Wine Terms Flashcards
Cave
(Cooperative) co- operative winery
Coteaux de, Cote de
Typically hillsides
Cru
Literally a “growth”: a specified superior plot of land
Cru Classe
Cry that has been distinguished by an important classification such as the 1855 in Bordeaux
Recolte
Vine grower
Vielles Vignes
Old vines and therefore in theory denser wine, though the “old” is regulated
phenolic aldehydes
compound in oak responsible for the vanilla flavor. Low-to-medium toasting increases their levels, as does open-air seasoning of the wood. Barrel-fermentation & HEAVY-toasting decreases their levels.
Quercus alba
American white oak- wide grained, low in tannins (when compared to European oak), sweet aromatics
Quercus garryana
White oak found in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Similar to French oak at a much lower cost.
Quercus robur (Q. pedunculata)
European white oak, tends to grow individually- wide grained, very tannic, fast growing- found in Limousin and Balkan forests
Quercus sessilus (Q. petraea)
European white oak, tends to grow in forests- tight grained, very aromatic (compared to Q. robur), slow growing- found in Alliers, Vosges, Troncais, Nevers, Argonne, Bourgogne and Russian forests
sur pointe (FR)
the final stage of riddling, when the bottle is aged neck down after agining is complete and before disgorging
soutirage
racking
Transvasage
transfer of wine between bottles
volatile phenols
compound in oak that creates the All-Spice/Clove-like character. Euganol is the one most associated w/ wood (‘clove-like’). VP are not present in untoasted wood & ‘seasoning’ the wood will reduce the levels.
Vitis rotundifolia
Mostly South Eastern USA North American species of grapevines- includes Muscadine and Scuppernong
Bonded Warehouse
One in which no duty has been paid on the goods inside it. Prices for wines and, especially, spirits held in bond (IB) are therefore considerably lower than those quoted duty paid. It is sensible for any foreigner buying wine to store for possible shipment outside that country to buy it in bond.
Direct Shipping
Cause célèbre in the US which banned shipping of wine direct from winery to consumer, until a seminal Supreme Court decision in 2005 liberalized direct shipments into some states, yet allowed others to keep their borders closed to wine shipments from out of state. See united states, regulations for more detail of this bypassing of the notorious three-tier system.
Quality Assurance
Is a general concept covering the way in which a business is organized so that the quality of the product is assured at all stages. As applied to a wine business, good quality assurance will ensure that the original potential of the grapes and wine is not lost on the way to the bottle. Quality assurance is the totality of all the management actions and procedures that set out to achieve this high standard, and therefore incorporates quality control. An internationally recognized standard of quality management is ISO 9001:2008. This standard imposes a discipline that demands a uniformity of action throughout the business every time, all of the time. Another useful though simple tool is Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). The manufacturing process is divided into its basic stages, then each stage is examined to determine the problems that could occur at each one (hazard identification). Each hazard is then assessed for its potential danger to the process (the hazard analysis). Those that constitute the greatest danger are identified as the critical control points, to which the maximum attention is given. This procedure is now considered so important that it is mandatory throughout the eu for anyone involved in food and beverage handling, and is gaining worldwide recognition.
Quality Control
Is a hands-on process of monitoring and controlling all parameters that verify a wine’s palatability, stability, compliance with regulations, typicality, and freedom from faults and contaminants. Most large wineries maintain laboratories capable of conducting all but the most difficult of the required analyses, while smaller wine enterprises send samples to an independent commercial laboratory. For complete quality control, a chemical analytical laboratory, a microbiological laboratory, and a statistically controlled tasting panel are required. See also quality assurance and sampling.
Quality Wine
Is an expression widely and loosely used for any wine of good quality and was, until 2008, an official wine category throughout the eu, and therefore throughout most of Europe. It has been superseded by the pdo and pgi categories. Similarly, everything else, called ‘table wine’ in its strict pre-2008 EU sense, has been superseded by the cumbersome but clear wine without geographical indication.
Table Wine
Term used internationally to distinguish wines of average alcoholic strength from fortified wines, which have been strengthened by the addition of alcohol. In this context, ‘table wines’ rely solely on fermentation for their alcoholic strength, which tends to be between 9 and 15%. Within the eu, the term ‘table wine’ had until the reforms of 2008/2009 a specific meaning and was applied to the vast but declining quantity of wine produced within it that did not qualify as superior so-called quality wine. Within Italy, the situation was rather different, as explained in vino da tavola. In the US, the term table wine denotes wine with less than 14% alcohol while wines with between 14 and 24% alcohol are officially ‘dessert wines’ whether fortified or not, and attract a higher tax rate.
Railways
Until the arrival of a railway in their region, wine producers were almost totally dependent on water-borne means of transport. Without access to the sea or a navigable river or canal, transport was too difficult and expensive for all but the finest and rarest wines. This gave an overwhelming advantage to regions such as bordeaux, which were served by a major port, or champagne, with access to the river system of northern France. The construction of the railways enabled a number of wines previously unknown outside their region to be exported. In some cases—notably chianti in central Italy and rioja in northern Spain—this enabled high-quality wines to achieve their deserved recognition for the first time. The construction of a railway line between the town of jerez and the coast in the mid 19th century greatly encouraged exports of sherry. The railways also facilitated the transport of inferior wines. They allowed the late-19th-century development of the mass-production vineyards of the languedoc and roussillon in the south of France, whose rough wines were transported in vast quantities to northern France and Belgium, thus ruining such marginal northern European vineyards as those around orléans and, to a lesser extent, those of the French moselle. The railways in argentina were also crucial in establishing Mendoza as an important wine region so far from the capital Buenos Aires. During the 15 years of prohibition in North America, efficient rail transport of fresh grapes from California to the suddenly numerous home winemakers in the eastern states played a part in maintaining a winemaking tradition in the United States.
