MY BEAUTIFUL RED BALL :

International French footballers, Johan Micoud and Matthieu Chalmé, invest in a Pomerol vineyard with Alexandre de Malet Roquefort (of Château La Gaffelière) and civil engineer Jean-Luc Deloche :

The vineyard is small (1.45 hectares with only 9,000 square metres planted), but it is situated in Pomerol, one of the most famous Bordeaux appellations and probably the most expensive, not just in terms of land value but also price per bottle. Although the sale price was not disclosed, one hectare in AOC Pomerol can fetch over one million euros....

"I had been looking to buy a vineyard in Pomerol for a year when this opportunity came up. Together our aim is to produce an exceptional wine, a rarity too, as this year, our first harvest, the total production will not exceed 2,000 bottles!" explains Alexandre de Malet Roquefort, whose family already owns several wine properties in the Libourne area.
Château La Gaffelière is of course the flagship but the fleet also includes châteaux Tertre Dauguay and Armens (also in AOC Saint-Emilion) and Château Macaran in AOC Bordeaux Supérieur : in all a total of 80 hectares. In addition, the family also runs a wine merchant business in Saint-Emilion.

The recently acquired vines belonged to the Château des Templiers, joint ownership of 7 hectares (Lagrave family).
"This investment is a venture among friends", assures de Malet Roquefort, who is the major shareholder, "Both footballers love wine and want to learn more about it's subtleties."
Johan Micoud, who has just retired from the Girondins Bordeaux team and Mathieu Chalmé, defense player for Laurent Blanc's team, perhaps see this as an opportunity to link the sacred ball to a good bottle of red, following the example of a certain Jean Tigana who was once owner of a property in Listrac-Médoc.


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S.O. 04/09/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.

CHATEAU QUINAULT IS SOLD :

BUSINESSMEN Bernard Arnault and Albert Frère expand their assets in the Bordeaux region with the recent purchase of a wine property in Saint Emilion :

Château Quinault, with it's 15 hectares of AOC Saint-Emilion, is situated in Libourne. It's new owners are amongst the wealthiest men in Europe : Frenchman Bernard Arnault, boss of Louis Vitton Moët Hennessey (haute-couture fashion, champagne & cognac), the world's number one in luxury products, and his Belgian counterpart, Albert Frère, shareholder in various multi-national companies such as Suez and Lafarge cements. If all goes well, the final act of sale will be signed today.

The two men also own, in a private capacity, the illustrious Château Cheval Blanc (Saint-Emilion) since 1998. Another addition to their private collection is a close neigbour to Cheval Blanc, Château La Tour-du-Pin (8 hectares), acquired in 2006.
Bernard Arnault's company, LVMH, owns Château d'Yquem, king of Sauternes.

"This acquistion is an inheritance investment", explains an employee. "In legal terms, the company which runs La Tour-du-Pin is the buyer. This is an entirely different entity from Cheval Blanc and d'Yquem". Château Quinault will be managed by Pierre-Olivier Clouet.

Alain Raynaud, who bought the property in 1997, had to resign himself to sell. "I hadn't bought the château with the intention of selling it on! But the bank did not follow through. Banks are always ready to help those with healthy finances but when trouble hits, they disappear.." Raynaud, who was a general practionner for 25 years before devoting himself to viticulture goes on to explain, " I couldn't afford to continue the investment plan for high quality production which had been our ambition for years. We were victim to frost in 2002 and then to hail in 2004. In the middle, the 2003 "heat-wave" vintage gave us a low yield. These are setbacks you don't recover from easily, even if our wine sells for 25 euros a bottle."

Heart-breaking decision : Alain Raynaud is one of the most respected men in the Libourne area. As ex-vice president of the Bordeaux Grand Cru Union (promotional organisation regrouping over a hundred prestigious properties), he also founded the "Right Bank Circle" in 2003, a similar association of Libourne/saint-Emilion properties.

