Price & Prejudice | Episode 5

0:03Jonathan Stevenson:Welcome to Uncorked, a Cult Wines podcast, and I'm your host, Tom Gearing, co-founder and CEO of Cult Wines, and I'm joined as ever by my co-host, Jonathan Stevenson. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you too. And this week we have Sean joining us and he is our fine wine buyer at Cult Wines. We're very excited to have him here on the podcast and we will be talking around a number of different subjects. So on this podcast, there's been quite a few things going on in the market. First of all, we've got the September releases. So we'll be sort of dissecting what's been going on there, looking at the different trends and pricing and giving our opinion about how successful that September release campaign has been going.

0:44Jonathan Stevenson:We're also going to be looking at the alternative asset world and looking at sort of the performance of wine and whiskey and other collectibles to see what sort of trends we've seen over the last few years and if there's some interesting takeaways. We'll also be asking our guests and Jonathan, their investment picks and finally we'll be answering some listener questions so we've got a show packed full of content really excited to get stuck into the broadcast this week. Welcome Sean. Thank you. Excited to be here. Yeah no I think it's going to be an interesting I think you know since the last pod we've had some as Tom said some really interesting ongoings that I think we're looking to dive into but the guest is always best so Sean can you just give us a little bit of an introduction really I mean you started out studying politics and international studies how did that then pivot you know how did you then decide to pivot into wine after that yeah I mean it's a bit of a bit of a pivot I think you'd say but not as different as you'd think but I think for me wine was a passion before it was a job and a career and I think that's true of so many people right um that obviously there aren't many 15 16 17 year olds mapping out their life plan and going i want to go into wine might be a bit concerning if they were i think yeah um so for me it was it was very much trying to say it was very much uh i discovered wine as a passion in my early 20s and i think quite immediately realized that this is just something I want to do there's something I want to learn about and I think initially it was I want to learn about it and I want to sort of understand this thing yeah um and then eventually it became I think quite clear to me that really you know this was something I just wanted to spend my life doing and learning about and there's an obvious way to do that which is try and work in wine um but I think you know when you go to university especially when you study things like you know politics I studied history um obviously our actually was on a previous pod with us and our colleagues studied politics as well.

2:47Jonathan Stevenson:I think, you know, certainly with those types of degrees, at the end of the day, I actually see quite a lot of parallels to the wine industry because you just think about the history of wine or even some of the things we'll talk about today, like what's happened with Chateau Le Fleur leaving, you know, the Bordeaux Appalachian. Like a lot of what happens in wine has been born out of kind of this tension between people and it's kind of quite highly politicized. Everyone has quite strong opinions. You've got these regulations. You've got this sort of friction between landowners and winemakers and you know regulatory bodies so in a way I think kind of from my perspective I came from a history perspective which of course you can easily see the parallels between history and wine but I also think in a way like politics kind of provides a quite an interesting groundwork to kind of understanding you know the patchwork quilt that is the wine industry today and has been for in the last 50 to 100 years absolutely I think you you touched on it quite well there when you were talking about the different structures that exist yeah and I think particularly from an international relations standpoint which is not to bore all of our listeners but is essentially all about these interlinking structures across the world that affect each other in different ways and wine from distribution to sales to production financing is all interlinked and i think there's a lot of overlap there and absolutely i mean i don't want to bore our listeners to death because we already talked about the tariffs this year but like that's a perfect example of how you know trump and the tariffs and something that's very highly political can impact the wine industry and obviously something that's affected the market in quite a big way um so there's a perfect example of that and we talked last uh episode around you know how important it is for these brands to have a global appeal and you know the ebbs and flows of tariffs but not just tariffs you know the the state of economy in these different nations is is heavily a driver for you know where the wines are going to be you know successful basically um but i mean obviously you're yeah you're studying hasn't stopped there uh sean so within wine you now find yourself studying for the diploma yep yeah i'm currently doing my wset diploma uh pretty much halfway through at the moment uh which means i've done a number of exams and have one very big one to go but that's yeah that's a little way off now but it's exciting i think how's it how's it structured so you got theory practical what's the balance between kind of the different so i'd say i think when you start out yeah um doing diploma but wset at any level i think they start with the grounding of theory and that always comes first yeah which i think can be a little bit of an adjustment period for some people who are used to learning about wine by drinking it yeah and sort of knowing what they enjoy yeah and i think wset emphasizes sort of the theory first and always sort of focusing on why things are the way they are and focusing on qualitative rather than uh judgmental factors i mean like for our listeners at home for people that are kind of wine curious wine enthusiastic or maybe at the earlier stage of their kind of learning like what what's your advice in terms of because clearly you've done both sides right the qualitative experiential side of things obviously we do a lot of blind tastings in the office and you do extremely well i mean that's an interesting thing anyway is that do you think you've improved your blind tasting because of the theory or just for practice and you know for someone at home listening like how should they balance just going out there and experiencing wine tasting wine versus i know paying for an exam and studying books and what would your tips be around that would you say i think first and foremost people who enjoy drinking wine and want to drink it should drink it however they like i don't i don't think there's any need for them to to dive into a structured format if they don't want to but i think that understanding the structure of wine and the theory behind it can really help with tasting and understand what you're tasting and why yeah um i think a lot of people are really good at picking out specific flavors and going oh i taste this note and this and they can identify that and that's that's incredibly valuable and that's you know a huge part of the enjoyment of drinking wine yeah but i think if you're trying to get really good at tasting which is quite a fun thing to do everyone enjoys a blind tasting um i think understanding the structural stuff is really important because you can rule things out quite quickly i think it's not a a fun way of looking at it but the theory allows you to sort of narrow things down quite quickly and say this wine has to exist in this okay this might be a hard question to answer but like if you had to say to someone who wanted to learn and improve like what would be the three things you would say learn about that would give the biggest impact

