To Profit or not to Profit; that is the question.

This is the second in an occasional posts about wine from our very own resident expert Alasdair.



I’m sure many of you have heard about some people making lots of profit from buying and selling fine wine. The music and theatre impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of many examples. Here was a very rich and successful amateur wine collector, who one day decided that he should sell part of, and in the end most of, his vast wine collection. I remember reading all about it in the Evening Standard, how he had spent many years building up his collection, to the point that it became more than he could ever possibly consume, even with regal-like and daily and frivolous entertaining.

Of course Lord Lloyd Webber had not amassed this cellar himself. Oh no, he was far too busy making another 20 million quid writing Cats. He had a full-time wine buyer, who for 60-odd thousand quid a year, (a goodly wage at that time), made offers on Lloyd Webber’s behalf for highly sought after parcels of super-rare wine, attended all the important Sotheby and Christie wine auctions, and buttered-up sales directors at all the various wine companies who imported the best kit. What a job! Until of course LW decided to stop buying and starting selling.

When I started out in the wine business it seemed as though most people bought wine to drink. Of course, I hear you say – that’s what you’re supposed to do. The only people I knew who at that time during the late 80’s purchased fine wine with the intention of keeping it for 3-5 years and selling it for a much higher price were the wine traders themselves – it was like a badly kept secret with more and more people finding out and doing the same.

I clearly recall the founder and buying director of Bibendum Wine, Simon Farr, diligently buying up all the stock of Le Pin 1982 that he could get his hands on. There was a pallet of the stuff, 50-odd cases, stored in the Bibendum duty-paid warehouse above their Primrose Hill offices.



Simon figured that here was an extraordinary wine, made in tiny quantities, no more than 500 cases at that time, that was positively cheap given the reports circulating the trade that it was the next Chateaux Petrus. Whenever a case came up for sale Simon would contact the owner and buy it. After storing the stock for some years he sold the lot for a handsome profit. But the best way to buy the world’s best wines is to buy them as soon as they become available, and in the case of Bordeaux wines, that means buying them ‘en primeur’.

This basically involves buying the wine before it has actually been bottled and packed into cartons. The vintage 2008 en primeur campaign is currently underway now, with buyers and merchants frantically communicating the ‘opening’ prices for the Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux wines. The best Bordeaux wines, the Premier Grand Cru Classe, inevitably rise in price immediately as buyers all over the world scramble to secure some stock of these half dozen or so wines. To give you an idea back in April 1985 a case of 1985 Le Pin was offered for sale during the early stages of the en primeur campaign for only 500 quid – 10 years later it was changing hands for 12K quid.

Nowadays, with wine investing becoming more widespread and seen as a relatively safe investment vehicle it has become necessary to hold the wines for at least 5 years to hopefully realise a healthy profit. Even better though, to keep it for up to 10 years if you can – this will inevitably result in your stock becoming rarer, and therefore valuable, as consumers around the world drink the limited stock available.

So there is money to be made through wine investment, especially with red Bordeaux, and there are many private collectors all around the world holding ‘investment’ stock. I can assure you from personal experience that this is the case. But in order to maximise your chances for robust profits and as a way of lowering your risk, here are some useful tips:


Always try to buy ‘en primeur’, or as soon as the wine is released by the Chateau or producer. Opening or ‘release’ prices are always the lowest.

Always buy the best wine you can afford, ideally Premier Cru.

Always have it stored by a reputable and established wine-storage specialist.

If you feel the need to take some advice from a wine trader, then do so.


And of course, let’s not forget two more excellent reasons to ‘invest’ in some fine wine – it’s free of UK capital gains and inheritance taxation, and, in the happy knowledge that you may have become so rich while your wine has been aging in the cellar and consequently you do not feel like you need to sell and release the profit, you can drink it! What can be better than that?


posted by Alasdair.

Hail Puliniacus! Getting emotional with one of Burgundy’s great wines.

This post submitted by Alasdair.





Think of your absolute favorite food, and feel the sensation of desire and anticipation. It’s a thought process that leaves you wishing you could eat those dishes more often and your thoughts might tale off wondering when the next time might be.

