Indian Summer

Someone is being kind to the wine producers this year. We've had a glorious few weeks. No rain. Normally a lack of the wet stuff causes consternation, but until the vendange is completed it would be good if the weather could stay like it is now. Perhaps with very very light showers, but nothing more that that.

We watched a very depressing documentary on Channel 3 last night, Vino Business, about wine production in France. Particularly the impact that attitudes in and around Bordeaux are having. Foreign investors are spending big in France and buying up estates. An increasing pattern in that region and probably elsewhere. Wine is purely a commodity, enabling extraordinary prices per bottle. The snobbism and greed and indifference being perpetuated is equally extraordinary. Smaller estates within the same region, who up until last year were Premier Cru, the most important of the wine classifications for red wine, suddenly find they've lost that accreditation and with it, the value of their wine and the land has been demolished. 

Two particular wine connoisseurs/advisors have positioned themselves as the most knowledgeable so that now, unless red wine meets their brief and therefore their approval, it's out. Accreditation isn't just about the wine, it's now also about adequate car parking and all the peripheral stuff, which these days is part of the marketing mix. Not everyone has the means, as last night for example, to spend another extraordinary sum on a huge, elaborately decorated electric bell, that can play the national anthem of most countries. So when a particular group of guests arrive, a number is punched in on the key pad for the appropriate anthem. The only ap-peal that I'm  interested in is the effect on my tastebuds. Begs the question what % costs of a bottle from this producer is actually for the wine.

The period the programme covered was the season leading up to the harvest in 2013, which was a very bad year weather-wise. Vino Business showed a particular producer visiting his vines after a dreadful hailstorm. We know of some in Vouvray, who last year lost their entire harvest after a horrendous hail storm. In last night's programme, the producer lost 70% of his crop.

Vino Business interviewed/followed a range of producers. A few independents are hanging on to their estates for the family and don't want to sell out. But as was asked the end of the programme -  for how long? 

We took our Dutch friends Annemiek and Thjis for a couple of wine tastings in Cravant last Friday. They were making a quick visit and then going home. We know both producers well - one of them particularly - so were able to phone up at the last minute and fix a time to go round. It was a really good afternoon. Lots of tastings and discussions, of white and red particularly. Terrific experience and an interesting one for our friends, with a few cases sold to take back to Holland.  Wine production is undoubtedly a tough and demanding business. How lucky are we then to be surrounded by such superb producers.