A heralded Bordeaux arrives

The 2000 Bordeaux is beginning to arrive and -- despite the anti-French sentiment of the moment -- it is being embraced with a fervor Los Angeles wine merchants say is surprising. Heralded as the best wine Bordeaux has ever produced, it is flying out of stores as soon as it shows up.

The first bottles delivered to L.A. have been from lesser-known chateaux, selling for as little as $7 each. Big names such as Chateau Latour are just arriving. As French vintners release the bulk of their Bordeaux this summer and fall, the response is expected to grow more vigorous, even at prices as high as $200 to $400 a bottle.

“The wine is soft, deep. And the nose is tremendous, rich, fat and lush,” says Rene Averseng, owner of Du Vin in West Hollywood. “It’s exactly what you read about.”

The best-of-the-best drumbeat started in 2001 when the all-powerful wine critic Robert Parker first tasted the 2000 Bordeaux in barrels, calling it “a phenomenal year that might turn out to be one of the greatest vintages Bordeaux has ever produced.”

A year later, Parker tasted the wines again and fulfilled his own prediction, saying, “this is the greatest vintage Bordeaux has ever produced,” noting that the “superlative quality” extends across the Bordeaux price range.

The March 31, 2003, Wine Spectator dubbed it “the vintage of a lifetime.”

“If it were hype, you wouldn’t have everyone on board,” says Jamie Ritchie, senior vice president in charge of wine auctions for Sotheby’s in New York. “I’ve not run across any dissenters.”

But it is “vastly overpriced,” says Stephen Tanzer, editor of International Wine Cellar, who estimates the media attention has goosed prices 100% beyond where they should be. “The value is in the [inexpensive] ‘petite chateaux.’ This is where the vintage is at its strongest. You get a lot of pleasure from these wines.”

Tasting the difference

Although prices can differ by hundreds of dollars a bottle, the difference in taste between a Bordeaux from a top producer, such as Latour, and a lesser-known chateau is not as dramatic when the wine is young. At a wine tasting last week hosted by the Wine Hotel, a new wine storage facility in the mid-Wilshire area, 40 people blind-tasted the 2000 vintage from the top five chateaux in Bordeaux against five wines from less expensive Bordeaux producers. Only one guest was able to identify the five premier wines.

“They were all huge wines,” says Bob Myerson, one of the hosts and owner of City of Commerce-based distributor Wine Warehouse, noting that five years down the road, the wines will start to sort out into greater and lesser bottles. Until then, the prices reflect expectations as well as the reputation of the chateau making the wine.

Accountant Paul Belenardo, who is an avid wine collector, has tasted the top chateaux as well. “They are amazing for such young wines,” he says.

If prices weren’t so high, Belenardo says he would buy more than four cases. But at $50 to more than $100 per bottle, he notes, “you can find already aged Bordeaux for the same price.”

Never mind the expensive stuff, says Steve Winfield, a Palos Verdes-based distributor who entered the wine business as the 2000 Bordeaux became available for order in 2001. “The beauty of it is that people who have never been exposed to Bordeaux before can try it for $10 to $30 a bottle and taste wines that are much better than their counterparts from California. We’re going to convert a number of people to the French.”

That would indeed be a shift. Even before France’s opposition to war in Iraq led to calls for a boycott, that country’s wine had been falling out of favor with American consumers. Labels, they say, are difficult to understand and the wine is unpredictable. Last year, Australian wine surpassed French wine to become the No. 2 wine in terms of volume imported to the U.S. after Italian wine.

Area wine stores, however, are watching consumers put pleasure over politics when it comes to the 2000 Bordeaux.

“We’ve gotten complaint letters” about the stores’ displays of French wine, says Ron Loutherback, co-owner of the Wine Club, with stores in Santa Ana, Santa Clara and San Francisco. “But these are customers who didn’t buy French wine anyway. I haven’t noticed floor sales slowing. We just had one of the biggest Marches in our history. And it was all the Bordeaux.”

The wine is just that good, says Loutherback. “It’s selling like crazy. For $15, I can give you a Bordeaux the equivalent of a $40 California Cabernet. It’s put pressure on the California wines to reduce prices.”

Prices for premium California labels have escalated in recent years, in part because consistent conditions in the state’s top grape-growing regions mean each vintage is, more or less, as good as the last. It also, conversely, has resulted in a glut of grapes and a predicted shakeout in the California wine industry.

The wild gyrations in the Bordeaux weather patterns only allow for two or three years each decade of highly sought after wine. Those years, the demand pushes prices up, which have reached record levels this year.

Most years, only the very top Bordeaux chateaux have the manpower and expertise to produce premier wines, according to Vic Motto, a consultant to Napa Valley vintners. Typically, bad weather forces French vintners to harvest before the grapes ripen. They add sugar to make up the difference, he says, a practice forbidden in California.

“They make more mediocre wines there than very good wines,” says Motto, who traveled to Bordeaux to taste the 2000 vintage from the top chateaux and finds them “superb.”

A hot, dry August was followed by a mild, dry fall, Bordeaux’s best growing season in more than a decade. “In 2000, they didn’t have to [add sugar]. They had California weather,” says Motto.

A measure of the extraordinary popularity of this wine is the amount of it that has been pre-sold to wine enthusiasts who, two years ago, paid for wine to be delivered this summer and fall. The Wine Club sold $15 million of these “futures.” Wally’s in Westwood sold more than $6 million. The Wine House in West Los Angeles sold more than $1 million. Each store reports 2000 Bordeaux “futures” sales are double that of previous years.

“So little in French wine is this clear,” says Chip Hammack, the Bordeaux buyer at the Wine House. “A lot of people who have never bought futures before got into the game.”

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Locking in low prices

Buying early allowed folks to lock in prices that now have doubled, and in some cases tripled and quadrupled, according to Wally’s wine buyer Christian Navarro. With the supply of 2000 Bordeaux wine relatively steady year to year, and this year’s extraordinary demand, he estimates that prices across the board, including the unknown “petite chateaux” have escalated a minimum of 50% over last year’s levels.

“Despite the economy and the anti-French sentiment, our [in-store] Bordeaux sales are up 20%,” says Navarro. “It’s a surprise. But it’s very rare when a prediction not only comes true but exceeds expectations.”

Adds Navarro, “There is some argument as to whether the 2000 vintage is the best ever at the very upper regions. But never before has the across-the-board quality been so high. There are $19 world-class Bordeaux from chateaux that no one has ever heard of before.”

For those who missed the “futures” sales, there is one opportunity left to buy wine from the major chateaux at prices comparable to what the early birds paid for their “futures”: Costco.

“Most of what we carry is first and second growth [the top two tiers of chateaux] Bordeaux from $40 to $250 a bottle,” says Costco president Jim Sinegal. “They don’t last long,” he adds, noting that only about 10% to 20% of Costco’s order of 2000 Bordeaux has reached stores.

The true test of the values at the top levels will be in the auction market, says Sotheby’s Ritchie, who expects to start being offered 2000 Bordeaux on consignment by the end of the year from people who bought wine futures as short-term investments. “As soon as people get their wine and drink it, the judgments will start,” he says. “Everyone is still in euphoric bliss because they haven’t tasted them yet.”