Friday, February 22, 2008

Various news

My attorney Joëlle told me that she is just about to reach an amicable settlement for a commercial deal where our 2 companies were the beneficiaries. Therefore, isn’t it better to have a lawyer who favors settling for a bad or average settlement instead of going to court where you’re left to the whims of a judge who could take a surprising decision (it happened to me, even though I was certain to win).

I had lunch in Bordeaux with one of my oldest wine merchant customer who used to buy wines from me and vice versa, way before he even bought he first vintages of Valandraud.
The first time he bought Valandraud give me as much pleasure as a good rating from Parker, goes to tell how important it is to sell Valandraud at that price. I had the same pleasure when a friend négociant placed Valandraud on the wine list at La Tour d’Argent in Paris. The credibility brought by David Ridgeway’s help was more than useful.

Chateau Lafont-Fourcat, red Bordeaux, produced with love by Paul-Marie Morillon is so successful that we are currently short of 10 000 bottles! And this with no ratings and comments from journalists (what are journalists doing?). This success is simply due to the obvious quality of this wine confirmed by our customers when they taste it.
Chateau de Carles is seeing the same success, but for this one, journalists had already noticed the quality of this Chateau for quite a long time.
All this is only a part of the work done throughout the world by many of my colleagues in Bordeaux, and represents millions of bottles sold.

In Saint Etienne de Lisse, Silvio Denz – Swiss entrepreneur and current owner of Château Faugère as well as other properties, including Chambrun (Lalande de Pomerol) and Clos d’Agon in Spain (with Peter Sisseck as consultant) – just bought the well known company Lalique, famous worldwide for crystal glassworks and symbol of French luxury.

Silvio is currently building an ambitious new cellar for vinification and aging with Mario Botta as architect (and Michel Gracia for the stone work), on the Saint Emilion appellation. This property already has a cellar in the Castillon appellation (which was designed by Jean de Castines).
This commune of Saint Etienne de Lisse has become very dynamic and got a special selection in Saturday’s issue of Le Figaro for Château de Pressac.

With Château Fleur Cardinale and Château Valandraud as well as part of Château Rol Valentin and a few other interesting wines, Saint Etienne de Lisse is the rising area of the Saint Emilion appellation.

Think about going to Vinisud!

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