A few times over the last few years I’ve driven through France. Both times, I thought to myself that I would take advantage of where I was and stop at a vineyard or two.
Last time, I stopped at Chateau Corbiac and at Chateau Coutet. At Corbiac she was like “would you like the tour” and I told her, no no I’m just here to buy some wine. I thought I was gonna come away with a couple of cases at least. I ended up with just one as it was really really pricey. I bought one case of six bottles of their 2015 Pecharmant. “I’ll have to stop at another cheaper place, seems I got one of the good ones,” I thought. Oh sweet sweet summer child.
My next attempt was at Coutet. “You can’t buy wine until you’ve had the tour”. Fuck it, I’ve got time, I’ll listen to someone blither on about wine for a while so I can get the vineyard pricing, I thought.
We got through the tour. I bought a case of the organic 2019 Grand Cru St Emilion. It was more expensive than the previous. I felt a bit disillusioned, I didn’t have the bulk I wanted, but I clearly had the value. “I will sit on these a few years and then flog them for a healthy profit,” I thought.
I dug into one of the cases, and left the other expensive one intact to resell. When I got back from America it had been opened and put neatly away on shelves. My initial reaction was a resigned frustration that a potential investment had been scuppered. Then I went online to see what sort of prices I could get for these bottles now, a few years after purchase.
Turns out, about the same for one, and less for the other.
I was driving through France, these places happened to be close to my route, I went in wanting to buy from source as an investment. Turns out that’s not how it works.
The assumption seems to be that if you are there at the vineyard then you are there because you are already gasping for that particular vineyard. They want to give you the tour and blither on about temperature and so forth so they can justify skinning you on the cost per bottle. Buying from the vineyard is the worst way for punters like me to get wine, it transpires. I stopped off in a supermarket as well on my travels, and found three bottles of Margaux on the top shelf that were priced at €24. I’ve still got them, and could get £150 each for them easy. Still got stuff to learn, it seems.
In a perverse way I’m quite grateful that the cases got opened and broken up. I might have ended up going to a few more vineyards before I finally decided to sell my first batch of “investment bottles” only to discover that they were no better than they were when I started in terms of value. I suppose it makes sense. That’s my optimism interfering with reality again. It happens all the time. But it usually keeps me pretty happy.
So I’ve brought one of each of the two down to Southsea for the weekend and my friends and I will get through them. I’m reframing it like this: a couple of years ago I treated my future self and my friends to twelve very lovely bottles of wine and paid for them in advance.
AlBarclay 