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Is there a Grand Cru in your future?

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1976, BA begins Concorde flights

Another classic that failed to keep up with the times? Image via Wikipedia

I went to a great tasting event not that long ago, but the kind of “trade” tasting that has me scratching my head. Who goes to these things, and what do they achieve?

“Trade” tastings are officially intended to offer insights into certain wines (by region, style, importer) etc. to those whose job it is to buy, promote, review, or sell wines. However, this definition encompasses a great many people, and the reality is that they are mainly about reaching out hopefully to try and find an audience and champion, and avoid too many people coming simply for the free booze.

The problem is that they cost a LOT and achieve rather less, and the biggest issue is that many of the people there selling their wines don’t know what they want to achieve.

Anyway, the tasting in question was the Union des Grands Crus de Chablis (I’ve linked this, but since the site has not been updated since 2008, not much point clicking through). An organisation of some of the best producers of a marvellous style of wine, Chablis, representing the top fraction of wine produced in what is already a tiny region in France. The thing is, those who are invited all KNOW they are great. Why spend so much money hiring a room, marketing an event, flying over and pouring free samples in order to tell us so?

In order to try and work out what they were hoping to achieve, I asked most of the producers there who they thought their customers are. I got two “stock” answers:

  1. Slightly older consumers, already well off, who know what they like, buying these wines in top restaurants
  2. Those who recognise that Grand Cru Chablis is “better value that other top White Burgundies”

Well, the second answer is just ridiculous. Buying my own Boeing 747 might be cheaper than running my own private Concorde, but I still can get around the world quite easily without either.

The first is more worrying. Not only does it show a worrying lack of any understanding of the nature and motivation of those who choose £30-£50+ bottles of wine, but those folks are disappearing!

Being almost 40 (shock!) I remember a time about 20 years ago when ordering a “Chablis” was still a demonstration of great wine knowledge. When faced with hundreds of French & Italian wine options, knowing this one word made a great difference. These drinkers, trained on this style, were then more likely to ‘trade up’ to Chablis Premier Cru for special occasions, and eventually maybe discover Chablis Grand Cru as the boom-time bank accounts allowed.

The problem is that keen wine novices are no longer weaned on Chablis, and these are no longer boom times. Choices in general are much better, better value and more varied. Ordering a bottle of Chablis is no longer the ‘quality default’ it used to be.

The Chablis consumer pipeline is drying up.

“Classic” wine regions that simply rest on their laurels can become outmoded and struggle to become relevant again. Think about Sherry, Madeira and others . I’m not saying Chablis will disappear, but will it become sidelined?

The time has come for several things:

  • Cooperate! Producers need to work together, properly, to promote regions and their brands. Regionality is a key differentiator in wine that needs better promotion, and the benefits only come if producers can communicate its distinctiveness.
  • Invest! Investing in marketing and working out who the customer is and what motivates them – then work out how to reach them.
  • Engage! Stop preaching to the converted at cosy trade events, and reach out to consumers. If people want to buy the wine, the trade sales will follow. Two year old websites are an embarrassment.
  • Stay relevant! See these wines in a much broader, modern, context – understand that consumers have many more options.

Hopefully a new generation of consumers can be reminded that Chablis wines ARE distinctive and delicious, and that exploring them can be rewarding, but the UGCC must get its act together if these new customers are to arrive before the current crop die out.

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Chablis: Chic or Not

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On Wednesday I was invited to taste through a small range of examples of 2008 vintage Chablis with Arnaud Valour of the Burgundy Wine Board. Naturally I accepted – and it had nothing to do with the branded gifts I took away (although I’m particularly grateful for a copy of Rosemary George’s wonderful book; The Wines of Chablis)

I’d say that the wines were great, but they were only a selection of 6 bottles (blind – i.e. without saying which they were) and chosen to be the best of the region in this vintage, so you’d expect them to be. I was particularly impressed by the quality and easier drinking style of the Petit Chablis wines – they had more character than I really expected. For those unfamiliar with the Chablis hierarchy, this is:

  • Petit Chablis – the least expensive, simple, crisp wines
  • Chablis – a range of wines, but fresh, delicate and with hints of “minerality” (like the aroma of shells on the beach – see video)
  • Chablis Premier Cru (or 1er Cru) – more complex wines that must come from only 40 or so vineyards
  • Chablis Grand Cru – the most intense, age-worthy and usually stunning examples; only 7 vineyards on one slope go to making these

I asked Arnaud what he though were the unique style characteristics of Chablis, and why people should chose Chablis, and I recorded the answer (I apologise for the poor quality sound):


Of course, the wines got better as we went up the scale, getting more rounded, more complex and showing those classic Chablis characters. It does seem that 2008 will be a good vintage for the region. It also seems that sales of this premium region are as affected by the credit crunch as everyone else, so you may be able to pick them up for a decent price when they hit the shops and merchants.

