand instantly; and let's face it, when the extra fruit is ready, in say, ten years time, will prices fall? Will we see, not supermarket or wine-warehouse "special offers", but genuine reductions?
Now unless you are on a wheat free diet we all need our daily bread and I think you'll agree that petrol prices can carry on increasing as much as they like before we give up our cars. But Champagne, can we live without it? Probably yes, possibly no. There are some excellent sparkling wines from various parts of France like our Vouvray Domaine de la Chataignerie and from around the world; the Montresor Prosecco is delightful, but do they carry the same gravitas as the real thing? We often have to supply wines for weddings and like the white dress and the several tiers of iced cake, Champagne is the only drink to toast the special occasion.
There is a silver lining to all this gloom. Unlike petrol where the choice is 4 star or diesel from the local service station, or save a penny or two by driving miles to the out-of-town supermarket, Champagne comes from many producers who show variance in profiteering, marketing, and quality. We can certainly recommend Champagne Pannier. The basic Brut Selection, according to Andrew Jefford in his excellent book The New France published by Mitchell Beazley, "is as near to a cert as this difficult climate can provide". We have this available for €18.20. We also have St Réol Grand Cru at €18.49, an absolutely delicious example of how Champagne does not have to be exorbitant. Here comes the cloud for the silver lining, we can only maintain these prices for the first half of the summer, but, to draw one last parallel, unlike petrol, you can keep Champagne in the cupboard under the stairs for quite a few months. What we suggest is, stock up now.
Rosé
Is Rosé just a feel good wine and if so does it matter? You never see a case of pink going for thousands at auction, when celebs, top bankers or art collectors are interviewed by specialist magazines and asked what their most memorable bottle of wine was, no one ever says a Portuguese rosé in a funny shaped bottle. Sommeliers seldom recommend a rosé, possibly in Provence from time to time but hardly ever. Rosé is the wine for the holiday, the weekend break or even the glass or two after work.
It doesn't involve an elaborate or long production process; although I'm sure vigneron will argue to the contrary. In fact I was chastised the other week by a producer in the Fronton area just north of Toulouse, who claimed that their Rosé, made from the Negrette grape was a complex wine of great quality. I asked for some samples to be sent up so who knows, next month I may be extolling the virtues of Rosés from this area. To me all you need to do is give a juicy red grape a little squeeze and then do as you would for a white wine. The resulting wine doesn't require too much contemplation.
A good rosé should be refreshing and fruity, dry or off-dry according to your taste, it should suit the occasion and not be expensive. So why is there now so much advertising and promotion of the humble rosé? A few years ago the big hypermarchés here in France would have one or two Rosé tucked away on the bottom shelf, now they are packed at eye level, at the expense of decent whites I should add. The cynic in me says it is just marketing aimed at a new market, women and younger drinkers. The more realistic side of me reckons Rosé wines have always been around and basically forgotten by the Northern Europeans when they get back to the cold of home and it has taken the distributors a while to realise that a little reminder was needed. At Blakeneys we have just tasted and ordered for stock, a lovely Rosé, Petit Pont made by an independent producer from just south of Bezier. It has everything you need including the great price - 2.70€.
Parties
With the sunshine comes the barbeques, the garden parties and of course the weddings. All of which will need some libation. Obviously with barbeques, or hog roasts as one couple recently bought wine to accompany, the wine does not have to be of the highest quality. White has to be fresh and a touch aromatic, like the Touraine Sauvignon Domaine Octavie or the Saint Roch Viognier Vin de Pays d'Oc, to keep you interested while the charcoal gets going. Reds should be robust with a good fruit driven quality to go well with burnt sausages. The Australian Tall Poppy wines do the trick as does a new wine to blakeneys.com L'Indigène produced by Mas des Agrunelles situated just north of Montpellier.
The garden party is very much dependent on who is coming but whether it is a local dignitary or your work mates, a glass of fizz is always handy. We have just listed the Bailly Lepeirre Crément de Bourgogne, a summer wine if there ever was one, light and fruity and the bubbles don't disappear without trace once it is poured.