Although it broke his heart to sell Château Quinault, he admits he is satisfied with the financial deal (without giving away the sale price) and that his massive investment in the property served to attract the new buyers, looking for quality potential.
At age 60, Alain Raynaud continues his activities in the wine world. He manages two family-owned properties in Pomerol : Châteaux La Croix-de-Gay and La Fleur-de-Gay (12 hectares in total) with his sister. He is also a consultant for a dozen other properties in the area.

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S.O. 04/09/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.

DEADLY DAMAGE CAUSED BY L'ESCA :

Anger is rising amongst wine growers about l'Esca, the disease ravaging French vine stocks.

This disease, caused by a fungus, attacks the vine stocks and kills them.
Professionals have noted a new outbreak of this veritable "vine cancer" this year.
The Charentes region (the Ugni Blanc vine variety is particularly sensitive to the disease) but also the Gironde and Gers regions are becoming more and more affected.
"The vine stocks are dying before our very eyes", laments a producer, " We are having to dig up 15 year-old vines and replant."
A demonstration is planned for the 11th September in the town of Auch (Gers) to support the producers' demand for their area to be classified as an agricultural disaster zone and to obtain subsidies for replanting.
In the past this disease was treated successfully by using sodium arsenite but use of this chemical became illegal in 2007 for public health reasons. Since then scientific research has made little progress and the technological dead end is very real.

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S.O. 02/09/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.

WINE FAIR :

CONSUMERS' WALLETS PUT TO THE TEST :

Despite the purchasing power crisis in France, professionals remain optimistic about the coming "wine sales". Bordeaux will be launching a publicity campaign :

In the French wine world, September is traditionally the month both of the harvest and of wine fairs (where consumers can buy bottles at 'sale' prices).
An unprecedented slump in wine sales in large stores (super & hypermarkets) registered since the beginning of this year means that these Autumn cut price sales fairs will prove to be a real economic test. Will the purchase power crisis prevail?

" We can forget the past and with it the +15% growth per year in sales. That's all finished!" says Guillaume Halley, proprietor of the Champion Bordeaux-Caudéran store which will launch it's wine fair on the 16th September with 400 labels on offer. " I predict the same sales figures as 2007 as I believe consumers will continue to treat themselves. More than half the bottles sold throughout the year are sold during the wine fair season, at an average price of 20 euros per bottle. I think we have nothing to worry about, " continues Halley, who also owns the Château La Dauphine (Fronsac, Gironde). This is the first year that his own wines will be on offer in three major store wine fairs : Leclerc, Auchan and Carrefour.
"Because of the thousands of catalogues distributed in France for the wine fair season, it's a marvelous chance to be in the spotlight."

Inescapable : Jean de Laitre, sales manager for Château Monestier La Tour (30 hectares in the Bergerac region) and Château Vrai Canon Bouché (12 hectares in Canon Fronsac), both of which are very visible in the Autumn catalogues, agrees that these large store wine fairs are essential to boost sales.
"It is very difficult to establish a product image without going through the large store channels," de Laitre explains. " These hypermarket chains are so powerful in France that they simply cannot be ignored. Wine is good for morale so I hope, in the right setting, the bottles will sell themselves".

Indeed, even if specialist boutiques and Internet websites are now proposing their own wine fairs, the large store chains have been responsible for the major market share of domestic wine sales for over a quarter of a century. To such an extent that this time of the commercial year, spread over several weeks, accounts for a quarter of the annual wine sales in this distribution sector. And the figures show that this phenomenon is here to stay. The 2007 season even beat all the sales records : 50 million litres of AOC wine were sold in the hypermarkets (up by 7% as opposed to 2006) for a total of 326 million euros spent (+11%), Bordeaux obtaining the lion's share with 4 bottles of out of 10 and 1 euro out of 2. It has to be said that 2005 was on the shelves last year...Of course the famous Bordeaux vineyard, the largest AOC region in the world (120,000 hectares) is the historic driving force, thanks to it's famous names, available at attractive prices during the 'sales' for those who wish to start or add to their cellar.
Dominique Rey, wine sales manager at the Leclerc store in Saint-Médard, in the Bordeaux suburbs, is confident that this will be another good season : "We still have many 2005 vintage bottles on offer amongst the 800 labels on our shelves, so I am optimistic. Our clientèle is perhaps less sensitive to the economic difficulties."