7:23i think it's uh it's the three the three main structural components right acid tannin in reds and uh alcohol i think it's by far the most important but from a sense of just like what

7:35Jonathan Stevenson:does it mean in wine and then kind of like how you correlate that to like the different grape varietals yeah and like what they mean in terms of each of those three you know each of those three components yeah so i think i think there are obviously great varieties that are more common than others and i think starting with those the most important thing if you have a red wine that is really really high in tannin really full-bodied yeah wow this is amazing it's not a pinot noir yeah unless something very strange has gone on it's not a pinot noir and i think understanding what those elements are is just absolutely a first step yeah in in drinking having the reference points yeah having those reference points and i think there's that you can go into so much depth after that point and understand the minutia of this tastes like this this tastes like this and then yeah microscopic elements but i think understanding the basics is is the starting point at least yeah do you know what i feel like one of the tips that i have for people and it's not necessarily the easiest tip because if you don't have the knowledge you won't you won't be able to use it but i always just think like whether it's whether it's food or wine i always think about geography i think like understanding the geography of what the place is where the wine comes from can tell you so much without even having like the academic structural framework understanding of like okay i know that you know tariga national type wines are going to have you know high alcohol content and you know lower acidity or whatever you know just knowing that what is the climate like in portugal where this is the indigenous grape and i think to myself oh well portugal is where people go on holiday i know do you know what i mean just that little kind of nuggets of what is the place in the world where this comes from what's the climate what's the altitude altitude yeah just those two or three things and like what type of food did they eat like okay and this is what i'm saying like if you go well actually i look on a map and don't know okay northern italy i you know i don't know what the climate's like there i don't okay that then you're going to struggle but if you have a bit of geographic geographical knowledge i think you can go a long way with wine because just by his little little bits of information even like what food they eat in that particular area like okay i think what food is northern spain famous for like seafood it's coastal right so then you think to the what type of what type of wines are in northern spain alberino right what well i don't know anything about alberino well off just based of that information i know it's actually the climate's not that hot i know that actually it rains quite a lot there so you're thinking like coastal so it's like cooler it's going to be fresher it's going to be what you know obviously alberino is white wine so it and you know with the acidity you get from Albarino and the kind of floral aromatics as well, it kind of, in a way, you can kind of piece it all together without actually knowing loads about it.

10:13No, yeah. I mean, that's another sort of a deeper rabbit hole, but I think you're completely right. And I think to your point, it's like some of those fundamentals are needed from the theory, but then a lot of that eventually then comes through and comes together in the practice, right? Yeah. Which I think is a useful point just to sort of maybe, I mean, you said you're halfway through, right? But have you managed to apply any of the things that you've learned to your job and to your buying through? Yeah, I think so. I think an underrated aspect of WSET at diploma level is that there's a lot of focus on the business side of it, which isn't there at lower levels, which I think makes sense for people looking for an introduction, but looking at something that they're passionate about and learning more.

10:59and i think understanding the different systems by which producers buy grapes or grow grapes then sell those grapes is absolutely vital because as a as a buyer you sort of very much have to understand the platforms and the channels via which wines are sold and that they're not always clear and there's a lot of opacity and potentially some unexpected and not always not always obvious paths that people choose to sell things through.

11:31Jonathan Stevenson:Do you think it's changed the way you appreciate wine? Yeah, I think it has. Really? Like you actually enjoy different wines now than you did previously? I think so. I think so. Have you got an example? I think this is probably more of a generalized example but I think I really enjoyed quite easy drinking light white wines. I think that that's a very common thing for people is that they really enjoy like a what like a Pinot Grigio or not that yeah not quite not quite that low and easy but I think having tap water I think in a way it does it does make you by focusing on appreciating these things it does make you think that those wines that you might previously have gone oh this is really nice and refreshing you find disappointing or underwhelming I for me I think like people that have that kind of like beginner end of the spectrum versus more like intermediate experience I think the main differential for me is I think people who are the more beginning and really struggle with high acidity wines.