As for all the 500,000 odd weddings that took place last year in Britain and France I doubt if any were the same. Getting the right balance of quality and quantity to suit everyone is a nightmare and far too complicated to generalise. I would love to hear your experiences when it comes to wines for the big day, you can send them to the blog. www.blakeney-wines.blogspot.com
Packaging
Finally I am looking for ideas relating packaging. I am on the search for a cost effective, environmentally more friendly and easy way to send wine to our customers. At the moment the lightest option and therefore the cheapest to send is a polystyrene casing that sits in a cardboard. However the packaging itself is very expensive and possibly more significant it is more than likely not ever used again. I have always believed it is better environmentally to reuse before recycle. So at present we are investigating ways that these boxes may be used again and again, the current thinking is a returns policy. We would really appreciate your thoughts. We will obviously let you know what we decide.
Enjoy the long summer days
George
Newsletter N°2
March 2008
The year is rolling along with the days getting just a bit longer, the birds are starting to sing and the corks are beginning to come out. It's really a dull few weeks, the start of the year isn't it? Time to look forward to Spring. And this year Easter is early - it always seems to be early or late, never on time. So is there a better way to pass a long weekend than with a glass or two of delicious wine?
If you are planning a trip to France to restock the cellar, garage or cupboard under the stairs with some wine, you will save on the UK duty, which is about to rocket, or depending when you read this, has rocketed (if all the rumours prove to be false and the status quo is maintained 1.88 € per bottle is still a lot more than the two and a half centimes over here). And to make it even more enticing, in association with Boursot's Wine Collection and the Ferry Travel Company, we can offer preferential rates for day trips; email us contact@blakeneys.com for details.
In February I went to Vinisud, the massive wine fair in Montpellier, a fantastic occasion. There were several large halls and around the edge of each one were all the smaller independent producers with some delicious wines to try. There may well be one or two new lines arriving next month, some delicious summery wines from Gascogne and Languedoc and some genuine bargains, so when the deals get done you will be the first to know (along with all the other people who get the Newsletter).
Then on 23rd of February Guy Boursot and I hosted a dinner where we introduced some new wines along with a fine meal laid on at the Relais Hotel in Ardres. The highlight of the evening, for me was the sparkling Vouvray from Domaine de la Chantaigneraie. A real pleasure and great value at 9,60€. It is fresh and has a light floral feel. We have recently found another great fizz, Champagne Pannier and at just 16,20€ it shows that there are still lovely champagnes out there that don't have to cost the earth. It is slightly drier than the Vouvray and has that classic brioche taste. Both of these sparklers have their time and place and at these prices the occasion doesn't have to be too special, celebrate a Wednesday evening for example.
I was recently reading, in a trade magazine, an interview with Américo Hernández the Export Manager of Viña Ventisquero explaining his CO2 offsetting. He was saying they were the first producer to do so. It seems that transporting one container load of wine (12000 bottles) from Chile produces two tonnes of CO2. Now I'm not sure what this means in terms of climate change but it is a quantity high enough for Ventisquero to believe it needs addressing. You could argue its just bandwagon jumping and the cynical part of me thinks it is a nice piece of marketing. However it is something that they have invested quite a tidy some of money in and it appears that they are taking it seriously. Blakeneys already stock their wines. They were chosen because the wines show the typical fruit quality you would expect but also they offer great value for money. So how green is your wine? Over the next few months we will try to investigate some of our other producers and let you have the results. I would welcome any comments on this subject, does it matter if your wine is a gas-guzzling 4x4 or a tandem with panniers?
One of the best parts of being in the wine business is talking about wine and sharing information. I was at a smallish wine fair the other day and even there amongst producers, the guy from Languedoc was pleased to learn from the woman from the Loire. I might expand that conversation next time. There are plenty of blogs on the subject, here in France and obviously around the world. I guess I may well set up one for Blakeneys.com in the near future. In the meantime if you have any stories to tell or questions to ask feel free and get in touch.
Finally a quick remainder of our Spring Offer. Place an order with Blakeneys.com for 150€ or over and you will get a free bottle of Grand Cru Champagne when you opt for collection at Boursot's Wine Collection in Ardres. And spread the word any new customers will be warmly welcomed.
Here's to Spring and the singing birds.
George