The Bordeaux Inter-professional Council (CIVB), in an attempt to ensure the success of this key period for the wine industry's economy, is taking the initiative of launching a big publicity campaign.

Radio : the new publicity meduim : The campaign will be launched on the 22nd Septemer. A vast visual campaign (the notion of "château" being put forward) will involve 4800 large 8 - 12 m2 posters all over France, smaller posters on shopping trolleys in the 660 stores. In addition, radio will be used to spread the word via two ads lasting 30 seconds will be broadcast by 11 national radio stations between September 20th and 30th.

These publicity campaigns are financed by compulsory subscriptions paid by wine producers and merchants alike to the Council.

WINE FAIR DATES FOR MAJOR STORES :

CASINO : 9th - 24th Sept.
CARREFOUR, INTERMARCHE & MONOPRIX : 10th - 20 Sept.
LECLERC : starts 24th Sept..
AUCHAN : starts 17th Sept..
SYSTEME U : starts 23rd Sept.
CHAMPION : starts 1st Oct.

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S.O. 02/09/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.

RUN UP TOWARDS A VERY SMALL HARVEST :

Although the harvest for reds will not begin until the end of September, the Bordeaux Wine Federation, which met yesterday, has announced the end of the Harvest Banns :

It was back to business for the Federation of Great Wines which held their general meeting in Bordeaux yesterday. This professional federation unites all the department's producers.
Laurent Gapenne, the new federation's new president, replaces Jacques Bertrand.
The economic situation and harvest prospects were the main subjects for debate.

At a time when wine sales in French supermarkets and hypermarkets are on the decrease (purchasing power crisis?) and exports were down considerably in terms of volume in the first semester, the 2008 harvest promises to be a historically low yield : between 5.1 and 5.2 million hectolitres (hl), according to the Federation's estimates. If these figures are proved accurate, this year will be the lowest yield since 1991, year of the particularly hard frost on the 21st April. Lower than that of 1993, 1994 and the heat-wave year of 2003 which has so far been the lowest yield vintage record holder.

The culprits : frost and mildew : The reasons for this exceptionally low harvest potential are well known in the Bordeaux area : frost on the 7th April (which was particularly damaging to the white grape vines) and wet, cold weather through May until the last week in June.
The flowering, which occurred at the end of May and beginning of June, was chaotic and regular heavy rainfall (perhaps due to the fact that this is a 13 moon year) made treatment against mildew imperative to save the harvest. As if that wasn't enough, a disease called "l'Esca" which attacks the vine stock and for which there is no remedy, continues to spread and kill.

Late harvest :The situation is complicated to say the least, but the quality of this year's harvest could be considerably improved by sunny warm weather in September, as was the case in 2007. The last weeks of maturity are certainly decisive. In any case, the grapes need more time to ripen and consequently this will be a relatively late harvest, despite the so-called global warming effect on the climate.

The red wine grapes (representing almost 90% of the Bordeaux vineyard) will not be harvested before the end of September. In recent years September had become the "big month" for harvesting. This year, we will see a return to the past when October was the traditional harvesting period.

The white grapes will be harvested earlier as usual, the first bunches picked from the 8th September.

Harvest Bann disappears : All these start dates for the harvest will now be the result of decisions made by each individual producer as there will no longer be a public "bann" or announcement made by the "Préfecture" (government authority) to set the legal start date for harvesting. Up until this year, this traditional authorised harvest start date was set following decisions made by a committee meeting comprised of experts, who also set the date on which producers could begin the chaptalisation process (legally authorised addition of sugar to increase the alcohol content in wine).

With the new regulations in force, the wine growers themselves have maximum responsibility when it comes to making technical choices. With the disappearance of this historic " legal harvest marker", some growers may feel disorientated and it will be up to the technicians to circulate important information in the vineyards.
Of course, before harvesting, the grapes must still be analysed to make sure they have reached the maximum degree of maturity. And in Bordeaux, there is certainly no shortage when it comes to tests and quality controls...

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S.O. 29/08/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.