Auctions
of wine are the sale of wine by lots by an auctioneer acting as agent for the seller or, in certain instances, as the seller in his or her own right.
Auctions- History
Auctions have long been an integral part of the wine trade. Wine was sold by auction in Ancient rome and, in the Middle Ages, before it became commonplace for buyers to visit wine regions, wine shipped in barrel to its final destination (see containers) was frequently sold by auction as well as by private contract. In Britain, wine auctions were common at trading ports such as Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the auction room in The Vaults testifies to a once lively auction trade in casks of fine bordeaux. In Germany, the practice of selling wine by auction under the names of village and vintage became well established in the 18th century. The Nassauer’sche Domäne in the Rheingau was among the first to initiate the movement towards establishing conditions of sale by auction in the 1830s.
As wine trading became increasingly competitive with improved transportation and more sophisticated communications, the need for producers to sell their wine by auction diminished. Whereas historically wine auctions were used as a means of selling young or relatively young wine in barrel, today’s commercial auction trade relies on bottled wines at all stages of maturity. Once wine was packaged in bottles stoppered with corks from the end of the 17th century, it became capable of bottle ageing and full maturation. With, literally, a new lease of life for fine wine, exceeding decades and, in rare instances, even a century or more, fine wine transcended its previous status as a short-term commodity.
Once wine became capable of being traded across generations, it naturally attracted admirers, collectors, and investors (see investment). It became something that, at its finest, could be regarded with the same admiration as a work of art or any other classic auction room collectible. Wine captured in bottle led to a market in older wines whose reputation, based on vintage and name, created a comprehensible and measurable scale of values.
Sales of wine were generally held as part of house sales until wine departments were established in two of the world’s leading auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Christie’s established its wine department in 1966, when Michael broadbent was recruited from the wine merchant harveys of bristol to build up the department to meet the demands of an increasingly specialized and sophisticated international market. The first auction of the new era was held on 11 October 1966 and the first season achieved sales amounting to £220,634. Not to be outdone, Sotheby’s entered the fray in 1970, holding the first auction of its newly formed wine department on 16 September 1970 in Glasgow.
While Christie’s and Sotheby’s dominated the wine auction scene for many decades, new auction systems and entrants have challenged the status quo. In the late 1970s, The Chicago Wine Company introduced and popularized the ‘silent bid’ wine auction system in the US. Archaic laws in New York state prevented the spread of wine auctions in one of the world’s most lucrative markets until the late 1980s. Christie’s and Sotheby’s initially teamed up with local wine merchants until deregulation in the late 1990s. The French auction market was also deregulated in the late 1990s.
Inefficiencies in the auction wine market during the 1980s also led to increased competition from specialist fine wine traders, the great majority of them based in the UK. The dot.com boom in the late 1990s spawned electronic wine auction houses, and online selling in some form has been adopted by most wine auction companies, while online wine exchange businesses such as Liv-ex have brought further competition and depth to the secondary wine market.
Auctions- Notable Annual Auctions
Nevertheless, traditional auctions survive, most notably that of the hospices de beaune. This former medieval hospice in Burgundy derives a substantial proportion of income for the modern hospital associated with it from the sale of wines produced from vineyards given as bequests over the centuries. Every third Sunday in November, the Hospices holds a charity auction accompanied by a long weekend of gargantuan feasting and decadent celebration (see trois glorieuses). At the traditional candle auction, the lots are named after the Hospices’ benefactors, each comprising a number of new 228-l/60-gal barrels. Since 2005 Christie’s has partnered with the Hospices de Beaune, and together they organize the annual sale with tastings of the wines all over the world. In 2014, the 154th Hospices de Beaune auction, the sale achieved a record total of €8,887,888 million ($11.1 m). The success of the Hospices de Beaune auction in combining the sale of wines with the glare of publicity has been the role model for a number of latter-day imitators, from limoux to the napa Valley.
A number of notable auctions in Germany, largely focused on Riesling, include those of the vdp’s grosser ring in the Mosel, VDP Rheingau at kloster eberbach, and VDP Nahe-Ahr in Bad Kreuznach. South Africa’s Nederburg enhanced its reputation as a wine producer by establishing the Nederburg auction in 1975, at which lots of its top bottlings and those of other producers are offered for sale. The Nederburg sale in turn spawned the annual auction of the Cape Winemakers’ Guild, a group of largely independent cellarmasters that started selling small lots of top wines at auction in 1985.
In the United States, distillers Heublein established the first New World wine auction in Chicago in 1969. Since then a combination of strict licensing laws and tax advantages to buyers led to a boom in charity wine auctions in the United States, led by the now famous annual Auction Napa Valley, which raised $18.7 million in 2014 for vineyard worker healthcare and children’s education, and the Naples Winter Wine Festival in Florida. The prices paid at these charity events are often so inflated by goodwill and/or welcome exhibitionism, however, that they cannot be compared with the United States’ thriving commercial auctions as reliable indicators of the market.
Auctions- The Professionals
Christie’s is the oldest established wine auctioneer. Wine was a prominent feature in James Christie’s first sale on 5 December 1766, which, along with household furniture, jewellery, and firearms, included the sale of ‘a large quantity of Madeira and high Flavour’d Claret, late the Property of Noble Personage (Deceas’d)’. Three years later, on 7 and 8 September 1769, James Christie held his first sale entirely devoted to wine, a collection of ‘Old Hock, Rich Burgundy, Calcavella [Portugal’s carcavelos], Malaga and tent, the property of Captain Fletcher from the West Indies’.
