US losing stature with Bordeaux wine producers

AFP, April, 2008

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) — Fewer US buyers than usual turned up in Bordeaux this week for wine primeur week -- when buyers and critics taste the latest wine harvest -- but producers surprisingly are not too concerned.

"America is not the world, it is a bit bigger than that," said Patrick Maroteaux, president of the Union des Grands Cru de Bordeaux, organiser of the annual primeur tastings, which take place six months after the harvest and two years before bottling.

"Europe is a significant market, as is Asia," he said.

Going one step beyond their oft repeated complaint that Americans only buy primeurs in top quality speculative years, so more for profit than drinking, producers now happily say they are no longer dependant on the US market.

"It has happened in about the last two years, on the good side people realised there were new customers from Asia, Russia and India," said ...