| Following a Bordeaux court's decision last Tuesday to annul the 2003 Cru Bourgeois classification, decanter.com reports that three St. Emilion chateaux declassified in last year's Classification have also filed suits.
Demotion in the ten-yearly St Emilion classification can result in reduction of price of at least a third. It can also mean loss of distribution networks and devaluation of land. Speculators aggressively try to buy up stock of demoted properties at ludicrously low prices.
Chateau Villemaurine, Chateau Cadet Bon and Chateau Guadet-Saint-Julien, three of the 11 declassified properties, claim the judgments were unsound.
The reasons are similar to those against the cru bourgeois classification; that some members of the jury were partisan.
The three chateaux have also criticised that that they were given no reasons for declassification, and were not given the opportunity to contest the decision.
Says Guy Pétrus Lignac of Chateau Guadet-Saint-Julien, 'This property has always been classified and has a wonderful terroir so I was just enormously surprised. I had the impression of being in an airplane, full of fuel, in full flight, and someone cut the gas without any warning.'
At the same time, St Emilion observers say that in many cases they were not surprised by some of the listings. Chateau Villemaurine, for example, 'has long been ripe for demotion,' one well-placed insider said.
Full report on http://www.decanter.com |