Today’s commercial auction scene is dominated by regular sales conducted by a number of professional auction houses, initially London-based. However in the late 1990s wine auctions elsewhere, particularly in the United States, started to present an increasingly serious challenge to London’s hegemony as American cellars became an increasingly lucrative source of supply. In the early 1990s, wine auctions were at long last permitted in New York, but only in association with an established retailer. As a result, Sotheby’s established a presence in association with Sherry-Lehmann, holding its first sale in New York on 8 October 1994 while Christie’s teamed up with Zachy’s. The total value of wine sales in the US overtook the UK total in the mid 1990s.
By 2015, the major companies holding significant live wine auctions around six main cities in the US were, in declining order of revenues achieved, Hart Davis Hart, Acker Merrall & Condit, Wally’s, Zachy’s, Sotheby’s, Heritage, and Christie’s. But the abolition of wine duties in hong kong in 2008 dramatically changed the geography of wine auctions, making Hong Kong another major wine auction hub. Acker Merrall & Condit, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Zachy’s became major players in an Asian wine-auction scene centred on Hong Kong. With Singapore included, 2014 live-auction revenues for Asia, at $105.7 million, were second only to the US total of $160.1 million, and considerably ahead of Europe’s total of $63.1 million.
In 2014, Sotheby’s was the world’s leading auctioneer with sales totalling $65.3 million, followed by Acker, Merrall & Condit with sales of $61.8 million, then Christie’s at $54.7 million, Zachy’s at $45.2 million, and Hart Davis Hart at $42.8 million. The other major players, in declining order of revenue, were Wally’s, Bonhams, Heritage, Steinfels, Spectrum, and Artcurial. After the bumper years of 2011 and 2012, and the decline in global auction revenues by 16% in 2013, total revenues rose by 5.5% in 2014, possibly affected by increasing concern about provenance and adverse reaction to the exorbitant en primeur pricing of the 2010 Bordeaux vintage combined with economic uncertainty, particularly in the eu. $2,976 was the average lot price compared with $2,813 in 2013. Hart Davis Hart showed the best percentage of lots sold in 2014 with 99.7%, as against Sotheby’s 91.1% and Christie’s 86.8%.
Commercial auctions are also held in other countries, notably France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Singapore, and Australia.
The introduction of the silent-bid wine auction in the 1980s, followed by the deployment of internet auction technology in the late 1990s has changed the auction format irrevocably. The vibrant cut and thrust of the live auction room is to a certain extent dwindling as internet trading becomes part of our daily lives. The traditional live auction has been joined today not just by the addition of internet bidding, as well as by exclusive online and trading-exchange platforms such as those of Liv-Ex in the UK, and some fine-wine merchants accept online bids for customers’ wines stored with them.
Auctions- Trade Structures
Wine auction customers are broadly split between private individuals and the wine trade. Private buyers may have any number of different reasons for buying wine. They may be consumers, collectors, and/or investors (see investment). Trade buyers also buy for investment, to fill gaps in a restaurant or merchant’s wine list, or as brokers for trade or private clients. Reasons for selling wine vary equally, the traditional three d’s of death, debt, and divorce having turned into four, as doctors’ orders have also become a factor. Private customers may want or need to sell in order to realize the value of their cellar, or part of it, or to finance further purchases, or as executors selling on behalf of an estate. The wine trade may sell to dispose of surplus or bankrupt stock.
Auctions- Wines Traded
Red bordeaux, or claret, remains the staple of the wine auction rooms. It is long lived, enjoys widespread appeal, and it is in relatively plentiful supply. And the relative value of a particular red bordeaux is more readily identifiable than that of any other wine style, the 1855 classification providing some sort of easily comprehensible framework for evaluating the red bordeaux châteaux most widely traded in the saleroom.
The first growths—Chx lafite, latour, margaux, mouton rothschild in the Médoc, haut-brion and La mission haut-brion in Pessac-Léognan, ausone and cheval blanc in St-Émilion, the unofficial first growths Ch petrus and Le pin of Pomerol, and Ch d’Yquem in Sauternes—are undisputed members of today’s élite. Owing to the classification’s rigid composition, a second leading group of properties has emerged, commonly referred to as super seconds. Qualification for this group requires not only the strictest commitment to quality, but a record of consistently high prices which reflects that policy. More recently, a third group of so-called garage wines emerged, inspired by the success of Le Pin. Despite a relative fall from grace after its Asian market peak in 2011, Lafite remains the unofficial leader of the five Médoc first growths.
Pre-phylloxera clarets are extremely rare and among the most highly prized items in any sale catalogue. Unique grands formats (large bottles) of old vintages, particularly of first growths, are much sought-after by collectors (see bottle size), although perhaps to a lesser degree than in the late 1980s. Specific vintages play an important part, too, with the price of wines from consecutive years often fluctuating by a factor of three according to the reputation of the vintage. The most highly prized pre-war vintages of the 20th century are 1900, 1920, 1926, 1928, and 1929. In the immediate post-war period, the most sought-after trio are 1945, 1947, and 1949. In the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century, 1953, 1959, 1961, 1982, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2009, and 2010 rank as the outstanding vintages.
A recent saleroom phenomenon is the way prices for relatively recent vintages have started to outstrip the prices of older vintages. Although the state of the global economy plays a part, much of this has to do with the taste, and ratings, of the influential American critic, Robert M. parker, who writes mainly about young wines. There are a number of additional reasons for the strength of young wine prices, among them the global trend towards drinking wines younger, the emergence of a new, determined group of collectors in Asia, and a relative shortage of great vintages tilting the balance of supply and demand even further towards demand.
