The db podcast: might fine wines from Burgundy join La Place de Bordeaux?

This year could see fine wines from Burgundy join La Place de Bordeaux, believes Colin Hay, as he outlines his vision for the future of the French distribution system.

During an in-depth discussion on La Place de Bordeaux with myself for The Drinks Business Podcast – which you can listen to here or below – Hay was asked whether it was likely that more wines would join the tool for distribution, which, despite being established to disseminate Bordeaux worldwide, is handling an increasing number of brands from outside the region.

Commenting that he believed that La Place de Bordeaux was yet to reach a peak in terms of the number of wines it distributes as part of its ‘autumn campaign’ for hors (outside) Bordeaux, he then shared his thoughts on where the growth might come from.

Having drawn attention to last year’s decision by Penfolds to add its iconic Grange label to the French distribution system, Hay – who is db’s Bordeaux correspondent – said, “I think we will continue to see more top-end wines from Australia.”

Continuing, he said, “And I think we will see more wines from California and possibly more from Sonoma – we’ve had them largely from Napa up until now, but we might see a bit of a diversification of that.”

He also said that he expects to see wines from Oregon join the system too, while, turning to a different area altogether, he commented, “I think we will see more top-end Champagne; I’m almost certain about that.”

Notably, Hay also predicted the arrival of the great brands of Burgundy on La Place, which have so far eschewed the Bordeaux-based system for a traditional importer distributor model.

He said of this year’s autumn campaign, “We might see really for the first time, top-end Burgundy.”

He continued, “That would be a major breakthrough if that were to happen, because Burgundy and Bordeaux just don’t work together, basically.”

He explained, “But it does strike me that with the speculative bubble being taken off the Burgundy market, some Burgundy producers are likely to think that a better distribution and logistics system for their top end wines might well be beneficial for them.”

Concluding on the subject of whether La Place de Bordeaux looks set to diversify, he said, “We have seen 20 new wines released in the autumn campaign in comparison to last year [2022] – so there’s a continued expansion in the number of wines. And it’s true that difficult market conditions are putting off some releases – there may be some releases which have been held back by virtue of this – but on the other hand, traditional importer distributor models are quite complicated too, so there might be an incentive for producers to bring their wines to La Place.”