12:27Jonathan Stevenson:And I don't know if that's a thing because it's experience. I don't know if it's because you have the knowledge and maybe your tastes and preferences or appreciation change. But I think like really like, you know, linear, like acid driven, especially like Burgundy Chardonnays. I think if you give it to someone who's quite new to wine, they'll really struggle with that. I don't know why that characteristic for me is always something that stands out as something that people find harder to appreciate. we're going to try and sort of break apart a little bit today isn't it but i think you're right i think that at the entry level there's just a very obvious sort of predefined understanding of what a chardonnay is and it's typically you know i mean we'll come on to what we're drinking today but you know it's typically a version of a chardonnay which isn't actually really the the pinnacle of that by any stretch the same is true of quite a lot of grape varieties that people will just they'll buy and they'll drink a grape and actually when they get surprised by a more you know compelling version of that grape it's it's a whole different story so i i think um you know we can obviously come on to some of the challenges around entering the market how you want to enter it and what you're familiar with but i think you're right i think very quickly you start to realize i mean it's a question we've been asked probably yeah a million times over the years which is can you really tell the difference between yeah a 10 pound bottle of wine and a 50 and plus and it's like yes you can yeah but obviously only if you then start to delve in further um should we move on to uh our main discussion point yeah so i mean interestingly timing wise an article came out in forbes a week or so ago can't remember is that date um the reason i say that is i do feel like there is a slight resurgence in the wine market which i think we can get everyone's opinion on um in during this pod but effectively it was kind of like is the era of alternative asset you know appreciation over and it was really just fixed well it was really kind of looking it was written by actually the forbes writer journalist he focuses mainly on whiskey so he was he was kind of looking at from a whiskey market perspective clearly whiskeys have you know come down in value a huge amount like mccallum some of the top um single malt whiskeys have fallen in value by quite a significant amount and from not to this similar situation that we find the wine market in especially watches are so anyway he wrote his article kind of like going well what is the situation in all of these different asset classes and what has been a performance and kind of speaking to a leading expert in each of these and in the case of a wine I spoke to someone from LiveX but just to give you some like head for headline figures so the fine wine market as we know peaked in sort of October November 22 and it's been down 27 % since that peak which is as quoted by LiveX you know the deepest downturn the fine wine market has seen in 25 years and I think that deepest downturn has looked at as kind of both the precipitous drop as well as obviously the length of time and i think we've all felt that in terms of it feels like it's been going on a long time um watches peaked in april 22 so you know roughly sort of six months before wine and is down 33 so it's actually the biggest faller i think of all of the uh all of these asset classes you know watches like rolex for example obviously went up a huge amount in value during the pandemic and post pandemic have come down a lot since then and that came from watch charts um the art index surged in 2021 and then slid to a 25 year low um and you know we've seen obviously auction sales slump and sort of you know estimates not being met and volumes and value reducing in the art market quite significantly from where it was um and as i mentioned whiskey is in is in the same category um so i think what was interesting about this was i think there's a lot of commentary around i've it feels like when you go for a downturn everyone wants a reason for it and i think this is something we talked about maybe two or three pods ago around like everyone's talking about oh the gen z the younger generation you know that's the reason why the wine market's falling that's the reason why people aren't buying wine but it didn't really feel like that's telling the true story no and i think looking at these different asset classes how they performed to you guys i mean individually like what would that suggests i mean what's it telling you about the fall we've seen in wine prices in the context of what we're seeing in all these other luxury asset classes yeah i mean i'll jump in just because i was just thinking even just on on the spot then i think what's really quite interesting is um i mean looking at whiskey i spent some time recently this week with with uh with a chap that works in whiskey and they've obviously been through kind of almost like a almost like a micro version of what we've seen in a longer stretch time of the wine market right I mean big sort of boom territory everyone was thinking whiskey was a yeah a better alternative almost um and all of the you know the sort of then issues that can come with that you know some of the elements around it being an unregulated market um and the challenges that you then face from that it doesn't mean that the asset class as it was and as it could be is any different it just means that you then have to go through those hurdles a little bit and I think a lot of it is down to some of the stuff that you know know we've been heavy on trying to tackle which is around truth of information accuracy of pricing when the market's going up and everyone's posting these numbers where are the numbers coming from are they actually pegged to accurate trading which we know yeah not to be the case in some places and in a down market it's it's a lot easier to to find all of these things collect them together and and put people off an alternative space which otherwise they perhaps may have dabbled in maybe not so i think it's that there's to your point i think it just it unearths a lot of the things that you sort of if you're an educated entrant to the market you expect to find with an alternative asset class it's it's not going to be as as easy to to track and to and to to rely upon for liquidity yeah those are the reasons why you apportion a certain part of your money towards it yeah um i don't know i don't know if you agree sean yeah absolutely i think i think it's it's fairly clear that even if we uh were to agree with the assumption that gen z are drinking less right that i don't see how that would necessarily present itself in the fine wine market in the way that it has over the last three years no um but it also means that gen z were drinking loads in 21 and 22 when the market was skyrocketing right exactly you can't have it both ways no so no definitely not um i think i think it's pretty clear that the macro factors that affected wine affected whiskey affected art well this is the other thing wine and whiskey blamed on gen z what are they blaming the watch and the art market on i don't know slightly different right but what do you think the underlying truth is yeah i i think it's it's almost entirely down to those macro factors right which are which are inflation yeah high interest rates making it yeah more advantageous for people to keep money in the bank rather than invest it in anything else yeah and i think crucially the challenges in the asian market have made a big difference on the luxury market yeah um i think i think those two things together are largely the cause of the current downturn yeah and that was interesting like our colleagues um in in china did an event in shenzhen what day are we friday yesterday evening yeah and you know it was interesting because i think as you said around the asian market i think for the last couple years it's really it really struggled to reignite after the pandemic it was really slow to come out of covid really slow to come out recovery and i think it's just been a really slow pace lots of things have affected like the whole real estate um scandal and issues with some a number of like high profile property developers going bust um and then just generally the economy being quite sluggish and obviously this whole trade war with the us and then obviously the devaluation of us dollar there's been so it's like almost like so many different things impacting that asian market especially mainland China but what was interesting is just hearing some of the feedback at an event in the last week where you know at an actual dinner you know you had people placing an order for 10 cases of Lafitte 2019 like at the dinner table which is like not maybe getting back to what it was you know in previous times especially when you know Jonathan and I was working together back in the early days of cult wine sort of 10-15 years ago when you know some of the orders you get out China were crazy but it's an indication again like that you know you're starting to see maybe people come back to the table you're starting people to to place these type of orders that I think for a long time are being almost non-existent yeah I mean going back to the Gen Z thing as well I do think there's just the Gen Z part of the market needs to have a consideration but I don't really think it's driven by them not drinking I think it's just more about making sure there is a clear roadmap for that generation to appreciate and learn to appreciate wine and other of these sort of classic you know alternatives and classic collectibles in the way that their previous generations have so i think there's like a really longer term seasonality to wine we had that lunch with someone from a concierge company a week or so ago and he's gen z he looks after a lot of like youtubers footballers obviously it's more gen z high net worth individuals and i suppose what the takeaway from him was kind of like we still drink and when we drink we go really large but also at the same time we're not drinking casually but then i was thinking to myself like i don't know if that's also like an early 20s thing to do anyway that kind of like when he was saying that i was like that kind of resonates with what we were doing at the same age but then i think his takeaway for us was kind of how do you make wine relatable to people in that age group now who do have a lot of money and i think his perspective was more kind of and not necessarily in a good or a bad way but more kind of what how would you describe it was more kind of well i think it's just about that how can you articulate what would be a flex on social media which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say but it was more kind of like these people just need to know like okay if i'm a footballer and i've got a wine cellar in my house how do i know what are the cool labels to have on display and like an example he gave was like everything right and it's like i just think in all these markets and it becomes more evident when you then look at it in parallel with watches and art for instance i think it's a case where ultimately you know these markets can't just keep going up and rocketing in a linear fashion right so they do have to have those points in time where they come off and when they come off it's largely because these people have made great returns in a market that they've done very well with long term and then they either that's them done or they then will just wait for the market to bounce and rebuy, right?

