VinExpo: Storm Clouds on the Horizon

Dateline: 06/25/97

I just got back from VinExpo, the international wine trade fair held in Bordeaux every two years. The weather was brisk, which was good because it meant that the exhibition halls (two buildings, one a monstrous structure a hundred meters wide over a km long) didn't overheat the way they did in 1987, when one producer put a thermometer in a glass of wine on his table and discovered it was 38° (that's about 101 °F). That said, from the standpoint of the Italians, I have little else that is at all positive to report: Our stands were deserted. It was extremely disheartening to walk among packed stands where thousands of people were talking deals and doing business, and then come to empty stands that almost invariably had Italian names out front.

Some of the producers I talked to suggested that the desertion of the Italian stands was due to their design. It's true that those of the producers who came under the auspices of the Italian Foreign Trade Commission (the ICE, which had several blocks of stands) resembled rickety matchboxes, but the equally rickety-looking blocks of stands operated by the Spanish and German FTCs were packed. Others suggested that the Italian stands were deserted because those who wanted to do business with the Italians had already done so, at VinItaly (which is in April). I doubt this, because many Asians and Americans only came to VinExpo. Why weren't they interested in Italian wines?

The answers are, I think, Quality and Price. Many of the Italian producers who came to Bordeaux were, to be honest, either up-and-coming or fair-to-middling. While there's nothing wrong with not being stellar, one's prices have to reflect one's position in the wine firmament, and this is where the crunch came. I met a friend who's an importer, and we went to taste the wines of Jean-Luc Colombo, who makes incredible things in the Rhone Valley. "I can get this for the same price as ___," he said, waving at a Chianti Classico producer's forlornly empty booth. "And it's a hell of a lot better." Put simply, at Bordeaux most of the Italians priced themselves out of the market.

This all ties in eerily with a conversation that Elio Grasso, an excellent Barolo producer who remembers wearing out his shoes on sales trips because he walked to save cab fares (30 years ago, when good Barolo sold for $3 a bottle), had in February with the wine purchaser of one of Alba's finest restaurants. The man was almost frantic because he was paying significantly more for the 92 and 93 vintages than he had for the 90 and 89 vintages, which were far and away superior. "What am I supposed to do, charge more for a bad vintage than I do for a great one?" he asked. "And if producers are asking 30-40,000 Lire for these wines, what will they ask for the 95 and 96 vintages ?" [Both are very promising.] A bottle he pays 50,000 lire for will cost at least a hundred thousand in the wine list, and that's prohibitively expensive for most people eating out. The worst of it is, he concluded, that there's no longer much difference between the average and the top producers – the prices are almost uniformly high. He fears that when the bubble bursts they'll all be crying bitter tears. After all, why will consumers go to a fine restaurant if they can't afford a fine wine? Elio agreed with the man – there's a shakeout coming, and we may have seen the beginnings of it in Bordeaux.

Lest you think all was doom and despair at Bordeaux, there were some happy islands. Gaja was incredibly busy. Elisabetta and Angelica Fagiuoli, of Montenidoli, were mobbed, as was Urs Vetter, of Lageder. And there was a crowd in front of José Rallo's cubbyhole in the Vini della Sicilia stand – Donnafugata's Opera Unica, a Passito (made from partially dried grapes), is nectar from heaven.

However, lots of people have some serious soul-searching to do.

Good Food & Drink,
Elisabetta

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