Wine Lister’s Founding Members’ tasting (the second if its kind) was held last week in the most beautiful surroundings at Ten Trinity Square Private Club. Aside from showcasing how Wine Lister data relates to the actual liquid in the bottle, these tastings are an opportunity to thank friends and supporters of Wine Lister, from subscribers to Founding Members.
We were excited to share news of upcoming developments with our guests, including the imminent expansion of Wine Lister’s coverage (almost doubling from the current 20,000 wines scored), as well as the addition of a new rating criterion. Watch this space!
Wine Lister’s Founding Members, more than 50 major players in the international wine trade, make an invaluable contribution to Wine Lister’s research by sharing their market insights with us on a biannual basis. It is Wine Lister’s role as a fine wine intelligence agency to combine this qualitative information with quantitative data to shed analytical light on fine wines from across the world, for example in our regional reports and factsheets.
In one recent trade survey we asked Founding Members the question, “Which wines do you consider hidden gems (wines you rate highly but which are under-appreciated)?”. The responses inspired the wonderfully varied (but consistently delicious) selection of 24 hidden gems tasted last Thursday (see the full list of wines below).
From left to right: Antoine Forterre, Ella Lister, Giles Cooper, Henry Donne, Pascal Kuzniewski, Pierre-Marie Boury, Anthony Vertadier Mabille, Gareth Kristensen, Sara Guiducci.
In an illustration of how Wine Lister brings together market research with hard data, the “raw” hidden gems selected by our Founding Members are then overlaid with critics’ ratings, restaurant presence, and search frequency data. This gives us the final Hidden Gems presented on the Wine Lister website. In other words, Hidden Gems are wines that are rarely found in top restaurants, and not often searched for online, but which receive high ratings from our partner critics, and have been singled out by our Founding Members as not garnering due attention.
The Founding Members’ “raw” hidden gems featured several Bordeaux wines, including 10 out of the 24 wines shown in the tasting. However, none of these achieve final Hidden Gem status due to their already established brands.
To liven up the evening, we encouraged guests to play “guess the score” – to see how closely they could estimate the Wine Lister score of the wines that they tasted. All the wines were showing beautifully, but Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2005 was the wine that our guests successfully identified as having the highest Wine Lister score of the tasting, despite their guesses sitting an average 44 points below Pichon Comtesse 2005’s actual Wine Lister score of 931.
Conversely, Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 2014, Pédesclaux 2014, and Louis Roederer Brut Premier were all awarded higher scores on average by our guests than their official Wine Lister ratings, but the biggest difference was for G.D. Vajra Barolo Albe 2013. It was awarded an average score of 746 by our guests, 73 points above its actual Wine Lister score, which is brought down by a very low Economics score of 124, due to very little price movement or liquidity. This illustrates how the data-driven elements of Wine Lister scores complement the tasting component.
The wine where our guests came closest with their guesses, just 10 points out, was Brane-Cantenac 2005, estimated at 840 compared to its real Wine Lister score of 850.
Congratulations to the game’s winner, Anneka Swann of BI Wines & Spirits, who was just 37 points out on average. We would also like to thank all our other guests for their valiant efforts at guessing the scores: Adam Brett-Smith, Andrea Frost, Chad Delaney, Charles Metcalfe, James Jackson-Nichols, Nicolas Clerc, Richard Stow, Rupert Millar, Tahir Sultan, and Will Hargrove.
Wines featured in the tasting: Louis Roederer Brut Premier, Philipponnat Clos de Goisses 2007, E. Guigal Condrieu La Doriane 2016, Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta 2014, Seña 2010, Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 2014, Isole e Olena Syrah Collezione Privata 2011, Tenuta San Guido Guidalberto 2016, Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco 2014, G.D. Vajra Barolo Albe 2013, G.D. Vajra Barolo Bricco delle Viole 2009, Domaine Duroché Gevrey-Chambertin Les Jeunes Rois 2015, Domaine Duroché Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru 2015, Domaine Tempier Cuvée Cabassou 2007, Château La Gaffelière 2014, Le Marquis de Calon Ségur 2014, Château Haut-Bailly La Parde 2012, Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion 2014, Château d’Issan 2011, Château Branaire-Ducru 2012, Château Pédesclaux 2014, Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2005, Château Brane-Cantenac 2005, Château Lafon Rochet 2010.