22:46Having sold out at a good time. So I think there's a longer term seasonality than maybe we first appreciated when people have seen such good return.

22:54Jonathan Stevenson:Shawnee, right, right, right. Question is, where's the market heading? I think we're looking at a period of more stability going forward. I am not going to be someone who says we're going to have a V-shaped recovery immediately. But I think the second part... Sorry. Not a popular statement. How large does the bee have to be? It's got to have a little bounce. I think we have seen some evidence that there's been a bounce in some ones. I think there has been some evidence. Tell us more. I think... What's bounced? Sasakaya is a good example. What is bouncing? What is bouncing? I think the Super Tuscan category as a whole has actually done quite well in the last six months.

23:36I agree.

23:37Jonathan Stevenson:I've seen it's getting bid up for sure. I don't think it's been done in one in a year, but in the last month, if it's getting bid up for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think what we might see is pockets of price increases before we start seeing the market as a whole move. Right. Which would be certainly an encouraging sign anyway. But I think if we're expecting the whole market to be up 5 % by the end of the year, that would be an unlikely outcome. What else is bouncing? Because I feel like you're quite in tune with what's happening. him i think white burgundy has been appreciating for a little while now yeah um it it did take a downturn uh like the rest of the market did but has stabilized and i think we've seen evidence over the last year even year and a half that prices have been for some labels have been appreciating yeah i mean we looked at it a little bit in a previous pod but it'd be good to get your i guess your perspective from your side of the market as to what you've seen in particular um in white burgundy and like because we discussed you know what are the reasons what were the protecting factors almost to that part of the market which is quite unique obviously wondered if you saw any further snippets that might be interesting i i think really the appeal of white burgundy is is twofold and these may may be very obvious factors but one is that people are drinking slightly more white wine um there's evidence that there are more trades of white wine as well so that drinking of white wine by the general public is also being reflected by fine wines and collectors and the supply of white burgundy from the top vineyards is very very low um the overall production of white wines in burgundy is actually higher than red wines which most people might not expect but for these highly collectible sought after very minute labels the the parcels are pretty small the volumes are pretty small yeah um and i think as soon as you have a category that's growing in demand even relative to the rest of burgundy which is as we know the demand has been crazy over the last decade or so um you're always going to get price appreciation and talking about white burgundy how do you think our wine of the day compares i think there's definitely stylistic similarities what are we drinking have we told the audience we've not known that you can uh as as you've already started please reveal sure thank you uh we are drinking 2015 uh penfolds yotana chardonnay yeah um which is a wine that i've tried before at a couple of trade tastings for new releases um and always stands out because it does it really does have that that sort of very tight structure and the acidity that really carries it um to the extent that i mean this is a thank you thank you to the extent that i mean this 2015 has just got so much freshness yeah yeah do you know what every time i've had this um similar to you either like you know when they do the kind of new releases the thing it always you know stays in my mind is kind of it's it's it's so polished it's like such a well-made wine it's just really high quality like in terms of and i think it kind of represents that whole kind of penfolds approach to kind of only taking the best grapes from their vineyards each year and they're kind of you know they don't remind me what that is they'll they'll just they'll just you know make the best wine possible and i feel you get that in the winemaking the use of the oaks obviously high quality the elevage has done really well and so it just ends up just getting something that you're just like you can't drink that and not think that is a brilliantly really well precisely yeah made glass of chardonnay well we've now is it going to get me emotional in the same way a costory or you know an Arno Arnes or you know one of these top white burgundy producers I think is maybe lacking that for me maybe you don't know that price point but yeah but it's that whole reliability factor isn't it it's like you can understand I mean we've been so close with the brand for a long time as as far as the business goes right I mean it's you know the treasury are not far down the road still and um having been to so many of their tastings and hosted a lot of events you know I I think one thing that stood out over time, which I think was probably fair, is that we tasted a lot of that stuff at these various evenings, you know, quite young.

27:59And I think a lot of their wines are just, as you said, in their own pockets, very consistent. Just some of these vintages and older are just now starting to kind of be actually where they should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can understand why a lot of this like brand carries.

