The International Pinot Noir Celebration honors the history of wine in Burgundy, and sets the trend for incredible Oregon Pinot Noir that is worth a place in every serious cellar. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Thousands of wine festivals take place around the world every year, making it tough for collectors to decide which ones are worth a visit. To make matters worse, some wine events change dramatically over the years. For example, the St. Vincent festival in Burgundy was once a locals-only mecca of wine, open only to true Burgundians. In 1961, outrage spread through the region when festival organizers invited two Americans to the party. As the cliche goes, Burgundy gave an inch, and collectors took a mile. By 1991, 100,000 visitors swarmed St. Vincent, and collectors bought $4 million worth of wine. By 2003, Burgundy had had enough, locking the festival down to winegrowers-only. What we’ve learned from St. Vincent is that when a festival is at its peak, it can be extremely profitable for collectors looking to be the first to invest in regional bottles (and sometimes, even too profitable, as we also saw with St. Vincent). Many more modern wine festivals are designed specifically with collectors in mind, and manage to find a balance between cultural traditions and wine commodification. Whether you love wine for the art of it, or you see your bottles as an investment, you’ll gain a great deal when you visit these festivals.
Vienna Wine Hike
This three-route tour through the hillsides of three Vienna wine regions begins in August, and it’s the ideal choice for Riesling lovers. You can choose among the following options: Route 1 through Neustift to Nussdorf, Route 2 through Strebersdorf to Stammersdorf or Route 3 through Ottakring to Neuwaldegg. If you want to dive in deep into the Vienna wine world, you can do every route on the tour, or you can choose the one that looks most promising. What makes this event special is that these routes are only open once per year in August. This is the only chance that collectors have to taste wines from these private wineries without getting on an allocations list or waiting for the wines to ship to international distributors.
Why Collectors Will Love It
If you collect Riesling, Gruner Veltliner, Blaufrankisch, Zweigelt, or St. Laurent, you will not want to miss this event. Austrian wines are often quite collectable, but some regional vintages are difficult to find on the market. In the rare cases that you are able to find Austrian wines online, there’s no guarantee that you’ll enjoy the wine once it arrives by mail unless you sample it first. By attending the Vienna Wine Hike, you can be one of the first to sample new private vineyard offerings, and you can ship home any wines you enjoy.
Unlike at many other wine festivals, you won’t be herded into a single event space and offered a handful of wines that organizers select for you beforehand. Instead, you’re given the freedom to explore the area freely. If you spot a vineyard that looks ideal for growing great wines, you can spend all day in its tasting room, never setting foot in another vineyard for the rest of the hike. It certainly helps to visit as many wineries as possible during this hike, but it’s not required. This could potentially save you hours of wasted time and energy on wineries that you don’t truly enjoy.
What to Look for While You’re There
Be on the lookout for unusual Riesling vintages on your hike, especially vintages that are on the dry side rather than the sweet side. Germany dominates the Riesling market, but it is not the only region in the world that crafts incredible vintages in this varietal. When you hand-pick Viennese Riesling, you can expand your current collection beyond classic German labels. JJ Prum and Schloss Johannisberger are well-known German must-haves that can be found in any serious Riesling collection, but far fewer collectors own excellent Austrian Riesling as well.
Fête des Vendanges
This fall event is held in Paris’ Montmartre vineyards, and features wine and cheese from France, as well as unusual picks from Brazil, Slovenia, Madagascar, and Canada. The festival includes many Parisian wines, but it also goes outside of the city, offering bottles from lesser-known French estates. Unlike the Vienna Wine Hike, which is more open-ended, this festival is more traditional; when you arrive, you’re greeted by stands selling artisanal goods and wine samples, and you’ll even run into the occasional street performer. What makes this festival stand out is that it features up-and-coming vendors, as well as some of the only wines made in Paris itself.
Why Collectors Will Love It
There’s a reason why you hear about wine from Bordeaux and Burgundy, but you never hear about wine from Paris. Wine from France’s most iconic city is extremely difficult to find, but it is likely to gain ground in 2016. Paris is set to expand its wine market, now that the EU has passed a regulation allowing Parisian wineries to sell their wines on the international market. You’ll want to take advantage of this dramatic shift in the law, sampling local wines and deciding which wineries are worth investing in for the future.
Yet Parisian wine isn’t the only possible benefit for collectors. The event also offers some of the best Pinot Noir and Gamay Beaujolais from across France. Much of the sale proceeds from these bottles go directly to charity, which is an added bonus if you want to give back to the region. Any serious collector of French wine will want to have the essentials, like La Tache or Armand Rousseau Pere et Fils, since these wines already have a proven worth on the market. However, if you want to get serious about French Pinot Noir, try to scoop up some bottles that differ from what other collectors have in their cellars. This festival is your chance to expand into lesser-known Pinot Noir producers, making your cellar diverse and exciting.
What to Look for While You’re There
By far the first vintage on your to-try list should be any kind of Pinot Noir. Wines grown in relatively cool regions are likely to be your safest bet. Look for wines grown in Northern France; the weather has been so unusually warm over the past few years in France that Pinot Noir is flourishing more in the cooler, northernmost regions than in those further south. And don’t pass up a fine Burgundy Gamay. In fact, it’s best to bring home Pinot Noir from any French region except Burgundy, and stick with Gamay from the Burgundy region. That’s because it is easy to find a great bottle of Pinot Noir from Burgundy anywhere on the wine market, but it’s far more difficult to find hidden Pinot Noir gems from outside of Burgundy.
International Pinot Noir Celebration
This three-day event in Oregon is centered around one varietal: Pinot Noir. Jancis Robinson once called this event “one of the most enjoyable wine weekends in the world,” and she is absolutely correct in her assessment. The festival features only Oregon producers, highlighting the best food and wine from the state. Although these growers work in Oregon and plant their vines in state soil, many of these grapes are grown from classic Grand Cru cuttings from Burgundy. If you love Burgundy Pinot Noir, and you’ve always wanted to get in on the Oregon wine trend, this is the ideal place for it.
Why Collectors Will Love It
Oregon Pinot Noir is having a major moment on the wine market lately. Not only has the wine region grown in size, it is also close to being on-par with France in price, making these wines potentially hugely profitable on the secondary market. While the other two events on this list are perfect for collectors who want to expand their collections into unusual territories, the International Pinot Noir Celebration does this and more. At this event collectors are likely to find bottles that could make them a sizeable profit after aging in a cellar for 10 years. Unlike established terroirs in Burgundy, wine experts are still deciding which Oregon bottles are the most collectible. This means that when you attend this festival, you could be one of the first to try–and get in on–the next “it” wine. This is the perfect festival for collectors who want to stay ahead of the curve while also learning about how Pinot Noir in this state differs from its Burgundy sibling. As more collectors invest in Oregon wines, it will pay off to become an expert now.
What to Look for While You’re There
Pinot Noir is the obvious choice at this festival. But what types of bottles should you seek out to make the most of the experience while you’re there? Generally, wines from Willamette Valley are going to be the most popular, and likely most profitable, bottles offered at the event. Many of these wines are already gaining in market value. Two of the best Willamette Valley producers of the moment are Beaux Freres and Auteur. Minimal intervention at Beaux Freres means that their wines express the Oregon terroir most accurately. Auteur wines focus on cool climates for their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, which makes their wines some of the best-tasting on the current market. Other good choices that are likely to gain value are wines from Evening Land wines or Scott Paul.
Whether you are starting your high-end wine collection or adding to an established portfolio, Vinfolio is your partner in buying, selling, and professional storage. We carry excellent investment wines from the best vineyards in the world. Contact us today to get access to the world’s finest wine.