Wine Lister’s first in-depth study of Burgundy published earlier this year was named “Mercury Rising” for a reason. With prices climbing more quickly than any other fine wine region, it is hard to consider the possibility of finding Burgundies of “reasonable value”. This week’s Listed blog brings you the top five Côte de Nuits by Quality score that won’t completely rupture the bank (or in other words, for under £200).
Dominique Laurent takes top spot this week with his Bonnes-Mares Vieilles Vignes, which has a Quality score of 954. Whilst this score sits comfortably amongst the highest of all Bonnes-Mares, the per bottle price of £174 does not – indeed, it is just under five times lower than the combined average price of the other eight best Bonnes-Mares on Wine Lister. Perhaps the lower price can, at least in part, be explained by its modest Brand score (531). For example, despite its Quality score sitting just one point higher, Georges Roumier’s Bonnes-Mares records a Brand score of 934, and is £1,046 more expensive.
In second place is Domaine Charlopin-Parizot’s Charmes Chambertin, with a Quality score of 944. Its high quality is not yet accompanied by an equal level of consumer recognition. With the lowest Brand score of the five (445) resulting from presence in only 2% of the world’s best restaurants and a search frequency ranking of 2,335 (of the c.4000 wines on Wine Lister), this Charmes Chambertin is a Hidden Gem (Wine Lister’s indicator that identifies under the radar wines that warrant discovery).
Domaine Jean Trapet Père et Fils’ Chambertin takes third place this week with a Quality score of 940 and just sneaking in under the £200 mark. While in third place for Quality, it has the highest overall Wine Lister score of the lot (906), thanks to its Brand (868) and Economics (896) scores. Indeed, it beats the combined average scores of the other four wines in this week’s top five in both categories by 310 and 319 points respectively.
The remaining two spots are taken by Domaine Arlaud Clos de la Roche, and Pierre Damoy Chambertin, each with a Quality score of 932. In addition to being by far the cheapest option of this week’s top five (£98 per bottle on average), Arlaud Clos de la Roche’s price is also the most stable, with volatility of just 5.7%. Conversely Damoy Chambertin’s price is the most volatile (8.7%), possibly the result of strong growth rates over both the long and short-term, having recorded a three-year compound annual growth rate of 15.6% and having added 6.5% to its price over the past six months alone.
A glass of cold Riesling on a hot summer’s day hits that sweet spot between refreshment, satisfaction, and intrigue. Any one of Germany’s finest wines for Quality under £300 would definitely deliver those three things. Moreover, with an average drinking window of 16 years, and with global warming seemingly set to deliver increasingly high summer temperatures, stock up on them now and you will be rewarded with stunning wines for years to come.
It is perhaps revealing of Riesling’s under-the-radar nature that three of this week’s top five qualify as Hidden Gems, meaning that they combine excellent critics’ ratings with modest restaurant presence and online popularity. Moreover, many of Wine Lister’s Hidden Gems were picked out by the global fine wine trade in our Founding Members’ survey, underlining the perennial mystery of Riesling as the darling of the trade, despite struggling to spark wide-scale consumer demand. Interestingly the group’s three Hidden Gems are all Beerenausleses (BAs). Schloss Johannisberg Rosa-Goldlack, Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr, and Weingut Robert Weil Kiedricher Gräfenberg’s BAs, in spite of a phenomenal average Quality score of 969, achieve an average Brand score of just 398 – the result of being present in just 2% of the world’s top restaurants and receiving only 70 online searches each month on average. Demand for excellent sweet Riesling is clearly not there at present.
However, returning to the group’s fantastic quality, it is Egon Müller’s Scharzhofberger Riesling Auslese that comes out on top with a score of 974. 2014 was its best ever vintage, with one of JancisRobinson.com’s critics, Michael Schmidt, awarding it 19/20 and heaping on the praise: “Our sensory perception is treated to an animating exuberance of exotic fruit and fresh raisins. Botrytis has been kept in check to focus on purity of expression rather than indulge in unctuous combustion”.