28:12Jonathan Stevenson:It's funny to think about that as a 10-year-old Chardonnay. Yeah. Just because actually like it tastes so fresh in the glass as well, right? No, absolutely. and i think if anyone has actually tried these young they are bracing yeah i think the acidity is uh aggressive well put aggressive um which kind of comes back to that point earlier i mean it's interesting we started on penfolds because our next discussion point um looking at like what's happened in the market over the last month since we did the last podcast is you know we're in september we've got the september releases um sean as you are on the buying side and you know you are a guest today do you want to just tell the audience a little bit about what the september releases are um as part of the wine calendar i suppose so september releases i think go back to the late 90s and early 2000s i think alma viva was the first wine to be released via laplace uh over september leave the history lessons to me mate sorry sorry

29:08yeah it probably was yeah uh and i think they've uh they've since expanded to become a pretty important part of the calendar and these are La Place de Bordeaux which are the negotiants who act as importers bringing wines from outside of Bordeaux and offering them via La Place in September it's a little less chaotic than EP campaigns I'd say thankfully because these producers are largely spread out across the world, they've got their own interests they're not usually trying to one up their neighbours or release on the same day or the day after or anything like that so it's a little more strongly

29:46Jonathan Stevenson:like an orderly queue. It's calm. Yeah, at least they give it a month as well, rather. On premieres, sort of like, could be whenever. September. It's part of the fun. Yeah, well, it is. Absolutely. So these are wines from all around the world. Increasingly, there have been more wines from France as well. And you do get the occasional Bordeaux white wine thrown in. But really, we're looking at some of the world's iconic wines of all shapes and sizes. right so i mean what's what's the takeaways for this this this uh this campaign is it being successful what has worked what hasn't worked has there been like a change in the kind of types of wines that have been popular or not what's uh what's the scoop so in terms of success i think i'd say it's it's not been entirely homogenous which is no surprise these are wines from all around the world with producers at different price points different styles different interests but i think all in all the price drops that we've seen in the market over the last two years have meant that a lot of the current release prices are no longer competitive i think when you say that but i mean like they chose the release prices they did themselves they did absolutely in the context of and i think over the last two years so i feel like what do you think happened in those boardrooms when they were choosing the prices i and sorry just a bit more controversial adding in the Place de Bordeaux to their distribution which also takes margin is that helpful in pricing wines for the market?

31:15I think you have seen an increasing number of producers trying to distribute via Laplace and I think one advantage of Laplace is that it is the largest distribution network in the world.

31:24Jonathan Stevenson:Agreed yeah makes sense if you're a brand you want to get out there you want to distribute into international markets they've got the infrastructure they've got the longevity they've got everything you need to get it out there and whilst i think you can say potentially right that you're adding an extra step to the process and potentially their margin is making prices uncompetitive i think that is something you could say but i think for producers the the range of distribution and the ability to build clients drinkers collectors who are interested in these wines around the world does have value however here we go however um those producers who have dropped prices for these 2025 releases such as such as almaviva uh which i think actually deserves a mention as one of the producers that dropped dropped their wine enough that it just about works so i'm just looking at numbers here 115 euros was last year is that right yeah yeah and then 75 euros this year yeah which is a pretty significant drop i think we could all say that you know in terms of value was the price of other back ventures on the market that's because obviously that's the key thing that we and consumers look at right so this is the problem you go back two three years and you have almaviva 1918 that look better if comparable value to the latest release and i think that's just always going to be a challenging issue i actually really like almaviva i think it's a brilliant wine really well made uh and actually pretty good value in the grand scale obviously we're going to come on to our listeners questions and we had a bit of criticism around what we think is good value but in the grand schemes of what we do in the fine wine market i think to get a wine like alma viva for its heritage and its quality at that sort of price point for back vintage it's got five six seven eight years of cellaring age and that cost that you're going to pay for cellaring is kind of gone because that's the other thing to me you pay 75 euros today you've got to sell it yourself for the next five six seven eight years you know that's adding another 70 80 90 pounds to the the cost by the time it gets the same age like you've got to factor these things in if you're not you do but i mean sorry to jump in but i just think yeah no jump in away well i think it's like there's a lot of aspects to it which have just been very difficult very very hard to manage i think the falling wider market you know what was largely an un or less successful bordeaux campaign in the summer um you know a lot of the estates there that we we discussed managed to get pricing on around okay but largely it was a challenging year to take up in terms of new release because so much back vintage looks such good value um you know with age and and ultimately you know almost or or arguably better in quality so i think the big challenge and almost the victim of own success type story with the the arm of evas of this world is that they probably spent the year realizing it was a decent vintage probably not necessarily on the day of release thinking of the you know the prices built into the context of making that wine throughout the year as we discussed before you know overheads are rising with all these various different aspects of tariffs and beyond i mean it's not it's not an easy place to be the kind of the new or yeah shouldn't say the new but you know the cheaper or better value end of the market because ultimately everything's getting more expensive the interesting thing was obviously you know latour did another back vintage release what was it 20 2012 2012 and i saw a very stinging assessment of you know that and the price because it was above the market.

34:46Jonathan Stevenson:Now, one of the interpretations was that, you know, this ex-Chateau premium wasn't worth anything, and as soon as it becomes, you know, a secondary market wine, effectively it just evaporates. But I was actually thinking to myself, like, in my 15 years in this market, you know, having been very fortunate to be, to attend a lot of wineries, when you drink back vintages at the winery, and this, in my mind, one of the most memorable was the only gouge that we had at the winery in Burgundy, but also in Bordeaux, many times, you know, tasting back vintages that have come directly from the cellar. Like, there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind from a qualitative perspective that the wines that have stayed at the Chateau taste better.

35:30Well, that's just non-negotiable.

35:32Jonathan Stevenson:I think that is, like, you cannot argue against that, in my opinion. I mean, do you agree or disagree? No, I agree completely. I mean, the 2024 on Premier Week, oat by was a particular standout in part because they brought out some very old vintages from their seller yeah i mean in the context of an on-premise release where you're tracing the latest vintage they brought out you know vintages from the 80s 70s it was really exceptional and they were in unbelievable condition yeah some large formats so you can understand they'd age a little slower yeah but um yeah the freshness and the the quality of them was was incredible and look i think you know obviously you know we talk a lot about the market from an investment perspective but if you're a collector and you like chateau at all a 25 premium on in-market stock that i can guarantee has inconsistencies over where it's been stored how it's been stored you know how where it's traveled you know which countries it's been through um not to say they're any they're bad you know this you know if they're in bond and it you know their original wooden case is still gonna be very very good but i actually genuinely think that a 20 to 25 premium to have a bottle that's come directly from the cellar, I genuinely think it translates into quality on the dinner table.