Red bordeaux apart, burgundy is an increasingly significant player in the saleroom with Domaine de la romanée-conti, Henri Jayer, Leroy, Rousseau, Leflaive, Comte Georges de Vogüé, Coche-Dury, Domaine Dujac, Roumier, Jean-Frédéric Mugnier, and Méo-Camuzet among the most sought-after names. Champagne too has become an auction room collectible, notably krug, roederer cristal, dom pérignon, and Salon. Vintage port is a saleroom regular, although demand for it has been relatively modest, with taylor, fonseca, graham, warre, dow, and quinta do noval, the unofficial first growths, as it were, of a group of some 40 or more port houses. Rare madeira makes an occasional appearance at auction. Auction houses have played a key role in predicting and shaping the success of newer regions for collectible wines, such as Italy and Spain. Among Italy’s blue chips, gaja and certain wines from Giacomo Conterno, Bruno Giacosa, Rocche dei Manzoni, Luciano Sandrone, and Aldo Conterno represent solid collectibles along with supertuscans Sassicaia, Solaia, tignanello, ornellaia, and Masseto. From Spain older vintages of vega sicilia, Marqués de Murrieta, Marqués de Riscal, CVNE, and Viña Tondonia from Lopez de Heredia are increasingly seen at auction. The finest wines of the Rhône, notably Hermitage, Côte Rôtie, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, often made an appearance in auction catalogues. Wines from Germany, Alsace, Loire, and tokaj make only an occasional appearance.
The wines of the New World, California and Australia in particular, are making an impact as their track record for ageing becomes more widely accepted and new wines appear on the secondary market. Demand for California wines is particularly strong in the US, less so elsewhere. While such older rarities as the 1941 Inglenook Cabernet can fetch very high prices, the focus today is on such california cult names as Araujo, Bryant Family, Colgin, Dominus, Harlan, Kistler, Opus One, Screaming Eagle, Shafer, and Sine Qua Non. It was a wine from Australia, penfolds Grange, that was arguably the first New World wine to be recognized internationally as the equivalent of a Bordeaux first growth. Grange is already a saleroom classic, while Henschke’s Hill of Grace is also regarded as an important single-vineyard Shiraz. Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine, first published in 1991, recognizes the reputation and track record of Australian wine at auction, reflecting an increasingly diverse market largely underpinned by barossa valley Shiraz, and coonawarra and margaret river Cabernet Sauvignon. The sixth edition, published in 2014, gives top ‘Outstanding’ billing to 21 wines including, penfolds Grange and Hill of Grace apart, Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir, Clonakilla Shiraz-Viognier, Grosset Polish Hill Riesling, Cullen Diana Madeline Cabernet-Merlot, Wendouree Shiraz, and Wynns John Riddoch Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon.
Auctions- Record Prices
Red bordeaux is the consistent pace-setter for wine auction prices, accounting for almost all red wine records. The record of £105,000 for a single bottle of 1787 Ch Lafitte (sic) paid by the late Malcolm Forbes at Christie’s on 5 December 1985 survived much longer than the wine itself, which turned to vinegar when put on show upright under a bright light (see storing wine). It was Lafite again, on this occasion the 1869 vintage, which smashed through the barrier for a standard 75 cl. bottle when three bottles were sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October 2010 for HK$1.8 million ($230,000) each. In November 2010, a rare imperial (six-litre bottle) of Ch Cheval Blanc 1947 was sold for £192,000 at Christie’s, Geneva, setting a world record for a single bottle, albeit an outsize one. The dizzying rise of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in the early 21st century has seen records consistently broken by the wines of this exceptional Burgundy producer. The most notable world record for a case of the grand cru Romanée-Conti itself was the HK$3,675,000 (£295,838) paid at Christie’s Hong Kong in November 2013 for 12 bottles of the 1978 vintage.
Beyond Bordeaux and Burgundy, other rarities have achieved fabulous prices for varying reasons. Thus, individual bottles of the 1907 Heidsieck Champagne salvaged in 1998 from a ship torpedoed by a German submarine during the First World War made up to $275,000 at auctions around the world. The £25,000 paid for a bottle of the 1775 massandra ‘Sherry de la Frontera’ at Sotheby’s in 2001 is the highest price ever paid for a bottle of fortified wine. And in 2000 at Auction Napa Valley, the annual charity fundraiser, an imperial of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon made $500,000 (£297,000).
Auctions- How to buy and sell at auction
The public forum of the auction room and the intrinsically competitive aspect of bidding for lots often creates an atmosphere of tension and excitement in the saleroom in which it is easy for inexperienced participants to get carried away. The online-only format—which attempts to replicate the live auction environment—differs in that all lots are sold at exactly the same moment. The excitement of an online auction sale is greatest in the last 30 minutes before the auction closes. All the information required about a particular auction is published in the auction catalogue, including details of the lots, estimated prices, conditions of sale, and other general information on such matters as delivery charges, premiums, and other additions to the hammer price such as taxes and duties payable where applicable. Most auctioneers charge a buyer’s premium at a house rate that is normally between 10 and 22.5% of the hammer price, and a seller’s premium which can be negotiated with the auction house and varies according to the amount sold. The internet auction format has taken catalogues one step further, providing potential buyers with instant information regarding vintage conditions, regional information, and tasting notes.
The wines to be sold are in numbered lots. In addition to a number and an estimated price band from lowest to highest, the description of each lot identifies the wine by name, bottle size, and vintage where applicable. Increasing concern about counterfeit wines has heightened awareness of the importance of provenance by both bidders and (most) auctioneers. Given the importance of the condition of the wine, especially older wines, and since wines are not generally available for inspection, the catalogue specifies exact fill level, or ullage levels (‘mid shoulder’ or ‘bottom neck’, for example, levels illustrated in the catalogue), the condition of the label, whether the wine comes in its own wooden case (sometimes abbreviated to ‘owc.’), and will generally mention if a cellar is of exceptional pedigree or in previously undisturbed condition. Auction house policy may vary on inspection and the condition of the wine to be sold. Some auctioneers offer pre-sale tastings of varying degrees of lavishness. Hong Kong has seen extravagant entertainment of potential bidders, usually including examples of the wines to be sold. New York sales often take place in smart restaurants with lunch laid on. Most London sales are arid, workmanlike affairs.