The same can be said when your thoughts turn to your favorite wines. These are the wine names that bring back memories of perfect food and beverage occasions, when the company was the best, and the food was delicious and the wine was ideally matched and singing from the glass. I have many such memories and at the risk of over-generalizing a few wine names keep popping-up more regularly than others. In the world of dry white wine, one of those is the much sought after Puligny Montrachet. What is it about Puligny? What makes drinking it so memorable? Most people agree that some of the most highly respected white wine-makers in France, indeed in the world, hail from this beautiful little village. They are famous for making superlative wines, and even in difficult vintages when the weather is not kind these few producers invariably craft stunning wines – they have the best vineyard sites, the oldest vines, the most dynamic soil and then they have generations of tried and tested vineyard management systems, normally certified as organic, and also often certified as bio-dynamic. They have brilliant winemakers, who have all the resources they need, including the finest oak barrels and centuries old underground storage cellars.



One of the very first full cases of white wine I purchased was a case of 6 magnums of Domaine Leflaive Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Le Clavoillon 1990. I still remember it all vividly. I bought the case in 1992 from a cash-strapped friend, who, a year or two later, was to take a job with Unilever Arabia, as a junior Wine Manager with their Dubai-based importer and distributor African and Eastern. (He’s still here, but now with MMI). I felt very grown up to be buying such a grand wine and although he let it go on the cheap, it was a lot of money to me – even as a free-spending young bachelor. The reputation of Domaine Leflaive had me suckered and, convinced I had bought a great wine, I stuck it in a friend’s underground cellar and promised myself to leave it there for at least 5 more years.

Domaine Leflaive’s history goes back to 1717 when Claude Leflaive arrived in the region, previously established in the Gallo-Roman era by a certain Puliniacus. Since then 10 generations of the Leflaive family have nurtured vineyards in this prestigious appellation. Today the Domaine is managed by Anne-Claude Leflaive and the wines are still made in very small quantities and sell for hundreds of pounds per case. Here is a wine producer whose wine, every single bottle, is sold before it is packed into the distinctive Domaine Leflaive cartons. There is no official UAE distributor, although both MMI and A&E have managed to access a few cases of various 1er Cru wines and even a few bottles of the Grand Cru wines. There is no exclusive UK importer and agent. Instead Anne-Cluade allocates stock to a handful of highly-respected fine wine importers and distributors including Richards Walford, Justerini & Brooks and Corney and Barrow.

These allocations could be as few as 80 cases, made up of all the various different wines, and generally it’s the long-standing private customers who have a good record for paying their bills on time and for buying lots of other more ordinary wines who get offered the wines first. The only other way to buy Domaine Leflaive wines is to go to a reputable auction house and hope to bid for it. One tip I can give you is to look out for the Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc. This wine can be as good as most other local producer’s Puligny wines. I have some Bourgogne Blanc from the excellent 2001 vintage which I hope to drink over in the UK this summer. Back in 2002 it cost me GBP70 for 12 bottles, and it’s worth every penny. This wine may be a fraction of the price of the more illustrious Puligny appellation, but it’s made from superb 28 year old vines, following the same Biodynamic viticulture practices and given the same tender loving care in the cellar.

So what of my precious magnums? Not surprisingly, given the super-high quality of corks used at Domaine Leflaive, every one of them was utterly delicious. They were consumed over a period of a year or so, the first was opened at Christmas time 1997, and the last one late Autumn time 1998, shared with groups of family and close winy friends. This is when it all becomes clear. Suddenly we can understand why people try to buy Leflaive wines whenever they see them for sale, why people tuck them away in storage space for years, and why they finally open the bottles on very special occasions. The wines from Leflaive have the capacity to evolve into truly great wines, elegant and complex with gorgeous notes of honeysuckle and almonds, and delicate white flowers. They have the capacity to make things emotional, an ingredient which makes for such special memories. The wines make us savour every mouthful, banishing all other dry white wines to relative obscurity. All this and organic too. If money were no issue I would have a cellar full of Domaine Leflaive wines, with a special place for the 4 hectare vineyard 1er Cru Clavoillon wine, and I would drink some bottles of 10 year-old 1er Cru and 15 year-old Grand Cru Leflaive wines with anyone who says they don’t know what all the fuss is about.



If you are ever lucky enough to visit the lovely village of Puligny Montrachet, (and when in Burgundy you must), one place to eat at is the hotel Le Montrachet, a handsome stone manor house sitting proudly in the village square, Place des Marronniers. Here you will find elegant surroundings and an interior recently refurbished using fine local materials. The wine list is outstanding and is bulging, not surprisingly, with all the great wines and vintages of all the best Puligny and Chassagne producers, including a stunning range of Domaine Leflaive wines. Check out www.le-montrachet.com for more details.