36:46Jonathan Stevenson:I genuinely do. I completely agree. And maybe I'm wrong. And maybe it'd be an interesting test. Actually, that'd be a really interesting test. Do a dinner where you go, right, we'll get one ex-Chateau 2012 straight from the cellar. And we'll compare it to an in-market. Do them blind. Serve them side by side to a knowing audience. And just say, what do you think they're the same? What do you think of those wines? And I actually think genuinely people will think, the X seller one is fresher maybe a bit more you know a bit more energy energy about it largely for the the back vintages it's like look at the premium people willing to pay for the bill coat seller right and I know there's other aspects but largely that was because of his passion for proving provenance right making sure it was a a robust course of of supply and it's the same thing right it's the same thing as I mean there's a bit more of a story there but when you go to these estates and you taste and they do taste better because you're in situ but if the wine's in situ and it hasn't moved it's it's it's a living organism essentially it's it's undoubtedly going to be better than one that's traveled you know who knows where around the world yeah it's one of those things that like look from a pure investment hat on like and sean i'd be interested what you think i don't think i would advise someone from a pure investment perspective to buy the latour 2012 x shatter release take that hat off put my hat on for a wine enthusiast lover collector drinker who wants to drink the best i would wholeheartedly suggest that paying that extra 20 25 is worth it well i speak to so many i i i i genuinely do i don't know what you think no i agree i think if you're looking at wine as an investment i would strongly advise not to buy ex-chateau stock that's more expensive than existing releases because i think there's definitely formats maybe a little different to throw a spanner in the way maybe a little different I think there's definitely a window where they make a difference we've had definitely occasions over the recent years with trade partners asking for these wines and they have specifically asked for ex-Chateau stock have they?

38:47they have really they've asked for proof tags specifically on Latour stock right because they want the later release when they place an order for Jacqueline

38:56Jonathan Stevenson:exactly yeah interesting that's new news to me tell us more about that I'm actually genuinely interested by that yeah absolutely so we've had trade clients who are willing to pay more for x shadow stock with proof tags but crucially for some of these back vintage releases exactly and this is even a couple of years after the original release because i'm trying to think how many we've had so far because in terms of because the ones that are important are the ones with dual releases right because it's the ones where it's like the 2012 that's been released twice yeah absolutely 12 was the first vintages they did release right they exited in 13 was it around and then X in 13 13 was the first 12 was the last one that was the last one to get released on yeah yeah yeah yeah that was it but I think the one caveat I'd make to that is they weren't paying the trade client wasn't interested in paying what is above market prices right so if you're saying you're going to get into this wine 10 above market wine even 20 as a premium for the extra surely I mean do you think there's a potential in the future where it becomes almost like p2 yeah definitely i was about to say i just think whether or not the market will give it time is a different matter but i think everything that we're doing as a company everything that the market is crying out for is a lot more uh homogeneity with pricing and all of these aspects which are going to make things more transparent right and i think actually over time people will continue to get perhaps stung and caught out by buying cheaper versions of wines that are available in offhanded auctions and and provenance is not not not paramount and and actually eventually round circle it will be like well actually there is a real premium for these wines that have sat in the cellar it's like that's and also i think like if you think about like 20 30 years ago um you know they produced the wine they sell 70 80 90 percent of the stock at on from a it all goes in circulation we know over the last 10 15 years every year on from a holding back more stock holding back more stock so inevitably that's going to result in more you know subsequent releases for by the estates because like even the ones that aren't high profile like places like chateau margot we know have been reducing every year so they've got loads of stock that's going to have to eventually be released back onto the market and you think about let's say with champagne right you know champagne a few years ago they didn't even have the disgorgement dates on the bottles and that's a massive trend now which is like okay you need to put the disgorgement gates on because obviously that's the most important factor when it comes like a vintage champagne like when it was actually disgorged so that's a good example of like a different market that had that kind of almost like naturally as part of the you know that's naturally part of the process of releasing the wines so i just a really interesting thing because it's kind of thinking about it going like it as long as there's a really traceable obvious way to kind of say like do you ever like could you ever imagine a situation where you kind of like have latour 2012 v1 v2 v3 v4 and they all trade at slightly different prices can you imagine that happening i think from a buying perspective when we've been looking at champagnes that have different disgorgement dates which i think is a logical comparison they tend to after a period of time homogenize in price and i think i think the same would probably happen for these ones i think i think there may there may well be a premium there may be a small discrepancy in price between p1 as you say or whatever it is and p3 p2 but i think that would probably narrow over time let me ask you another question when william kelly or neil martin or antonio galoni or any of the top critics jancis taste the wine if they refer to their tasting note as v1 or v2 or v3 do you think that starts to change things it's a good question i i think that might make more of a difference i think that might make more of a difference in how we talk about it and i think that's that's very important with these things because at the end of the day i think currently we view latour as latour um whether it released today or 10 years ago i think i think the current way we think about it is very much that they're the same one yeah i was gonna and we're talking about latour which is obviously going back to the value element you know it's at the very top of the scale it's one of the few wines well we'll come on to maybe a bit more detail elsewhere but you know it's no longer in the on-premise system it's very expensive um it's going to take time for it to really show as to whether this whole new strategy of theirs is going to is going to pay dividend but you know ultimately your point is correct which is like you know the market generally starts with the critics right and those are the people that people follow depending on what their preferences and if they were to start kind of going through that element to different versions of it then maybe I just want to, is there a, is there like a parallel to like the kind of cultural shift we're seeing when it comes to luxury or even like food, right?

