French government dismisses St-Emilion reclassification proposal
January 7, 2009
By Oliver Styles
The French government council has thrown out a move to reinstate eight declassified St-Emilion chateaux.
The dismissal, yet another in the rollercoaster saga of the St-Emilion classification, followed the attempt by senators Gerard Cesar and Philippe Dominati to reinstate the chateaux to their 2006 status – either Premier or Grand Cru Classes. The return to the 1996 classification effectively demoted them to Grand Crus.
Cesar and Dominati tried to effect the change as part of a finance law amendment passed by the French government in December. They claimed the eight chateaux had lost potential revenue following the return to the older classification.
The proposal was thrown out by the constitutional council as being inconsistent with such legislature.
A local court in Bordeaux rejected a case for the return to the 2006 classification in late October. An appeal is currently under way.
The eight chateaux are: Chateaux Pavie-Macquin and Troplong-Mondot (Premier Grand Cru Classes in 2006), with chateaux Bellefond-Belcier, Destieux, Fleur-Cardinale, Grand Corbin, Grand Corbin-Despagne, and Monbousquet (Grand Cru Classes in 2006).
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This could be said to be turning into the biggest wine farce since Clochemerle. The difference is that this affects real people who have invested vastly to obtain promotion, both economically and personally, and are now being denied it on a technicality. Noone has ever suggested that the Commission wrongly promoted these Chateaux and, as I understand the litigation, their merits are not and never have been in issue - even if different people may prefer the style and wine of some of the eight to others of them. These were clearly obvious candidates for promotion and even I as a rank amateur had identified six of them when choosing, before the announcement of the 2006 names, where to take a visiting English group in 2006. We actually visited Pavie-Macquin, Bellefont Belcier, Fleur Cardinale and Grand Corbin and were impressed by what had been done at each of them. Their current treatment by the authorities - national, not their fellow Saint-Emilionais, who have every sympathy — is a real denial of justice and taints the system of classification.
Tim Hartley
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