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Sunday, December 13, 2015

"The Louis Vuittonification of Burgundy": A road map for Barolo?

Manna continues to rain down from heaven. A little less than two weeks ago I wrote a post describing two recent articles I had read about the Barolo region. One of the articles was a blog post from Alfonso Cevola (On the Wine Trail in Italy) titled The Burgundization of Barolo... In that post he described a Levi Dalton podcast wherein Antonio Galloni elaborated on a number of areas where Barolo was becoming akin to Burgundy.

Today I read a post from burgundy-report.com titled The Louis Vuittonification of Burgundy (I love the title. It is so evocative) wherein the author is decrying the  -- Burgundization of Burgundy? The author described some of the issues mentioned in the Galloni podcast but went even further. I have taken the liberty of summarizing the author's findings and placing it into a table juxtaposed with Galloni's perception of Burgundy and the areas where Barolo was becoming like Burgundy.

The question that arises is whether the full list of issues raised by the author presents a potential roadmap of where Barolo is headed. If Galloni sees Barolo becoming more like Burgundy, is this a path that is in Barolo's future? I hope not.

Burgundy* Barolo* The Louis Vuittonification of Burgundy**
Inaccessible producers Potential for this situation to develop More and more doors being closed to the casual visitor
Big-Money investors Potential future

Expensive wines Getting there Step-change in global pricing since 2005


Each vintage more ink being spilled on the cost of the wines than what is in the bottle


Bulk wine prices tracking the increases of the top labels


Many restaurants replacing 2nd and third level wines with 4th tier wines due to costs


Imbalance where Village wines from Cote de Nuits cost more than great 1er Cru from Cote de Beaunes


Land pricing and inheritance costs working their way through to the price of wine


Range of wines being offered to taste shrinking as Grand Cru bottles become too expensive to open
*The Burgundization of Barolo (On the Wine Trail in Italy)




**The Louis Vuittonification of Burgundy (burgundy-report.com)


©Wine -- Mise en abyme

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