43:45Jonathan Stevenson:Where, you know, we're seeing people willing, especially who've got enough income, they're willing to pay more where they get the absolute traceability and provenance of like where those eggs come from or where this fruit comes from or where these, you know, and when, you know, when they were reared and like how long they've been aged, but kind of getting that very specific, like high specificity around that. and people's willingness to pay is clearly there and i suppose with wine i think it's always one of those things it's always going to be like a bit of tension between producer and consumer and i think producers will always want to capitalize on an opportunity so if they see there's clearly an opportunity whereby you know there is a premium they can charge almost kind of like the p2 situation right because you think about p2 p2 was created because of onatech right and onatech which was kind of the original p2 and the rebranding happened which is obviously the late disgorgement was that a move to like it already existed but they kind of wanted to make it a clearer definition within the market because they realized that there was clearly a way for them to generate more revenue more income for those bottles that had been disgorged later and maybe it wasn't clear enough so i think that was a good example of like the wine industry reacting to what they were seeing in the market and trying to almost forge and create that path in a more clearer sense well we've seen loads of examples of that haven't we like there's second wines of Bordeaux in particular a lot of them have now set up you know their own shy and it's very much they don't want to discuss it as a second wine it's its own wine the same is true of a chem let's say which doesn't want to be labeled a dessert wine it's a sweet wine it it has different times at which you can enjoy it you know I think it's just an ever-changing landscape isn't it and I think it's it's difficult to put a finger on where it's heading but I think in my mind I think there's definitely a world given all of these different aspects we've talked about around storing wines provenance like yeah why wouldn't there be a world where a lot of these estates have you know handsome and huge sellers like that you as a slight premium can pay for some of your purchase that vintage to remain on site until you want it delivered and consumed right yeah where better to have it yeah yeah absolutely um we've got a couple of other topics we want to move on to so maybe as the kind of last um say on this on this particular area the september releases like sean do you is there any sort of takeaways from the september releases you would you would you would give i think i think uh something that's noteworthy is the range of wines being offered yeah um definitely over the last two three years but but since september releases began really we're seeing a broader range of styles and locations of wines that are being that are being offered uh i think a big standout this year for me was the increase in white wines there's an approximately 65 % increase in the number of white wines being offered.

46:31Jonathan Stevenson:And where are these white wines coming from? Like South America or? Yeah, so I think one of the big impacts this year was the introduction of three Loire producers. Right, interesting. From different areas of the Loire. All making dry wines. So I think that very much tracks with what we were saying earlier about increased consumption of whites. Yeah. And I don't want to say Laplace are getting ahead of the curve because I think this trend of white wine has been going for a while. But yeah, I think it's interesting to see the market adapting and moving more towards consumer preferences with this.

47:02And some of these are getting some pretty interesting critical feedback. Zuccardi also have a white wine coming out, El Camino de los Flores. It's quite interesting. it's in classic Zuccardi fashion is a single vintage single uh vineyard wine high in the uk valley um chardonnay chardonnay yeah um they block malolactic fermentation uh and no oak at

47:29Jonathan Stevenson:all in this one okay so definitely interesting i have not no not um how was it received yeah pretty promising i mean first vintage so obviously what do you think the price point for that something like that would be i think that one's we're expecting around 40 pounds a bottle okay which is pretty pretty approachable pretty accessible yeah something of that craft and quality absolutely and it's something apparently they've been working on for a few years now and getting it just right took a little while which i think is understandable given given the lack of mallow and the lack of oak it's a slightly unique style thank you very much i think that's a great wrap-up um of the september releases um so what one of the biggest thing that's happened in the last month or so since the last pod is the announcement from Chateau Le Fleur.

48:10Jonathan Stevenson:For those who don't know, that's a very high profile wine in Pomerol on the right bank in Bordeaux. Vintages can range from, you know, four or 500 pounds a bottle all the way up to over a thousand pounds for some of the back vintages and some of the famed years from this particular state. Anyway, they announced that they're leaving the Pomerol AOC and Bordeaux AOC, which we can kind of explain a little bit more. And they kind of cited reasons that, you know, they wanted a bit more flexibility. They want to be restricted as much by the kind of rules that go with Pomeroy AOC as well as the Bordeaux AOC.

48:45Jonathan Stevenson:There's been a lot about this in the press, a lot of people's opinions. Le Fleur haven't made any efforts to try and provide any clear clarity as to the exact ruling that they were unhappy about, whether that was on purpose or not, I'm not sure. What's the initial reaction? I mean, Sean, from your perspective as a wine buyer, it's something that probably piques your interest in terms of seeing this change. But what was your initial reaction to this? I think my initial reaction was not wholly surprised. I think for brands like this, like Le Fleur, that can certainly stand on their own, they're not relying on Pomerol AOC as a marketing tool at all.

49:21I think Le Fleur is one of the most collectible and sought-after names in wine.

49:23Jonathan Stevenson:For people that don't know at home what that means to have Pomerol AOC or Bordeaux AOC, just very succinctly and as easily as possible, maybe explain what it means. Yeah, so having an appellation name like Pomerol or Bordeaux on your bottle means, firstly, it's a geographical indicator that your wine's produced in this area. Le Fleur has not moved from Bordeaux. It's still in the Bordeaux area. But it also means sticking to requirements around winemaking, grape growing, etc. There's a variety of things. It can be restrictions on irrigation, which I think is particularly relevant for Le Fleur. Which is completely restricted.

50:01Which is completely restricted.