Lots which are of particular interest may be supplemented by the auctioneer’s tasting notes.
Bidding may be by hand or, more often today, by waving a numbered paddle to attract the auctioneer’s attention. Bidding is, unless otherwise stated, per dozen bottles.
Advance commission bids form a substantial proportion of bids received and more and more lots are being sold online. Commission, or absentee, bids are treated in exactly the same way as bids in the room. The successful bidders obtain their lot at one increment above the underbidder. In the event of two commission bids of the same amount, it is the one received first that takes precedence.
Brokers
Important members of any trade, and increasingly important in the wine trade. Known charmingly as courtiers in French, brokers can play a vital role as middlemen between vine-growers and merchants, or négociants, collecting and exhibiting hundreds of samples, or échantillons, taking a small percentage of any eventual sale. Another class of brokers, further along the distribution chain, guide those who sell wine through the maze of those who produce it, some of them nursing ‘stables’ of producers rather in the manner of a literary agent representing a rollcall of authors. And then, just one or two links away from those who actually pull the cork, there are the fine wine brokers, those who sell from a list of glamorous properties and vintages which may, but often do not, belong to them.
This last group, most of whom have been based in Britain clustered round the headquarters of the two London-based auction houses like bees round a honeypot, represents one of the very few sectors of the wine trade that has been highly profitable. Several London firms did extremely well in the 1990s as the number of wine collectors and investors around the world increased exponentially and asia woke up to the delights of fine wine; Farr Vintners has sold more wine than Sotheby’s and Christie’s combined for many years. The sort of wine of interest to this new breed of wine merchant typically sits in an unbroken case in a bonded warehouse in Britain while being traded so profitably around the world. The profitability of this business was so obviously attractive to traditional merchants more used to trading and delivering individual bottles and cases of much less valuable wine that in the early and mid 1990s many of them set up their own broking divisions. Much of these brokers’ trade is between their own established customers. By the turn of the century most of these fine-wine brokers had, often extremely profitable, outposts in hong kong.
Generic Wines
Wine, one named after a wine type (and usually borrowed European place-name) as opposed to a varietal, named after the grape variety from which the wine was made. The term has been used particularly in australia and the united states. Under American law, wines labelled as generics may be made from any grape variety or blend of varieties, and called either after their colour (red, white, rosé) or after places. With nothing else to call their results, early california wineries borrowed European place-names shamelessly. Before prohibition one could buy, not just St-Julien and Margaux made in the state, but wines named after particular châteaux. After Prohibition, stricter laws limited the borrowings to a handful of so-called semi-generic names, most commonly Burgundy, Chablis, Champagne, Chianti, Rhine, Sauterne (sic), Sherry, and Port, but did nothing to demand even the faintest approximations of the original in terms of grape varieties or style. Chablis could and can be just as sickly sweet as Rhine, and both can be made from thompson seedless or any other white grape. Burgundy, Chianti, and Claret could all come from the same tank, and probably have done. Towards the end of the 1980s, Red Table Wine, White Table Wine, and Rosé began to replace place-names on many of the more reputable labels. However, Chablis, Burgundy, and other borrowed names remain in widespread use by a number of large-volume producers, giants gallo foremost among them. A wine agreement between the US and EU finally drafted in 2005 permitted the continued use of these semi-generic terms on established brands for an unspecified period.
Generic names can still be found on many wine labels, particularly in non-exporting or developing wine regions. No third-country wine entering the eu may carry a geographical name recognized as a European wine name. Thus, for example, the Australian company penfolds had to change the name of their most famous wine from Penfolds Grange Hermitage to Penfolds Grange and, more fatuously, EU officials have objected to established New World place-names incorporating the word Port.
Outside Europe, champagne is still widely used as a generic name for sparkling wine, although not usually for the best-quality products.
Co- operatives
Ventures owned jointly by a number of different members, are extremely important as wine producers and have the advantage for their members of pooling winemaking and marketing resources and costs. Collectively, they usually have access to a broad range of financial advantages over individual producers, particularly subsidies in the eu, although these have been declining. In most countries they also enjoy the commercial advantage of being able to describe their wines as bottled by the producer, using such reassuring phrases as mis(e) en bouteille à la propriété and erzeugerabfüllung more usually associated with much smaller, individually managed wine enterprises. The better co-operatives are becoming increasingly skilled not just at winemaking but also at marketing specific bottlings designed to look and taste every bit as distinctive as the individually produced competition. The worst co-operatives play almost exclusively with subsidies and politics. Co-operatives are at their strongest in areas where wine’s selling price is relatively low and where the average size of individual holdings is small, although co-operatives are also quite significant in champagne and there are several in the médoc, for example. The majority of wine co-operatives were formed in the early 1930s in the immediate aftermath of the Depression.
Co- operatives: France
France’s caves coopératives (often referred to locally simply as la cave) are declining in number and influence, but in 2013 the national total of 690 were still responsible for half of all wine produced in France. The average number of members, or adhérents, of each co-operative is also declining (down from 240 in the 1960s to 122 in 2013) as holdings are amalgamated and members have been encouraged to grub up less suitable vineyards by the EU vine pull scheme. Co-operatives are a particularly strong force in the languedoc and roussillon, the greater rhône Valley, provence, and corsica, where la cave can dominate local economic life. As subsidies and compulsory distillation have declined, co-operatives are being restructured and amalgamated into much bigger groupings. Co-ops’ speciality is igp wine—they produce more than 70% of the French total—but those which have established a reputation for particularly sound aoc wines sold outside their own region include Union champagne, La Chablisienne of chablis, the co-operative at Tain l’hermitage, the Plaimont co-operative organization in gascony, and a number of alsace co-operatives, notably that of Turckheim. The average quality of wine made in French co-ops has improved since the early 1990s but their sales and marketing expertise has not in general, a major factor in France’s crise viticole.
