Salut/Hi Bill Loftin,

le/on Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:35:03 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>The news today says that the French have hundreds of millions of bottles
>that they can't sell and now want it distilled for industrial alcohol.
>267 million bottles of AOC wines can't be sold and are in the hopper.
>French sales in the US dropped 6.7% by volume and 6.1% by value. These
>numbers tell me that they should reduce their prices immediately but it
>shows that they have raised them by the fact that the % by value was not
>as great as the % by volume. When are they going to get a clue.

Well Bill, the thing is that there are limits to the extent to which prices
can be cut. I'm not defending these unsold AOCs, they're mainly rubbish
wines anyway, and distilling them is as good a use of them as anything.

The same could be said of 80% of italian wines, 80% of US wines and so on.

The problem is that the supply of wine has gone rocketting up and the demand
hasn't. We've been talking about this trend on the french language wine echo
for about 4 years now.

As for the price of french wines in the US, I am truly shocked by them. How
much would you expect to find a bottom end Bordeaux AOC in a cut price
supermarket selling for? I know that the price paid by negociants to the
grower is under $3 a litre. You really can't expect a wine maker in France
to make a living at that price, especially when they can't expand their
production to make economies of scale.

At the top end, the wines we write about here all sell out, and there's
virtually no problem for them.

Don't imagine that AOC means "good", it doesn't. It means "guaranteed
provenance". So an AOC Bordeaux is guaranteed to be made in the Bordeaux
region, from the right grapes and with a fairly strictly controlled set of
conditions. None of that guarantees that it will be any better than the
equivalent loose guarantee would imply in say California. So I'm neither
surprised nor shocked that these wines remain unsold. They're no good.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._too_much_wine

The news today says that the French have hundreds of millions of bottles
that they can't sell and now want it distilled for industrial alcohol.
267 million bottles of AOC wines can't be sold and are in the hopper.
French sales in the US dropped 6.7% by volume and 6.1% by value. These
numbers tell me that they should reduce their prices immediately but it
shows that they have raised them by the fact that the % by value was not
as great as the % by volume. When are they going to get a clue.
Bill

They should dump the whole lot! Who needs F_____ crap?

I don't know what to say.....

I guess they rather maintain their margins and destroy product. Its
artificial Price supports.


"Bill Loftin" > wrote in message
news:XfcKd.1911$Q_4.352@trnddc02...
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._too_much_wine
>
> The news today says that the French have hundreds of millions of bottles
> that they can't sell and now want it distilled for industrial alcohol.
> 267 million bottles of AOC wines can't be sold and are in the hopper.
> French sales in the US dropped 6.7% by volume and 6.1% by value. These
> numbers tell me that they should reduce their prices immediately but it
> shows that they have raised them by the fact that the % by value was not
> as great as the % by volume. When are they going to get a clue.
> Bill

According to Decanter,
http://decanter.com/news/61031.html
the proposal is for 1 billion liters, of which about 25% would be
French. The world wine glut is not merely French. This is not for
destroying inventory, but rather part of the abundant 2004 harvest.
Maybe that abundant harvest will help counteract the weak dollar!

guess prices are not coming down...this is a way to artificially maintain
higher pricing.


"DaleW" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> According to Decanter,
> http://decanter.com/news/61031.html
> the proposal is for 1 billion liters, of which about 25% would be
> French. The world wine glut is not merely French. This is not for
> destroying inventory, but rather part of the abundant 2004 harvest.
> Maybe that abundant harvest will help counteract the weak dollar!
>

First of all, let's be clear what they're talking about distilling-
it's not Ch. Lafite, nor any other first-growth. Nor for that matter
any 5-growth, nior most probably any Cru Bourgeois (it's also not
village or premier cru Burgundy, nor Chateauneuf-du-Pape, etc). What it
is mostly is Bordeaux AC wines (and possibly a bit that might have
qualified for Bordeaux Sup=E9rieur), which have long been the mainstay of
cafes and bistros, and many European homes, as "house wines". There's
a big confluence of factors here- the huge increase in acreage in
Australia, South America, etc; the strong Euro; a big crop. It's
probably the switch to Australia as the cheap wine of choice in say the
UK that makes a bigger difference to these wines than any American
factors, as we were never a huge market for these wines (though
certainly in US Mouton-Cadet has been replaced by Yellowtail as plonk
du jour).

My hopes for prices at least holding steady despite weak dollar had to
do with wines from appelations such as Cotes de Castillon, Fronsac,
etc. These are less affected by critic's scores. My hope is that with a
harvest going 15% over the norm, they'll use the extra volume to hold
prices down. We shall see.

Without getting into politics, the folks boycotting French products
don't seem to have been the major consumers of French wine to start
with.

Bill Loftin wrote:
>
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._too_much_wine
>
> The news today says that the French have hundreds of millions of
bottles
> that they can't sell and now want it distilled for industrial
alcohol.
> 267 million bottles of AOC wines can't be sold and are in the hopper.
> French sales in the US dropped 6.7% by volume and 6.1% by value.
These
> numbers tell me that they should reduce their prices immediately but
it
> shows that they have raised them by the fact that the % by value was
not
> as great as the % by volume. When are they going to get a clue.
> Bill

Here is my tuppence, Bill.
In my local PA-state store, they are only giving "everyday" French
wines about half of the shelf space that they used to get. I don't know
if this true of the pricier ones (never looked at them), but I have
noticed that they are giving MUCH more space to Oz wines. The
combination of factors already cited (boycott, prices, etc) probably
have a lot to do with this.
Of course, it might help their US sales if more producers would mention
the grape varieties on their labels. E.g., many beginning drinkers
wouldn't know that red Burgs are made of Pinot Noir.