50:02Jonathan Stevenson:Unless it's under the age of two, I believe. Yeah, or I believe in emergency situations you can apply, but that doesn't happen very often. Which in layman terms means that in Bordeaux, as a winemaker, you can't use water to irrigate the land. Absolutely. And this might actually be Le Fleur's main objection, because one of the things that they did put out in their statement is that they have started using rainwater that they've collected on the property. right i didn't say that right um which which points pretty clearly that they felt that a number of recent vintages as a result of climate change have been significantly warmer and drier than they would want yeah for ideal grape growing um i mean 22 16 19 are very clear examples of this and it would have been helpful to have some h2o absolutely absolutely and there's there's significant value in being able to time the application of h2o um as well which which is what I think they're pushing towards.

50:58Jonathan Stevenson:And anything else? Do you think any other reasons? Obviously, there's a restriction around yields. I don't think it's that because obviously I'm making high quality wine. There's a restriction around great varietal. Is that irrelevant here? But I think they're classically a very low production wine for Bordeaux, right? Yeah. Between what? 5 ,000 or 6 ,000 cases or so? Don't know exactly, yeah. But I think it's in that sweet spot between 5 and 10, right? Rather than being less. less i think it may be less right and it would be more of a shock to the system if it had been like a 15 to 20 000 case you know i mean they're known for using a little cabinet franc versus merlot and you know obviously with climate change refining they might want to test out different grape varietals i'm not sure gives them more flexibility to do that i just think because they're not a mass production name of bordeaux in that sense and not you know we've been fortunate to taste it and it's a great wine great label all of the above but i think they probably got to that point where they felt maybe like Latour where they were like well we kind of we've we've superseded the the you know the ramifications of this whole process we don't need to I don't know I mean I'm not putting words in their mouth but yeah I've got a funny story about Lafleur actually go on do you remember there's so there used to be a mission style restaurant in Chiswick called Hedone do you remember that it had like a um Scandinavian proprietor chef can't remember his exact name um anyway we went there once with with clients we took a couple of bottles of wine but one one was a lefleur 88 bottle and we brought it in and he like came over and said are you drinking these here like yeah we're gonna drink these here and he kind of scoffed our selection he said oh lefleur it's a pizza wine wow so in my mind i only ever think of lefleur as being a pizza wine i'm thinking he must eat really good pizza i need to go around to his he must have a great pizza rather yeah um he's a bit eccentric but i just think it's so interesting to see these little things that are happening and they're you know they're not big they're not they're not little things in the context of the market right and like bordeaux's been through a challenging period which we've covered at length um in previous pods but i think it you know there's no right or wrong way anymore i don't i think a lot of these in not just in wine but i think in a lot of aspects to the world right now there's a lot of things being broken down so yeah look i think look back in back Back in the day, you know, having Bordeaux, having Pomerol on the label was a main marketing tool for wineries.

53:20Jonathan Stevenson:I think we live in an age, in a digital age, in a social media age. And, you know, does that really make a difference for Le Fleur? Of course it doesn't. At the end of the day, there's so many other examples of great wines that are worth a lot of money, that are highly sought off, that don't conform to the, you know, the kind of regional controls that are in place. it is quite a shock to see someone of the established kind of Bordeaux pyramids kind of leave. It's simply to like a shock marketing tactic. It's like, you know, they're going to be the most spoken about wine in the next month for a while in most, you know, outlets in a market where the market's been tough.

53:56There are wine that isn't produced. Also the thing is,

53:58Jonathan Stevenson:the thing is that there's such trust in that brand that they think that the owners and the winemakers there know what they're doing. We trust they're going to make the best wine possible. The fans of La Flore that buy every year on allocation are going to think to themselves, well, actually great. like they've got even more flexibility to make an even better wine that's basically what they're going to be thinking so from a impact perspective as you said it's probably been a net positive and over the long run won't make any any difference at all and and if you know climate change becomes more increasingly difficult in bordeaux they might have got ahead of the curve in a way that letour got ahead of the curve and leaving kind of on from earth so we'll see yeah i think that's a really fair point about getting ahead of the curve because setting up irrigation systems is not as easy as you know sending someone out there with a bucket water and digging a trench like it's going to take some time it's going to take them some practice to work out how to do this because there are many great wines produced with irrigation systems but it's not something they've done before yeah um so i think adapting it early before maybe before the rest of bordeaux has to anyway yeah um is just a really really strong idea yeah great so in summary would you say it's a le fleur pas or le fleur enough not sure that justifies an answer le fleur enough LaFleur enough for me right here we go putting you to the test this is my favourite part of today's pod looking forward to this right so we have set a challenge we've set a challenge to co-host Jonathan Stevenson as well as Shawnee right right right Shawnee right right right can he get it right though we'll see we have asked everyone including myself to pick one wine an investment pick under£100 so you've got a budget of£100 per bottle for an investment pick.

55:37Jonathan Stevenson:So what is your choice in that selection? Then under£500 and then an unlimited budget, what would you go for? So shall we go to the guest first or should we go to the co-host? I don't know who wants to go first. Do either of you have a preference? The guest. Guest, right. Guest first. Under£100, what do you want to go for? I think it's not a particularly good sign when you have to preface something you've written down with an explanation. but I think explanations are welcome these will be critiqued I think this is a wine which is unique enough and with significant quality that is certainly undervalued versus other wines of the same grape variety but also have wines from this region spit it out I have gone what a diatribe we had to live for before we got this selection Sylvain Paddhais Aligote Clodois 2020 20 uh and the large reason for pick so left field like i can't believe you're gone for that right so you've got aligote your belief here is that white right you've been i mean you've been championing whites all pod this makes sense now he's you've been trying to prime the audience aligote over chardonnay do you actually like aligote um yeah catching catching a wave yeah i think it's catching a wave and i think sylvan patah is a pretty big reason why aligote and And if Aligote does establish itself, as I think it probably should, as really a high quality grape.