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Why the wine glut in Bordeaux will soon be history
As the saying goes "How to make a small fortune in the wine business". The answer: "Start with a large one".
Regrettably, this is all too true and only those who have a passion for
making fine wines are staying in the business and try to hold on to their
vineyards. There are of course the exceptions such as a handful of Grand
Cru Chateaux who can sell their product to wine snobs at just about any
crazy price they choose to ask.
The truth is that Bordeaux is entirely responsible for the disaster which
was of their own making. Too much bad wine was produced and greed
prevailed. The end result was that the quality oriented petit chateaux
suffered along with those who produced excessive yields and produced
inferior wines, but yet were able to get the much coveted appellation. When
I spoke about this with a young French woman of one of the wine syndicates,
her answer was "Well, we must help the poor small growers". These
syndicates helped them into oblivion, because if they had exercised strict
quality standards, there would be no Bordeaux wine glut now and small
vineyards would be getting a half way reasonable price for their product
today.
NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS:
In the past twenty years far too much agricultural land in Bordeaux, not
suitable for viticulture, was turned into vineyards. Beautiful flat land
where once cows were grazing and corn being grown, were now carrying vines
for as far the eye could see. It did not produce very good wine, but, never
mind, there was plenty of demand even for bad wine. Of course, there had
to be a rude awakening and that's where we are at right now. Hundreds of
vineyards are in desperate financial shape and lots of them are going
bankrupt. Today, the vineyard owner looks with envy at his neighbor who is
not a wine grower, but who plants corn, or rapeseed, or sunflowers. With
the ever increasing demand for bio fuel, oil seeds are in huge demand,
demand which is bound to grow at an astronomical rate with prices moving up
sharply. So, why be in the extremely labor intensive viticulture when with
extremely generous subsidies from the French government you can uproot your
vines and make a wonderful living growing oil seeds. No more headaches
trying to find vineyard workers, you just sow, you reap and you cash in!!
OUR FORECAST:
While most vineyard owners find the idea of pulling out their vines and
losing that certain cachet of being a "vigneron" abhorrent, economic
necessity is taking over and if the vigneron does not want to make such a
tough decision, in many cases the bank will make it for them.. It is for
this reason that we see the beginning of a major shift from viticulture to
agriculture. As always, once one vigneron bites the bullet, others start to
follow.
HIGHER PRICES AND BETTER QUALITY - With the end of the Bordeaux wine glut
in sight, prices will start to move up, the more so as the Syndicates have
woken up from their deep sleep and have started to impose stricter quality
standards. A quiet revolution is taking place and one thing is certain,
low prices and lousy quality will soon be history.
Where does that leave "CHATEAU DES MILLE ANGES"? Well, if you visit our
web site www.milleanges.com and you "walk the vineyard" you will
understand why we can never grow corn or oilseeds on our land. Steep hills
full of gravel make it suitable for producing very fine wine, but nothing
much else.
MILLE ANGES is 300 years old and it will be producing wine long after we
are dead and gone. Hopefully, our successors will be able to make some
money, because we never did. But, then again, you are not supposed to make
money from a hobby !
We send our best regards to our friends around the world.
Yours sincerely,
Heather & Anthonie van Ekris
CHATEAU DES MILLE ANGES
33490 St. Germain de Graves
Phone: 00 33 5 56 76 41 04
Fax 00 33 5 56 76 46 72 |