For the premier cru wines (I tried an interesting organic 1er cru) and above, it would be a crime to drink a 2008 now as they’ll develop over the next decade, but the trouble will be finding someone who will keep them for you, so it might be worth getting a few and keeping them in a cool corner for a future special occasion.

Chablis Online

But this blog isn’t about tasting wines or about specific regions. I also spent a while asking Arnaud about the online marketing and social media plans of the Chablis region. After all, Chablis already has brand recognition around the world, you would think it could leverage this to its advantage online too.

It seems that there are plans to launch a new site at http://www.chablis.fr – I see there is a site there now, but it has numerous flaws, so I’m hoping it is a work in progress. Considering how controversial internet marketing of alcohol is in France these days, it is good to see that not everyone is abandoning these efforts. Apparently Chablis is out to broaden its appeal to “women and younger consumers”, mainly, it appears, through tasting events in Chablis itself. For the rest of us, the plan is to focus on the wine trade. Unfortunately the wine trade is already familiar with the wines, and with hundreds of regions competing for their attention, I wonder how effective this will be (it got me writing about it I suppose). I was specifically told they had no plans for Facebook fan pages, blogs or twitter accounts, which unfortunately fits the stereotype of French wine marketing.

Arnaud himself was very articulate, friendly and spoke excellent English, but there are only so many people he can meet in person. Surely they could find a way to “amplify” his message through social media channels easily enough?

In short, Chablis continues to be a great wine, it continues to be a reasonably expensive wine, and it doesn’t have much new to say about itself from a marketing perspective, so continues to speak to the same consumers. If you buy it, you’ll probably keep doing so. If you don’t, what reason have you to start?

Question: What does Chablis mean to you?

I wonder if I could urge you to go and taste a bottle of Chablis, any style, any vintage, and let me know what you think of it? How did you find the wine? Did you like it? Was it good value for money? How was it being sold compared to the competition? If you would consider undertaking this mission, please do let me know what you thought here in the comments.

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Rosé? Why compromise?

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I am back online (well I never left totally, this is an online addiction after all, but it has been hard to concentrate on projects).

I’ve got a few irons in the fire, but I thought I would make a quick comment on an interesting headline I read yesterday:

Rosé passes white wine as France’s favourite from The Telegraph

Wow! That is a LOT of rosé wine. I have not seen the underlying data to prove to myself that the French really are buying more rosé wine than white (this is the land of wonderful Chardonnay from Burgundy, Sauvignon Blanc & Chenin Blanc from the Loire and all sorts of wonderful and exotic Rousanne, Marsanne, Viognier and more from the Rhone).

Surely these are not being displaced by rosé?

Well, of course, there is the issue is of price & availability. The white wines I mention are the ones all wine lovers know, but how often do we drink them? We can all list them as “great wines”, but in practice we drink more lowly wines on a daily basis, and the French are no different. So instead, we look for interesting, new and ‘trendy’ wines, and the rosé trend is spreading around the world.

Even so, that is a lot of pink wine. In the UK, the last figures I saw had rosé sales still below 10% of all wine sales, so even with a big increase since then, they’d struggle to compete with white wine.

Another interesting comparison would be to see what types of rosé wines they are drinking. The much touted growth in UK sales are heavily biased towards the fruitier “blush” wines from California (White Zinfandel and White Grenache) whilst I imagine that even the ‘new’ young consumers in France, those who are ditching their parents’ conventions, would still blush to be seen drinking these wines.

But I must admit that the comment that really annoyed me, of all of this, was Evan Davis on the Today programme (where I first heard the news). He said:

“Sometimes, when you can’t decide between red & white, rosé seems the perfect compromise”

Compromise? What a shame to dismiss wines like that. Unfortunately, this is from one of the most educated men in the country working on one of the most influential programmes. OK, so it was a throw-away comment, but it shows that the Wine Conversation still has a long way to go to displace entrenched views.

French Letters – ANPAA

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However hard we try to talk up the future for French wines, and France’s chances of developing a reasonable attitude to wines in the modern world, some organisation manages to come along and shatter our illusions.

Hot on the heels of the ruling about health warnings on Champagne articles, here is the latest news, courtesy of Decanter (assuming you can get their site working as it keeps crashing on me):

Web cannot advertise alcohol

Of course this current ruling is aimed at Heineken, but I wouldn’t rate the chances of a Vin2.0 culture developing in the land of Liberty, Equality & Fraternity any time soon.