I last visited a few weeks ago on a chilly February morning for lunch with Sebastien Roux whose family has been making superb wine in the village of Saint-Aubin for generations. We had a long and delicious lunch, served by staff that made the whole experience even better. We drank lots of wine, including an outstanding Roux-crafted Corton Charlemagne 2001. Once again I found myself thinking of those first few magnums of 1990 Leflaive Puligny, and how they had cast their spell over me, showing for the first time how extraordinary these wines can be.


This post submitted by Alasdair.

The Fat Expat Five

One of The Fat Expat's expert, and of course deeply refined, tasting team. Note detritus...

After tasting over 50 champagnes from small houses and big name brands, recommended and discovered alike, we came up with the following ‘top five’. Each champagne was tasted by our group of six expert tasters (oops, sorry – Fat Expats) and notes were taken by the Worryingly Precise Josephine. Our group consisted of a journalist, a photographer, a PR, two teachers and an Emirates First Class Purser. As usual with everything that goes on with The Fat Expat, we’re not experts. We’re just the punters with the moolah that the producers want to extract from us. So we think our opinion’s just as valid as the next man’s. If perhaps a little more obsessive than average, at least we're not banging on about touches of peach, straw and perhaps a tapenade rounding into a creosote in the finish...

But we were all amazed at how the experience refined our palates. We all learned to enjoy champagne warmer than we had in the past – this is where the wine starts to truly please. We all had our previous conceptions and preferences totally overturned by the experience. And we all came away from the whole silly week with a definite preference for certain champagnes and a great deal more respect for the drink itself.

And yes, we enjoyed it all just fine, thank you...

TheFat Expat Five

Dom Perignon 2000
Veuve Cliquot Vintage Rich Reserve 2002,
Moet et Chandon Grand Vintage Rose 2000,
Mercier Vendange 2003
Lanson Brut 1997

We broke our 'nothing over 50 Euro' for the DP 2000, which weighed in a over double that. Other than that, these wines are all at roughly comparable prices.

Undiscovered Treasures - the little guys

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is the Unilever of champagne. This uber-conglomerate owns a slew of top brands including Moet et Chandon, Castellane, Mercier, Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot. In fact, LVMH takes something like 20% of the global champagne market. All of the above are separate houses, however, with the sole exception of Dom Perignon, which is the ‘high end’ brand of Moet et Chandon: the relationship appears to be solely at the holding company level, as each of these houses (as you’ll see later) have a distinctly different heritage, approach and product. And of course from Perrier Jouet, through Bollinger to Ruinart and Gosset, there are a good many great houses that aren’t owned by the LVMH leviathan.

Alongside these ‘great’ houses, Champagne contains thousands of smaller producers as well as co-operatives and a good number of first class family businesses (like the highly recommended Canard-Duchêne). And despite the effort that the ‘posh’ houses put into telling everyone about their hundreds of grands crus, most champagne contains a good wallop of co-operative sourced wines as well as the ‘special stuff’ from those prized chalky, hillside crus. Many people who own crus just as grand as those belonging to the Moets and Jouets also make their own wines, which means there’s actually an amazing variety of champagnes to be had out there - and often at great value and with that added delight of having discovered something closed to the vast majority of people. It's a bit like going back to the days when you got to wander around the sweetshop with your pocket money clasped in a grubby mitt...

There are some great little champagnes to be had outside the beaten brand name path and at prices that provide distinct relief compared to UK high street (let alone MMI!) prices - €16-20 for vintage grand cru wines of quality and distinction from smaller houses is money well spent. Sure, there are some second rate wines on offer out there, but sorting the wheat from the chaff is part of the fun...

These days, you can even buy champagnes from smaller producers online thanks to the wonders of the Internet. After a huge amount of assiduous travel around the region and many tasting sessions, here are some Fat Expat recommendations from some less mainstream producers. Do note that the names are links to websites apart from Clouet, which doesn't seem to have one:


Canard-Duchêne

Among the largest of the small producers, or even possibly one of the smaller large producers, Canard-Duchêne is big enough to have a funky website but small enough to still be family owned and friendly to visitors. It’s a little off the beaten track, nestled in the vineyard-rich vales south of Reims in the village of Ludes, but it’s worth the detour because Canard-Duchêne produces some truly exceptional champagnes. The brut is excellent and the Millésime Vintage 2002 is a little slice of luxury, fruity and aromatic on the palate, fizzy and fresh. The company also produces a blanc de blancs a blanc de noirs and a rosé, the latter having been thoroughly enjoyed when we visited.


