A new blow for Bordeaux wines. The primeurs week, which was to allow professionals to launch the 2019 vintage of Bordeaux grand crus from March 30 to April 2, was suspended Friday because of coronavirus.
“Our teams are currently working on solutions that will allow us to taste the 2019 vintage at a later date. We will detail them as soon as a positive evolution of the context makes it opportune, "announced the Union of Grands Crus of Bordeaux (UGCN) in a press release.
An event that brings together 5,000 to 7,000 traders
Primeur week usually brings together 5,000 to 7,000 traders, importers, specialized journalists, French and foreign. Around this official event revolve dozens of other tastings of organic wines, bourgeois wines, Côtes de Bourg…
This unique marketing system in the world allows some 200 castles (out of 6,000) to sell by June almost all their production, if not all, and therefore to free up cash.
“The Union gives the la. We are certainly going to cancel events in parallel, but companies are still thinking about tasting the vintage with individual meetings, sample shipments and meetings with buyers on their market later, "Christophe told AFP. Chateau of the Bordeaux Interprofessional Wine Council (CIVB).
"Wine consumption is likely to be affected"
"This is going to be a new format for the first time," summed up this director of communication, who says he is mainly concerned by the global consequences of the coronavirus. "This is the blow. The world economy is very impacted and the consumption of wine is bound to be affected, ”he continued.
These economic consequences linked to the epidemic are added to an already difficult context for Bordeaux wines, whose fall in sales is notably linked to exports to China which have been declining for two years and to the United States, hampered by the 25% tax applied in mid-October by the Trump administration.
Bordeaux
Coronavirus: In Bordeaux, "we are in the dark" ... The wine market suspended at the end of the epidemic
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