Co-operatives: Germany
In germany, co-operatives (known as Winzergenossenschaft, Winzerverein, Winzervereinigung, Weingärtnergenossenschaft, or Weinbauernverband) have played an increasingly significant role since 1868, when the first German wine co-operative was formally established in the ahr. As outlined in german history, co-operatives offered smallholders the chance to compete in the newly quality-conscious German wine market of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Nearly two in every three German vine-growers today belong to the local co-operative, although their vineyards are often a small, part-time activity which therefore, cumulatively, represent almost a third of the total German area under vine. Many of the 13 wine regions of Germany have a central co-operative cellar, or zentralkellerei, which is fed grapes, wine, or must by more localized co-operatives. By 2014, the number of co-operatives in Germany had fallen to 179, of which 114 made wine on the premises.
The co-operative movement is particularly strong, and particularly successful, in the most southerly region of baden, where about 85% of all wine produced from over 50 individual co-operatives is sold under the auspices of the giant central Badischer Winzerkeller at Breisach. This vast enterprise is larger than any winery in France. The Baden co-operatives have been particularly active in transcending the co-operative image of quantity over quality by developing superior, small volume bottlings of distinctive wines. Co-operatives are also extremely important in the württemberg region, where there are 41 co-operatives whose central cellar is at Möglingen. They are also important in Germany’s four smallest regions, saale-unstrut, ahr, hessische bergstrasse, and sachsen. In the mosel region, the central co-operative cellar, Moselland of Bernkastel, not only processes about 20% of the region’s output, but also handles winemaking and marketing for three central co-operatives in the Pfalz, Rheinhessen, and Nahe. In the other classic wine region, the rheingau, the role of co-operative cellars is very much less significant.
Co-operatives: Italy
In Italy, the cantina sociale is no less important, accounting for about 50% of the country’s production. eu policies have favoured co-operatives in the past, often as a result of wily or politically well-connected operators of them. As EU subsidies dwindle, however, the quality of the wine, and the ability to run the co-operative on a commercial basis, becomes increasingly important. One of the most respected Italian co-operatives, in the far north west, is the Produttori del barbaresco, whose origins are 19th century. The influence of the cantina sociale, or Kellereigenossenschaft in German, is particularly strong in trentino-alto adige, where Cavit, incorporating eleven wineries and 4,500 members, is the region’s biggest producer. In veneto, co-operatives have traditionally been responsible for the bulk of production, particularly in Verona, where a large number of producers of Soave and Valpolicella either buy, or supplement their production through purchases, from the local co-op.
The co-operative Riunite of emilia-romagna was famous in the early 1980s for engulfing the United States, and other markets, in a tidal wave of lambrusco. Cantine Leonardo da Vinci, the Cantine di Montalcino, and the Cantina di Scansano are some of tuscany’s better co-operatives. Further south, quantity, and not always quality, is the chief characteristic of the co-operatives that proliferate practically wherever the vine is grown, although Cantina di Taburno with Luigi Moio as consultant is a leading light. The Copertino co-operative in puglia makes a good job of its eponymous red. The islands sardinia and sicily are dominated by co-operatives, of which Settesoli in Sicily and Santadi in Sardinia are models of quality. Settesoli has cooperated in the local research institute in clonal selection, variety and soil matching, and the conservation of almost extinct indigenous varieties—all of which have helped to improve and increase wine quality in Sicily.
Co-operatves: Spain and Portugal
As in Italy, co-operatives are extremely important in Iberia, where grapes are so often grown alongside other crops. More than 60% of each vintage was delivered to one of Spain’s 1,000 wine co-operatives or Portugal’s 300 (see portugal, history) in the late 1980s, although the proportion had dropped to 55% by 2014 in Spain, and after Portugal’s entry into the eu in 1986 the private sector has grown significantly as regulations which favoured production by the co-operatives were relaxed and EU funds resulted in substantial investment in the wine industry. In consequence, by 2011, Portugal had 90 active co-operatives accounting for 43% of the country’s production.
Although the movement began in the early years of the 20th century, it substantially increased in importance in the 1950s, when the wine market was relatively depressed. One of the earliest wine co-operatives was in Olite in navarra, where the movement is particularly powerful and where it can absorb as much as 90% of grape production, although here, as elsewhere, links are being forged with individual producers to increase overall quality and technical expertise. It was only in the 1980s that many Iberian co-operatives even began to consider bottling wine, so much of their produce was sold off either for distillation or as bulk wine and even today they bottle only about 10% of their production. Co-ops are present in most Spanish wine regions but only a handful of small or mid-sized operations such as Martín Códax in rías baixas or the Capçanes, Masroig, and Falset co-ops in montsant make wines of serious quality. In the vineyard vastness of La mancha, there are about 100 co-operatives of very varied quality, while yecla and jumilla have export-minded co-operatives whose level of modern equipment and expertise is considerably above average. In the fortified wine regions of jerez, much of the rest of andalucía, and the douro, co-operatives are less important than the long-standing links between vine-growers and individual wine producers. The 20th-century Portuguese table wine industry was revolutionized by the government’s formation of co-operatives, however not always for the better (see dão), although fortunately the 21st century has seen a greater focus on quality over quantity and a more vibrant private sector.
Co-operatives: Rest of the World
Practically wherever wine is made, co-operatives thrive, although the movement is not particularly strong in the united states and has had its own variants in eastern Europe. Co-operatives have played a particularly important role in the development of the wine industry in south africa and argentina.
