I was down in Portsmouth NH the other day, and as I often do I stopped by
Ceres St. Wine Merchants. I was discussing second wines such as Carruades
de Lafite with the owner, and inquiring about their overall quality. I have
a bottle of Carruades 2000, but haven't drunk it yet and don't plan to for
quite awhile.

Anyway, he made an interesting suggestion that I hadn't thought of, and I'm
wondering if it holds any water. His advice was to seek out the second
wines from good but not great years. For instance, 1999 but not 1996 or
2000. His reasoning was, great years are recognized as such by harvest
time, so the Chateau will use up all of the best grapes for the first wine
since they know demand will be high (and they sell the first label for much
more money). In an off year, they won't sell as much, so some of the better
grapes will make it into the second label wine.

Is there any truth to this? It sort of sounds logical, I suppose.

-Chris
http://betelgeuse.umeqs.maine.edu/chris/