The group’s final spot is filled by Keller Westhofen Abtserde Riesling Grosses Gewächs (966). It is Jancis Robinson’s favourite of the five, achieving an outstanding average rating of 18.5/20 from Wine Lister’s UK partner critic. Tellingly, particularly in the context of the three BA’s lack of consumer demand, it is also the group’s most popular wine, receiving nearly 30 times more searches each month on average than the BAs. Consumers appear much more at ease with Riesling’s dryer styles.
As Bordeaux en primeur 2017 tastings come to a close, we look back at Brane-Cantenac 2005, one of many highlights in our recent Founding Members’ tasting.
You can download the slide here: Wine Lister Factsheet Château Brane-Cantenac 2005
All the facts on Seña 2010, another Hidden Gem included in our Founding Member’s tasting last Tuesday.
You can download the slide here: Wine Lister Factsheet Seña 2010
Hidden Gems are one of four Wine Lister “Indicators”, segmenting wines that meet specific sets of criteria into groups. Hidden Gems are those wines rarely found in the top restaurants, and not often searched for online, but which either have high ratings from wine critics, or have been singled out as a hidden gem by Founding Members in Wine Lister surveys.
Last week, Wine Lister celebrated its second birthday with a special tasting of a selection of 27 “raw” hidden gems, identified by our Founding Members (c.50 key players from the international fine wine trade) when asked which wines they rated highly, but which they felt were underappreciated.
Founding Members’ Hidden Gems hail from a variety of regions, producers and vintages. Their average Wine Lister scores vary too, as shown on the histogram below, where the grey columns represent the total number of fine wines currently listed on Wine Lister which fall into each score bucket.
The full list of wines tasted is available here: Wine Lister Founding Members’ Hidden Gems
The Wine Lister team was joined by some of our trade Founding Members, data partners, and other supporters of Wine Lister. We encouraged tasters to share their comments by writing on the tasting table. All the wines were showing beautifully, and G.D. Vajra’s Barolo Bricco delle Viole 2009, tasted from magnum, won widespread praise from all the guests. It also holds the highest Quality score (927) of all wines in the room. One taster even went so far as to name it “the Lafite of Barolo”!
From left to right: David Harvey, Arthur de Lencquesaing, Dan Jago, Charles Lea, Ella Lister, Jancis Robinson, Jan Konetzki, Adam Bruntlett, Katy Andersen, Grant Ashton, Sophie Mclean, Richard Harvey, Greg Sherwood, Aita Ighodaro, Joe Fattorini.
Find out what else was said about the wines by following this link to more photos of the event.
Wines featured in the tasting: Louis Roederer Brut Premier, E. Guigal Condrieu La Doriane 2016, Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta 2014, Seña 2010, Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 2014, Isole e Olena Syrah Collezione Privata 2011, Tenuta San Guido Guidalberto 2016, Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Le Serre Nuove 2015, 2011, 2007, Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco 2014, G.D. Vajra Barolo Albe 2013, G.D. Vajra Barolo Bricco delle Viole 2009, Domaine Duroché Gevrey-Chambertin Les Jeunes Rois 2015, Domaine Duroché Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru 2015, Domaine Tempier Cuvée Cabassou 2007, Château La Gaffelière 2014, Le Marquis de Calon Ségur 2014, Château Haut-Bailly La Parde 2012, Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion 2014, Château Boyd-Cantenac 2013, Château d’Issan 2011, Château Branaire-Ducru 2012, Château Pédesclaux 2014, Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2005, Château Brane-Cantenac 2005, Château Lafon Rochet 2010.
On Tuesday Wine Lister held a tasting of Hidden Gem wines, as identified by our Founding Members from the wine trade. All the wines showed beautifully, including Guigal’s Condrieu La Doriane 2016. Below we summarise all the facts.
You can download the slide here: Wine Lister Factsheet E. Guigal La Doriane 2016
This week, our listed section journeys to the most northerly Burgundy appellation to look at Wine Lister’s top five Chablis by Quality score. Wine Lister’s Quality score comprises the average rating of our four partner critics, as well as a wine’s ageing potential.
