Wine's world

Michelin just acquired a stack (40%) in the magazine The Wine Advocate, created by Robert Parker in 1978 and hold since 2013 by Singaporean investors.

Michelin's intents have not been revealed for now, but it is not obvious that The Wine Advocate will stay as influential as during the Robert Parker's greatest moments (1982-2012).

After the passing of Christine Valette in April 2014, it was predictable that the Château Troplong-Mondot will change hands.

It has just been announced that the Château Troplong-Mondot had been purchased by the french insurance company SCOR. But for now, we have no further information on the future manager team and its goals concerning the upcoming vintage.

Here is the geographical breakdown of the 423.000 ha of the French vineyards listed in PDO in 2016:

• 26% Bordeaux
• 17% Rhône Valley
• 12% Loire Valley
• 11% Burgundy-Beaujolais
• 10% Languedoc-Roussillon
•  8% Champagne
•  6% South-West
•  6% Provence
•  4% Alsace

Two surprises in this distribution:

- despite being limited to a single department, the vineyard of Bordeaux represents all by itself a quarter of the global area of French PDO,

- Burgundy (with Beaujolais) is not that small, as its PDO are larger than the ones in Languedoc-Roussillon.

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In Gironde, PDO vineyards are distributed like that:

• 46% Bordeaux et Bordeaux Supérieurs
• 18% Médoc et Graves
• 13% Vins de Côtes
• 11% St-Émilion, Pomerol, Fronsac
•  9% dry white wines
•  3% sweet white wines

Since 2005, the PDO Bordeaux, Bordeaux Supérieurs, Vins de Côtes et Blancs doux are decreasing, whereas the others (more profitable) remain stable.

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Still in Gironde, 88% of the vineyards produce red wine and 12% white wine. Here are the distribution of the grape varieties:

Red wines
• 66% merlot
• 22% cabernet sauvignon
• 10% cabernet franc
•  2% others

White wines
• 48% semillon
• 44% sauvignon
•  6% muscadelle
•  2% others

With the global warming, the plots of merlot started to decrease in favour of later grape varieties (like cabernets, petit verdot, malbec, carménère…).