For The Love Of Port

Posted: **Wed Jan 07, 2015 9:56 am**

Given the current economic crisis going on in Russia and seeing as things appear to be drying up for wine sales in China I'm curious as to what this means to Port producers who've been spending time trying to establish markets there. No doubt with the help of EU marketing money. Anyone care to hazard a guess on where Port and Douro wines will go there? I ask as I ran across this info from Kermit Lynch regarding Bordeaux sales but it could just as easily be applied to Port as well. Does it look like Port is safe at the moment from the same possible price spike in those markets that other regions saw?

http://www.kermitlynch.com/newsletters/

"Bordeaux trembles..or so it seemed to me a couple of weeks ago. I went to Bordeaux to taste and heard a lot of gossip in the cellars. The fear and trembling emanates from the elite, expensive, classified growths—expensive enough to price themselves out of the huge American market once the Bush recession hit in 2008. The châteaux turned their sights on the Chinese market, which was greedy for the wines even at unheard-of prices. One top château sold over 60% of its production to China! Ten other châteaux sold their vines, wines, even their châteaux to the Chinese. Huge profits were enjoyed by all. Everything was hunky-dory.

However, in 2014 the Chinese market simply closed. The curtain fell, boom, no one knows why, and sales stopped. The top châteaux must now be asking, where do we turn next? As if that weren’t enough, they are worried about life without Robert Parker. No one ever enriched the Bordeaux coffers more than he has for the past thirty-three years. I’m not sure why, but his presence in the wine market is not as gigantic as before.

Those two absences, the Chinese and Parker, could have an earthquake-like influence on Bordeaux and its wines. Prices are sure to come down, perhaps drastically. Maybe, hopefully, their winemaking recipe (singular, not plural) will change. The sameness of the taste of the classified growths dulls my palate and my spirit. It’s a downright shame. Shameful, too. Where is that impressively sinister, tannic bite that I used to love? Where the aromatic complexity? Where the vivid differences between the wines from one château to another? Where is a goût de terroir?

But what, me worry? When I go to Bordeaux, I don’t go to visit the famed estates. I go to visit vignerons. When a plutocrat or a bank or an insurance company or a dot-com firm buys a winery, they have no roots there. They don’t live there or work there. Mostly they hire someone out of enology school to come and apply the one-hundred-point recipe of the year. Bah, humbug!"

Posted: **Sat Jan 10, 2015 1:35 pm**

I'm not in the biz, but I do travel frequently to China, and I've seen first hand both the explosion of high end wine consumption there and the cratering of that market after the anti-corruption rules. Banquets--even those not affiliated directly with the government--are less lavish now, which means less conspicuous consumption of luxury items like high end Bordeaux. Also, the huge amount of counterfeit wine has discouraged middle class Chinese from drinking European wines, to some extent. I myself recommended Australian wines over French or Italian, as they were much less likely to be counterfeit, though for gift giving, the cachet of French wines still reigned. Frankly, I never saw anyone in China consume Port. You could find it in Hong Kong, but I never saw any in Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shanghai, myself. Port doesn't really lend itself to Chinese banqueting customs, where alcohol is consumed mainly via repeated small toasts rather than as a meal-enhancing beverage. Also, Chinese meals don't tend to feature desserts (except fruit, perhaps) or cheese, so after-dinner Port doesn't have a natural partner.

So I think it will be an uphill battle for Port makers to develop a significant market in China. I would guess that Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines might be better options, with more Western-influenced dining patterns.

Posted: **Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:33 pm**

Janet Ainsworth wrote: So I think it will be an uphill battle for Port makers to develop a significant market in China. I would guess that Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines might be better options, with more Western-influenced dining patterns.

As for Singapore, Port is not popular. Liquor is quite expensive and there's little emphasis on port. Could the weather play into that? Smoking laws are restrictive. Dry wines are well represented of France, Australia & New Zealand... A well known wine merchant in Singapore told me he thought of Port as British thing and Madeira as American. He had some nice ports on his list (cigar bar) including '35 Niepoort and '31 Noval.

Posted: **Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:49 pm**

Singapore does come up in some of my wine-searcher searches, more so than Hong Kong as I recall.

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Posted: **Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:06 am**

Moses Botbol wrote:
Janet Ainsworth wrote: So I think it will be an uphill battle for Port makers to develop a significant market in China. I would guess that Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines might be better options, with more Western-influenced dining patterns.
As for Singapore, Port is not popular. Liquor is quite expensive and there's little emphasis on port. Could the weather play into that? Smoking laws are restrictive. Dry wines are well represented of France, Australia & New Zealand... A well known wine merchant in Singapore told me he thought of Port as British thing and Madeira as American. He had some nice ports on his list (cigar bar) including '35 Niepoort and '31 Noval.

I'd expect Port to be a really difficult sell in Malaysia as it is a majority Muslim country. I think the other problem you have in Singapore, Malaysia, Phillipines Thailand or any of the South East Asian countries is the humidity. I just don't think fortifieds or many of the reds are particularly pleasant to drink in humid conditions. There will be niche markets for expats and some of the hotels and restaurants that cater for western tourists. but I can't see the market growing in those areas.

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