Colin

The Colin family enjoy a significant heritage in viticulture and wine and champagne making that stretches back to 1829. But it was only recently that the ‘bloody minded’ owner took the decision to go it completely alone and leave the local co-operative to focus solely on producing his own champagnes. With a relatively recent expansion of the family’s facilities, Champagne Colin produces some remarkable champagnes, including the delicious Blanche de Castille, a blanc de blancs that impressed us so much that we set off to find the house behind the wine. Nestled in the southern, chardonnay-dominated area of Champagne (the cote des blancs, south of Epernay), in the village of Vertus, Colin’s name provided us endless childish amusement (a champagne called ‘Colin’ – it’s like a rabbit called ‘Keith’ or a piece of fine jewellery called ‘George’) but sitting down with Delphine Colin to taste a selection of the cuvées that Colin produces was no laughing matter – they’re excellent value and can be magnificent. The brut and rosé are good stuff, but it’s when you start getting to the Cuvée Coup de Coeur de Vertus Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Premier Cru Millésimé that you start getting a whole lot of champagne for your money (it’s easier to drink than it is to say!). Colin also produces a delicious ratafia – a fortified sweet wine made by a number of champagne makers.


Lamiable

Just in case you’re interested, Lamiable is one of the few producers to have moved across to a new type of synthetic cork called Mytik Diamant, which binds treated cork to give a corky cork that’s not a cork, but which stops your cork corking your pop. The yeasty ‘on the edge’ taste of corked champagne is something we encountered a couple of times when tasting wines from smaller houses and Lamiable certainly didn’t suffer from that. Their extra brut was a true adventure into excellence, avoiding the trap of being simply sour, but with a dryness that gave way to floral tastes and a depth that was surprising and a delight – it was one of the wines that we ended up taking back home with us. We also tried the Cuvée Meslaines millésime 2004 , a vintage blanc de noirs which didn’t have the same sheer impact on us as the extra brut. If you ever see a Lamiable champagne, however, I can only suggest that you snap it up – particularly the amazing extra brut.


Andre Clouet
Phone: +33 326570082 Fax: +33 326516513

Andre Clouet is a small producer in the village of, wait for it, Bouzy but with a strong and growing international reputation among champagne buffs, snobs, poseurs and nose-wrinklers. We tried the brut rosé and liked it a lot, enjoying a fine champagne with smallish bubbles and a deliciously fruity, dry taste – Clouet produces in the Pinot Noir growing region but we completely failed to find Clouet’s place in Bouzy itself. We’d recommend this wine heartily – Clouet’s labels are instantly recognisable, busy and intricately designed, they’re a remarkable counterpart to the often humdrum labels on small producer Champagnes. Clouet is well known for his ‘1911’ wine, a limited production of 1911 bottles of wine blended from specific years’ production and also for his ‘silver brut’ which has no dosage added. We didn’t get to try those, though!

Cuvee Musar

Gaston Hochar is a genius or, as pal Massoud likes to call him, a 'weasel'. It is through Gaston's genius that we have Chateau Musar, the daddy of all Lebanese wines, the result of a tradition of viticulture that goes back thousands of years in that sun-kissed mediterranean coast.

Chateau Musar is pretty natural as wines go: it's still produced in the 'old' way, isn't fined (and so should really be decanted) and produces an amazing, strong-tasting and complex wine that I happen to be a huge fan of. The 1999 is the year to go for unless you have deep pockets indeed.

So when pal Ammouni came back from Beirut recently hefting not one but two bottles of 1997 with my name on them (the 'best ever fermentation' according to Serge Musar), I was a delighted chap. I mean, what a girl! But then, treat heaped on treat, nestled in between them was a bottle of 2004 Cuvee Musar, the 'second wine' of Musar. And what a delight it was! All the complexity and old woody tones of Musar, all of the strength of flavour - a truly great wine in itself and a wonderful discovery.