Dijon
Town in northern burgundy and the focus of the region’s vinous academe, the Institut Universitaire de la Vigne et du Vin Jules Guyot in the Université de Bourgogne (formerly the Université de Dijon). For some time oenology was taught by the charismatic vigneron René Engel, who was also a leading light in the Chevaliers de Tastevin, but Dijon was able to offer graduate diplomas in oenology from 1947. The course was further refined in 1955 when a viticultural research station and experimental winery (2.4 ha/10 acres) were established in nearby marsannay.
Dijon offers the fifth-year Diplôme National d’Oenologue; two Masters: Vine, Wine, Terroir, and Fermentation Processes for the Food Industry; two Bachelors: Vine Science, and Marketing of Wine and Oenotourism. Four diplomas in continuing education also exist: Practical Oenology, Vine Science and Environment, Wine, Culture and Oenotourism, and Strategic Vineyard and Winery Management. Research concentrates on five main areas: mechanisms and factors of induced resistance in grapevines, the impact of climate change, microbiology, physical chemistry, and sensory analysis. The UNESCO chair of Culture and Traditions of Wine’ and the Scientific Committee for Vine and Wine in Burgundy are hosted at the IUVV Jules Guyot.
Certain clones of Chardonnay, and pinot noir clones such as 115 and 777, imported from Burgundy, are sometimes known as Dijon clones.
Lincoln
University Centre for Viticulture and Oenology, research and teaching institution at Lincoln, Canterbury, in the South Island of new zealand. Research focuses specifically on the growth and production of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, in particular how cool-climate growing conditions, such as those in New Zealand, affect the flavours, aromas, mouthfeel, phenolics, and tannins of these grape varieties. Lincoln is a specialist land-based university with a traditional agricultural science background, from which the viticulture and oenology programme grew in 1989. Lincoln is the largest wine training facility in New Zealand with study options up to PhD level. All programmes emphasize the integration of grape growing and winemaking from vine to glass. The focus is on such aspects of wine production as vineyard site selection, planting material, vine management, harvest parameters, grape handling, fermentation control, and wine finishing as well as vine physiology and fermentation chemistry.
Price
Is probably the single most important aspect of a wine to most consumers, just as the price of grapes is one of the most important variables of the viticultural year to most grape-growers. The price of vineyard land is not directly proportional to the price fetched by grapes grown on it, however.
Price: Grape prices
Wine grapes are an important item of commerce throughout the world, and the economic fortunes of many rural communities rise and fall with local wine grape prices. Although many wine consumers have the impression that most wine grapes are grown on estates which also process them into wine, nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of the world’s wine grapes are sold in the form of fresh fruit, to be vinified quite independently of the grape-grower, whether by commercial wineries or co-operatives.
The means to determine prices for wine grapes varies from region to region. Prices are normally fixed annually, taking into account supply and demand as well as individual vintage characteristics. A buoyant wine market bolsters grape prices, whatever the size of the crop, with some wineries attracting fruit away from others by paying higher prices. When the market is depressed it is not unusual to see fruit left on the vine (as in Australia in the mid 2000s, for instance), since the cost of harvesting can be more than the potential income. In many areas, notably Europe and South Africa, surplus grapes are distilled into alcohol, which in turn often becomes surplus to requirements.
Normally grapes are bought and sold according to vine variety and sugar content. The demand for different varieties is relatively stable, but prices can reflect longer-term changes as varieties move in and out of fashion. In most European regions, there is some sort of representative body which oversees grape prices. For example, in Bordeaux, the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) has a board made up of wine producers and négociants which seeks to organize the market for grapes and wine. As well as documenting wine sales, the CIVB may enter the market place in its own right and, for example, buy wine stocks for ageing in years of high supply. The regional organization in Champagne is the oldest of the French regional associations, and has powers and services which extend beyond grape price determination. The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (civc) has in its time determined grape prices by means of a relatively complex series of calculations (see champagne).
For many European producers, grape prices are set by co-operatives, and although the formulae may not be so rigid as those traditionally employed in Champagne, they must take into account the same factors concerning supply, demand, and intrinsic quality. In much of the New World, the majority of grape-growers sell their produce to private wineries. In Australia, there are very few statutory bodies which are involved in setting minimum prices. In the United States of America, individual growers negotiate freely with individual wineries, even though they may voluntarily join an association which will set recommended prices. The US government does, however, report on prices paid after each vintage.
A basic problem in buying and selling wine grapes is that their true value is not known until they are made into wine, and indeed until that wine is sold. Region of origin, however, is well recognized as affecting wine style and quality, and in 2013 in Australia there existed more than six-fold variation in prices between regions, with fruit destined for bulk wine in hot inland areas being the lowest in value. Concentration of sugar in grapes is the most common measure which can be related to grape quality. This is particularly important for grapes grown in cool climates, where better-quality wines are invariably made from grapes with higher must weights. However, in warm to hot climates it is not difficult to reach the desired sugar level, and other aspects of grape composition are better related to quality. Increasingly, progressive wineries are implementing grape quality assessment schemes to reward growers for producing high-quality fruit. These schemes can be related to the vineyard site as well as to rootstock and clone, vineyard management methods, and also perhaps to a detailed chemical analysis of the fruit. Some wineries keep wine batches from different growers separate, and so are able to pay a bonus based on performance, but a lack of understanding of and agreement on vineyard factors which affect wine quality is likely to hamper widespread application of wine grape quality bonus systems. Some enlightened wine producers pay growers per ha/acre and effectively manage grape quality themselves.
