The winemakers of France, especially in the Bordeaux region, have had a difficult year. So the unexpected success of Vinexpo, the largest exhibition in the world of wine and spirit producers, has been encouraging news. Nearly 50,000 visitors, twenty per cent above the most pessimistic forecast, attended the event – and these were by and large visitors representing the distribution market. They may not have wandered around with cheque books sticking out of their pockets but the contacts made and the relationships built augur well for the next twelve months.

 

Christophe Palmowksi had a simple message for his fellow producers. The director of Vignerons catalans en Roussillon said that wine production had to be ‘de-mystified’, with producers concentrating on the product their customers were looking for, not some esoteric wine they preferred to create. Palmowski claimed that simplicity and accessibility was needed to encourage wine production, especially for women and young people. His own stand was the most visited of any at the exhibition, helped a little no doubt by the free distribution of a huge quantity of fruit from the Pyrénées-Orientales and 12,000 miniatures of a new vintage called Fruité Catalan.

 

Franglais scored another victory at the exhibition with the introduction of le BIB. In French it would have to be SDUB, literally sac dans une boîte, but le BIB, or ‘bag in box’, is the catch phrase for a revolutionary solution to keeping top quality wines fresh. The owner of Domaines Rollan de By, Jean Guyon, demonstrated a way of marketing a selection of seven fine wines, each sealed in a carton with a hermatically sealed compartment from which wine could be withdrawn through a tap. Monsieur Guyon claimed that the wine remained fresh for up to six months, however many times the tap was opened in the intervening period.

 

As many discriminating purchasers of wine eschew the more expensive vintages because they are reluctant to consume an entire bottle immediately, and the wine, once opened, loses its distinctive qualities, this looks like an ideal way to get great wine by the glass.