Dan-O
(staying out of the politics, already got enough doo-doo for that)

Well, please go the the dumping site and send me some unclassified Sociando
Mallet 2000 or 2001 and get them before dumping.

I like that wine and would appreciate you saving those from disposal :-)


"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
...
> Salut/Hi Bill Loftin,
>
> le/on Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:35:03 GMT, tu disais/you said:-
>
>>The news today says that the French have hundreds of millions of bottles
>>that they can't sell and now want it distilled for industrial alcohol.
>>267 million bottles of AOC wines can't be sold and are in the hopper.
>>French sales in the US dropped 6.7% by volume and 6.1% by value. These
>>numbers tell me that they should reduce their prices immediately but it
>>shows that they have raised them by the fact that the % by value was not
>>as great as the % by volume. When are they going to get a clue.
>
> Well Bill, the thing is that there are limits to the extent to which
> prices
> can be cut. I'm not defending these unsold AOCs, they're mainly rubbish
> wines anyway, and distilling them is as good a use of them as anything.
>
> The same could be said of 80% of italian wines, 80% of US wines and so on.
>
> The problem is that the supply of wine has gone rocketting up and the
> demand
> hasn't. We've been talking about this trend on the french language wine
> echo
> for about 4 years now.
>
> As for the price of french wines in the US, I am truly shocked by them.
> How
> much would you expect to find a bottom end Bordeaux AOC in a cut price
> supermarket selling for? I know that the price paid by negociants to the
> grower is under $3 a litre. You really can't expect a wine maker in France
> to make a living at that price, especially when they can't expand their
> production to make economies of scale.
>
> At the top end, the wines we write about here all sell out, and there's
> virtually no problem for them.
>
> Don't imagine that AOC means "good", it doesn't. It means "guaranteed
> provenance". So an AOC Bordeaux is guaranteed to be made in the Bordeaux
> region, from the right grapes and with a fairly strictly controlled set of
> conditions. None of that guarantees that it will be any better than the
> equivalent loose guarantee would imply in say California. So I'm neither
> surprised nor shocked that these wines remain unsold. They're no good.
> --
> All the Best
> Ian Hoare
> http://www.souvigne.com
> mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

DaleW wrote:
> First of all, let's be clear what they're talking about distilling-
> it's not Ch. Lafite, nor any other first-growth. Nor for that matter
> any 5-growth, nior most probably any Cru Bourgeois (it's also not
> village or premier cru Burgundy, nor Chateauneuf-du-Pape, etc). What it
> is mostly is Bordeaux AC wines (and possibly a bit that might have
> qualified for Bordeaux Sup�rieur), which have long been the mainstay of
> cafes and bistros, and many European homes, as "house wines". There's
> a big confluence of factors here- the huge increase in acreage in
> Australia, South America, etc; the strong Euro; a big crop. It's
> probably the switch to Australia as the cheap wine of choice in say the
> UK that makes a bigger difference to these wines than any American
> factors, as we were never a huge market for these wines (though
> certainly in US Mouton-Cadet has been replaced by Yellowtail as plonk
> du jour).

Dale,
I agree with the importance of these factors, but another important
one is the declining consumption of wine in France itself. I don't have
the numbers at hand, but there's been a very significant drop in the per
capita amount of wine consumption in France as cocktails and beer have
become more popular among the younger set. Granted, this decline hasn't
happened overnight, but coupled with the decline of the dollar and the
flood of inexpensive wine from Oz, Spain, SA and elsewhere, it has
contributed to the glut of vin ordinaire.

Mark Lipton

In article .com>,
says...
> Of course, it might help their US sales if more producers would mention
> the grape varieties on their labels. E.g., many beginning drinkers
> wouldn't know that red Burgs are made of Pinot Noir.

<lurker mode off>

I think this is it exactly. Even moderately savvy customers (the bulk of
the consumers in the U.S.), don't understand what they are getting, and
they don't take the time to research it. It's very easy to be burned by
French wine if you don't know what you're buying. Inversely, it's pretty
hard to be burned by wines from the U.S., Oz, Chile, Spain, etc., when
you know the varietal. Sure, there's levels of quality, but if you know
that you like Syrah, you'll feel equally confident with a bottle from
Santa Ynez or Australia.

This whole appellation restriction & associated labelling issues are
mainly what's killing French wine sales.

--

mike kallay

"Richard Neidich" > wrote in
k.net:

> Where is the wine shop..city/state?
>

Wine Warehouse, Atlantic Beach Fl great but not always the best prices.

>Where is the wine shop..city/state

Columbus Ohio, USA
Bi!!

>Bill Lee, sorry if anti-French attitudes have hurt your business. As to
>Nouveau, I think that's a fad that has passed it's prime. Even here in
>a very blue state, all the arrival of BN has done is elicted yawns.

I don't run the store, I just have financial interest in the store. I chose
the BN only because it was a French wine that sold well and had a very obvious
decline. I could have used a dozen other examples I suppose. Chablis was
always a big seller, especially Brocard as were many Rhones and Loire whites.
The biggest indicator to me was/is the number of negative commets by regular
customers who used to buy French wines even after attending tastings where they
admit that the French wines being served were in fact some of French wines they
had tasted in years. We recently served 2000 Domaine de L' Echevin Saint
Maurice Cotes du Rhone Villages and a 2001 Mas des Brunes "Cuvee des Cigales"
Cotes de Thongues that were both around $15.00 USD/bottle to rave reviews in
the wine bar at blind tastings yet they still languish on the shelves. Pity, I
might have to drink them all myself.:-)
Bi!!