Savour International

Germans have become savvy wine consumers who are no longer fixated on the wines of a specific region, but instead think internationally when making their wine purchases. The era of high-priced wines is over, however. Today’s customers want well-priced wines that offer excellent quality.

The gamut of wines available in Germany today is larger than ever before, with more than 10 million hectares of vineyards worldwide producing some 300 million hectolitres of wine annually – more than 80 percent of it from European vintners.But only four-fifths of the wine produced is actually imbibed – although this glut has resulted in lower prices for most wines.

Wine producers use every available marketing instrument to persuade consumers to buy their products, oftentimes via national government or EU-subsidised marketing campaigns. But wine consumption has nonetheless failed to rise over the years, and is, in fact, seriously on the decline in traditional wine-drinking cultures such as Italy, France, and Spain.

Weak sales at home are increasingly prompting European vintners to export their products. The most sought-after market in this regard is Germany, as it is also the largest market. Wine market diversity and wider dissemination of grape varieties have been mainly fuelled by the gourmet restaurant sector – although the era when wine was reflexively exalted in restaurants is gone, and high-priced Bordeaux and Burgundy wines are no longer in vogue. What restaurant patrons are looking for is good value for their money.

French wines no longer as popular in Germany as they once were

Exorbitantly priced wines are becoming increasingly difficult to sell, a trend that has been particularly pronounced in France, whose wine exports since 2007 have plummeted by millions of hectolitres, according to German government statistics. French vintners have been jacking up their prices for decades without making any attempt to improve the quality of their products. German consumers have reacted accordingly, and classic French wines no longer enjoy the outstanding reputation in Germany that they once did.

Nonetheless, vintners from the Cahors region of south-western France sell reasonably priced wines that offer excellent quality.

Vintners from the Lot region mainly make wine from Auxerois (Malbec) grapes, which seldom yield subtly appealing wines: most are on the rustic side, and by the time the second bottle’s been uncorked, you begin to taste the fermented fruit juice.

What with the growing worldwide trend towards wine uniformity thanks to international enological networking and use of the same varieties of grapes (particularly Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon) and the same cultivation methods, “black wine” from the Cahors region is particularly refreshing.

The Romans produced wine in this region 2,000 years ago. The Avignon popes imbibed it during the Middle Ages, and Russian czars enjoyed it at the dawn of the modern era. Cahors wines once gave Bordeaux wines a good run for their money; but then the Bordeaux vintners quashed this particular juggernaut by imposing protective customs duties. The result: Bordeaux wines became world-famous, and those from Cahors fell into oblivion. In the 1980s, only 1,583 of the original 40,000 hectares of Cahors vineyards were still being cultivated.

But then the prominent French businessman Alain Dominique Perrin stepped up to the plate by purchasing a ruined castle known as Lagrézette, which was located on a southern-exposed rise on the right bank of a small Lot river tributary, the Calmare. Mr. Perrin transformed the ruin into a wine chateau and brazenly announced to the international media: “The wines of Cahors are set to emerge from the shadow cast by Bordeaux and Burgundy reds.”

1 | Masi in Venice, Italy scored a marketing coup some years ago by allying itself with vintner Serego Alighieri, the 20th-generation descendant of the poet Dante
Alighieri.
2 | At Kastel Belá winery ...
3 | .... near the Hungarian border, Masi mainly produces dry Riesling wines under the direction of Egon Müller, who is head of Scharzhof winery in Wiltingen. Their Chateau Belá Riesling is a particularly outstanding wine.
4 | When Alain Dominique Perrin bought the Lagrézette chateau in France’s Cahors region, it was in ruins – but is now home to one of the region’s most modern wine cellars, producing ...