Price: Vineyard land prices
Wine is acknowledged as a natural product, and there is a widespread acceptance that the region or even vineyard of origin has a major effect on wine quality (see climate and wine quality, soil and wine quality, and viticulture). Needless to say, those vineyards with a reputation for high wine quality attract high land prices. Perhaps the clearest examples are to be found in the Bordeaux region, where, thanks partly to several important classifications of individual châteaux, land prices are also clearly stratified. In the mid 2000s, for example, the price of planted vineyard entitled to the basic Bordeaux appellation had fallen to very roughly 25,000 euros per ha (it was about 200,000 francs per ha in the late 1990s) while one of the most celebrated properties might cost the equivalent of 1.5 to 3 million euros per ha (very much less than Gérard Perse offered axa-Millésimes in 2001 for Ch Petit Village in Pomerol, only to rescind the offer). According to the 2013 French government’s valuation (for tax purposes) of vineyard land, the maximum value within the Gironde region was 2.35 million euros per ha in Pomerol, followed by 2.1 million euros in Pauillac.
Burgundy is a region in which geographical delimitation is even more precise, and prices vary considerably. grand cru were valued at an eye-watering maximum of 9.5 million euros per ha while those qualifying only for AOC Bourgogne could be acquired for less than 30,000 euros per ha depending on their exact location. Champagne vineyard land was for long considered some of the world’s most expensive but in 2014 the maximum price reported by SAFER, the French organization overseeing vineyard transactions was 1.8 million euros per ha.
In 2013 Knight Frank published a global vineyard index comparing minimum and maximum prices of what they refer to as lifestyle vineyards (vineyards greater than 5 ha/12 acres that are neither hobby purchases nor large commercial set-ups), in many regions around the world. Champagne was not mentioned but the highest values were for Bordeaux although they ranged widely there, from US$20,500 to $2,500,000 per ha. Next highest were Piemonte (bracketed with Lombardy), at a maximum of $1,200,000 per ha. Among new world regions, land in the Napa Valley was the most expensive, with values from $135,000 to $588,000 per ha. Values for Chile’s Colchagua Valley, Mendoza in Argentina, South Africa’s Western Cape, and the Barossa Valley in Australia are lower, related to land availability, but for Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand the values are surprisingly high (from $130,000 to $170,000).
Interestingly there are extensive tracts of land which have suitable soils and climate to grow quality grapes economically which are yet to be ‘discovered’ and planted to vineyards. As such, they have the value only of their existing land use. In many instances this might be low-value grazing. In hawke’s bay, New Zealand, many of the vineyards are planted in soils which have alternative horticultural uses, which may explain why they are valued relatively highly. Regions with particular soil features, such as Gimblett Gravels in Hawke’s Bay, have developed as well-regarded wine regions within a few decades. These alluvial gravel soils were rated poorly for grazing, and could be bought very cheaply by the initial vineyard investors but because the area is small and clearly defined, these vineyards are highly priced. Tasmania has Australia’s coolest climate, similar to New Zealand, with ample cheap and suitable land, yet to date there has been limited outside investment, despite Australia’s enthusiastic imports of cool-climate wine styles from New Zealand.
Price: Wine Prices
The price of a wine is a function of the price of the grapes, the price of labour, the price of a winery or the debt outstanding on it, pricing policy on the part of the producer, pricing policy on the part of any merchants involved in selling it, the cost of transport, bottling, labelling, and marketing, quite apart from any duties and taxation. The interest for the wine producer must be to maximize his or her return on capital, without acquiring a reputation for profiteering.
globalization continues to give bigger retailers increasing power to dictate prices and price points, which has had a generally deflationary effect on retail prices, if hardly an inflationary one on absolute value. See also economics of wine.
The interesting question for the consumer, however, is the extent to which retail wine prices, which can vary more than a thousandfold, reflect wine quality. The answer is, of course, not very closely. All sorts of factors can depress the price of a wine to make it a bargain relative to the competition. Some national economies offer particularly low production costs (such as south africa and some of south america) when translated into the currencies of many potential importers. Currency movements in general have far more (upward) impact on wine prices than most wine drinkers realize (merchants do not always pass on the benefit to consumers of downward movements). The enormous surge in demand for 1982 Bordeaux in the United States was partly the result of the strength of the American dollar relative to the French franc in 1983 when en primeur purchases were made. Other political events can also affect wine prices. The fall of communism and the effect of gorbachev’s anti-alcohol policies on eastern Europe left surplus production in countries such as bulgaria, hungary, and romania, which used to ship enormous quantities to the Soviet Union, and these emerging economies’ desire for hard, western currency led them to export goods such as wine at extremely keen prices, or as part of barter deals in the 1990s. Specific countries may also benefit from preferential import tariffs.
Pricing policy in general may be geared to gaining a foothold in a new market, as for example, South Africa needed to do after the lifting of sanctions in the early 1990s. Or it may have the result of bolstering prices in the belief that high prices automatically buy respect and prestige, a phenomenon associated with some aspirant california cult wines.
The above considerations relate to the prices of wine when it is first offered for sale. Serious wine collectors and those considering investing in wine are interested in what happens to the price of fine wine over time. As detailed in investment and auctions, this depends on the precise wine, the era, and period of time, and also on the rarity value of a given wine, its provenance and condition, and the general state of the market.
Most ordinary wine drinkers took a certain comfort in the story of what happened to the world’s most expensive bottle of wine sold, at Christie’s for a record £105,000 in 1985: this particular bottle of Ch Lafite 1787, supposedly once the property of Thomas jefferson, was stood upright on display under warm lights by its owner Malcolm Forbes so that, unnoticed, the cork dried out and dropped into the bottle, rendering the wine oxidized and undrinkable.
Not least because of the asian economic boom, the late 1990s saw the prices of the most sought-after fine wines, the so-called trophy wines, draw away from those of other wines, a gap that widened as the chinese buyers poured into the market for top 2009 and 2010 bordeaux, making such wines seem even poorer value than ever. It is ironic perhaps that at a time when the difference in quality between wines at the top and bottom ends of the market has never been narrower, the price difference has never been greater. But presumably this reflects the hugely increased number of affluent wine consumers, the finite volumes of wine produced, and the significant position that wine now holds in a number of cultures round the world.
