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/

Maybe, but maybe not. Lafite uses young vines and vines near the
chateau for most of the wine. I do not know about declassification of
the fine wine.

If as the merchant suggested, then the quantities of seconds in bad
years would be very large, and I have not noticed that to be the case.

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 02:16:18 GMT, "Chris Sprague"
> wrote:

>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/
>

Salut/Hi Dale Williams,

le/on 24 Mar 2004 14:38:08 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>In article >, "Chris Sprague"
> writes:

>>wondering if it holds any water. His advice was to seek out the second
>>wines from good but not great years.
[snip]

>>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.

>(warning:lenghty, opinionated)
Nothing wrong with either of these!!!


Fwiw, I agree entirely with your dismissal of option 3 (buy 2nds in OK
years). So I'll come in on options 1 & 2.

>1)Buy in the best years.

>2)Buy in a good year.

> #s 1 & 2 each have their advocates, to me it depends on the individual wines.

Absolutely. And also in the _reasons_ the year is excellent or good. In some
excellent years, all the component vines do brilliantly well and give good
yields. In these years, the 1st wine will be the "ideal" proportion selected
by the team, to express what they feel should be the "chateau wine" that
year. All the remaining grapes, even if of very high quality, will go into
the second wine. You'll get magnificent wine in such years.

Remembering that the different vines ripen at different rates, it could be
that the Cabernet Sauvignon, which generally ripens later, couldn't be
picked right out before rains come. In such a year the Merlot could be
perfect and the some of the Cabs wonderful and the rest less good. Depending
upon the chateau (and some are more "generous" with what they put into their
first wine than others) You MAY get a reduced quantity of 1st wine but of
magnificent quality, and second wine made with the rest of the Merlot, and
the lesser cabernet. And so on. The year may have an excellent reputation in
so far as the 1st wines are concerned, but be a lot LESS successful for the
2nds. In other years, one can hypothesize excellent Cabs and less good
merlots, and so on and so forth. It all depends upon the policies adopted in
any one year, by the individual management teams in the chateaux, and the
reasons why a year is declared to be "merely" good.

More or less echoing what you said, really.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

One (well, two actually) things I should add re seconds:

Occasionally a second wine can be exciting, a mini/early maturing version of
the grand vin. But all too often seconds - even of the first-growths- are
merely acceptable claret, the equivalent of an average 4ème or 5ème. There's
nothing wrong with that- I drink a lot more 5th growths than super-seconds. But
as the idea of buying second wines (man, it's hard in these discussions to be
clear -I mean second wines of great chateaux) as a view of the grand vin has
spread, prices in some cases have crept up close to Second Growths. Like many
pieces of financial advice, if enough people take it, it won't be true anymore.
A big tasting of seconds last year (mostly the wines of the 1st growths, from
'82 to '00) did not leave me running out the door to buy more seconds.

Even more importantly, my personal opinion is that the second wines of mediocre
estates are NEVER a good deal. Paying $14 for the second wine of an estate who
sells their grand vin for $20-25 is seldom a bargain. If buying seconds, stick
to the seconds of the great growths, the superseconds, or the consensus
overachievers (Lynch-Bages, for instance).


Dale

Dale Williams
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