In fifth place is Hidden Gem, Domaine Gérard Duplessis Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos. Producing only 1,500 bottles a year, this wine is present in just 2% of the world’s top restaurants, but receives a very strong rating from Jancis Robinson, setting its Quality score at 910.
Domaine William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is fourth-highest with a Quality score of 927. Whilst Jeannie Cho Lee doesn’t score the wine as highly as our other critics, at £55 it still represents a lot of bang for your buck.
Bronze goes to Domaine Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Valmur, with a Quality score of 946. The only wine of the group not from the Les Clos climat, it has a predicted drinking window of 10 years – higher than the rest of its peer group, which averages eight years.
Vincent Dauvissat Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos has the second-highest Quality score (952) and also has the biggest variance in ratings from our partner critics, receiving an outstanding score from Jeannie Cho Lee, but a far more modest one from UK critic Jancis Robinson.
Winning the Quality score crown by a narrow two-point difference (954) is the second wine of the group from Raveneau – the domaine’s Les Clos offering. Enjoying uniformly excellent scores from each of our partner critics, it’s one of the most talked-about wines in the fine wine trade and unsurprisingly holds Wine Lister Buzz Brand status.
In the latest of our blogs on the findings from Wine Lister’s Tuscany Market Study – following on from a look at the region’s global standing, and the popularity of its appellations – we turn our attention to its individual wines. Here, we have carried out an in-depth survey with our Founding Members (the key fine wine trade players from across the globe, between them representing more than one third of global fine wine revenues), for insight into their confidence in Tuscany’s individual wines.
First, we asked respondents which producers are due to see the largest gain in brand recognition in the next two years. More than half those cited are producers whose flagship wines are Super Tuscans / Tuscany IGT: Tenuta Tignanello (Tignanello and Solaia), Masseto, Montevertine (Le Pergole Torte) and Tua Rita (Redigaffi).
Brunello di Montalcino DOCG is home to two contenders, Biondi Santi and Casanova di Neri, while the final producer, Le Macchiole, makes mainly Bolgheri DOC wines.
We also asked the trade which individual Tuscan wines they consider to be hidden gems: wines that they rate highly but which they perceive as underappreciated elsewhere. Two of these wines are made by rising star producers above: Tignanello, and Le Macchiole’s Paleo Rosso, suggesting that these wines may not stay underappreciated for long.
Apart from Soldera Case Basse, all of the wines cited have average prices per bottle of £75 and under, combined with strong average Quality scores that vary between 814 (Castello del Terriccio Tassinaia) and 919 (Tignanello).
To take a look at the rest of the survey’s findings – including which Tuscan wines have seen the sharpest rise in demand, which consistently sell out, and which the trade have most confidence in – please log in to Wine Lister and download the report from the Analysis page.
Wine Lister, the world’s first data-driven wine rating system, held its inaugural ‘Showdown’ dinner in Hong Kong on 26th May 2016, with some of the most distinguished collectors and members of the trade in attendance to have their say. To help guide its users, Wine Lister has developed four ‘Wine Lister Indicators’, two of which came head to head during this intimate dinner. Buzz Brands, the most talked-about, prestigious wines, were served blind alongside Hidden Gems, fine wines that are under the radar but worth discovering.
The Buzz Brands emerged victorious, scoring on average 18% higher than the Hidden Gems, proving that they have achieved global brand recognition for a reason – thanks to their exceptional quality.
Read the full press release here.
Left to right: Jo Purcell (Managing Director of Farr Vintners Hong Kong), Thierry Desseauve (Wine Lister partner critic), Pierre Lurton (MD of Châteaux d’Yquem and Cheval Blanc), Ella Lister (Wine Lister’s Founder & CEO), Jessica Zhang, Agnes Hon, Don Weaver (Director of Harlan Estate), Ying Hui, Jean-Philippe Lemoine, Simon Lurton, Alexandra Rendall, Michel Bettane (Wine Lister partner critic), Nelson Siu (Editor-in-Chief of WINE.Luxe), Alex Cheung.