Uselessness of Primeurs

[Bacchus]

I'm not sure how well known these practices are, but since so much rides on the Primeurs tastings, including prices, the fact that they're rigged seems scandalous to me:
http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2013/0 ... -primeurs/

[DavidG]

This has been a concern for years and a pretty well-known "secret" that doesn't get talked about. It's a question of judgment and trust: are the samples shown during primeurs representative of what will end up in the bottle?

It's also a reason I have tended to wait until a year after harvest to buy futures. I sometimes ended up paying more than the primeur price but figured there would be less risk of a surprise. When Parker stopped doing his second look at the wines 1 year out there was less to go on, and I started waiting on some wines until they were released and lots of impressions were available. Other favorite wines were a buy as primeurs in any year with a decent reputation. Increased prices were common and some wines crossed my pain threshold. Then it became a game of scrounging for trusted TNs on various bulletin boards just before Parker's final in-bottle report came out. This has worked pretty well for me. I haven't ended up with too many duds. I'm now off the merry-go-round. Haven't bought a Bordeaux younger than 2009, and don't intend to.

I've often wondered how close the final notes and scores are to the primeur ratings, and how much critics like RP who don't taste blind are influenced by their primeur scores when evaluating the wines in bottle. Every now and then a brou-ha-ha will erupt over a wine that shoots up or (more likely to cause consternation) down from primeurs to release. Or over a wine that doesn't perform as expected.

[robert goulet]

I can tell u in confidence....that the clos de l'oratoire I tasted en-primeur is the same wine I tasted off the retail shelf.

[AlexR]

Because some people do things of questionable ethics does not mean the whole system is corrupt.

Alex R.

[Tom In DC]

Agreed, Alex. As Parker has been saying for decades, if any house consistently "juiced" their juice for EP, it would be noticed and taken into consideration.

I think it's easier to trash the whole system when they don't have a great vintage to sell.

[DavidG]

It's not just that a few people game the system. The fact is that the final blends may not even be determined by the time of the primeur tastings. Nothing nefarious need be involved. I know it's done all the time, but I find it hard to understand how anyone can tell how a wine will turn out based on an early barrel sample. I'm actually impressed by how consistent the notes and scores seem to be from barrel to bottle, at least for most wines.

Reminds me, though, of the big hoo-ha over Parker's very thinly veiled accusations, in print, about one of the famous Burgundy producers shipping lower quality wine to the US than what was presented for tasting at the domaine. The name escapes me now, but he sued Parker and won a settlement of some sort. That was about the time Parker turned the Burgundy reviews over to Pierre Rovani.

[AlexR]

David,

From Wikipedia, source of all truth .

Limits to Parker's influences [edit]

Parker is an avid fan of Bordeaux, and some of his critics[who?] observe that his world of wine is largely limited to France. In recent years, he has taken on additional staff for The Wine Advocate, which has enabled the publication to expand into other areas, such as Greek and Israeli wines. Still, his influence is most keenly felt by Bordeaux, California, and Rhône wines.

Parker's influence on Burgundy wines was lessened as the result of a libel lawsuit filed against him by Domaine Faiveley. In the third edition of his Wine Buyer's Guide,[37] Parker reported that "the Faiveley wines tasted abroad would be less rich than those one can taste on the spot [...]" .[38] In other words, Parker accused Faiveley of cheating. Faiveley sued Parker for libel; in February 1994, Parker was requested to appear in front of the Paris superior court (tribunal de grande instance). The case was settled out of court. It was eventually discovered that the difference in taste that Parker identified was due to improper storage of the wine at the American importer's warehouse, causing the wine to be "cooked."[39] Parker delegated coverage of the Burgundy and Alsace regions to Pierre-Antoine Rovani in April 1997.[40]

AR

[DavidG]

Thanks Alex. I wasn't aware that the true cause of the difference had been determined to be poor storage. Very interesting, and it highlights another potential wildcard in the game of buying futures, or any wine really unless you've tasted bottles from the specific batch and retailer from which you're buying.