Concours Général Agricole
In an unprecedented move, the Bordeaux Administrative Court ruled in favor of the intractable Antoine de Corbiac, who questioned the impartiality of the pre-selection panel.
It’s his latest coup. And not the least. On November 30, Antoine de Corbiac, the Bergerac winegrower who makes a name for himself in the legal arena, obtained a ruling from the Bordeaux Administrative Court to annul the winners’ list for Pécharmant wines (2011 vintage) at the 2014 Paris Concours Général Agricole. For the first time in the history of the famous competition, the reason given was that the impartiality of the local pre-selection jury had not been established.
As a result, Château de Tiregand, which won awards for two vintages, and Domaine du Haut-Pécharmant have had their gold medals withdrawn for the time being. Château de Corbiac was conspicuously absent from the list of winners. This could have been the end of the matter, and Antoine de Corbiac could have swallowed his strange ego, as he has been promoting his wine through the famous “le meilleur Pécharmant” advertising campaign, backed by results gleaned over the years from the Hachette wine guide and …the Concours Général Agricole.
Legal loophole
It’s not that the winemaker was “astonished” by his non-selection and immediately contacted a “certified laboratory”. So, reassured as to the quality of the vintage, Antoine de Corbiac set off to ask for explanations, first from the Concours Général Agricole commissioner, then from the Ministry of Agriculture, where he finally obtained the sworn statements of the jurors in the Pecharmants preselection. They include two winegrowers from the appellation and an oenologist whose clients include Château de Tiregand and Domaine de Haut-Pécharmant. It’s hardly surprising, for a blind tasting, to rely on the vital forces of the cru. But there’s a legal loophole that Antoine de Corbiac and his counsel, Bordeaux lawyer Hugues de Lacoste Lareymondie, are jumping into.
Although the rule requires the organizer of a competition to place a winemaker at a tasting table where his wine does not appear, the Ministry of Agriculture, with which the Concours Général Agricole is affiliated, failed to produce a report attesting to this precaution before the administrative court. Above all, Jean-Marc Dournel, the oenologist, did not specify in black and white the professional links he had with two of the competing winemakers. “To the question “in the event that the juror is himself a candidate, employee or member of a candidate company (…), he didn’t tick anything at all!” triumphs Me Hugues de Lacoste Lareymondie.
“In all honesty”
The lawyer continues: “Who better than an oenologist to recognize a wine by its nose? The Ministry has not provided any proof that this gentleman had not tasted the nectar of the producers he advises”.
The Ministry still has a month and a half in which to appeal the administrative court’s decision. “It’s being studied by the legal department,” says Benoît Tarche, the competition’s general commissioner, anxious to defend the efforts made to ensure impartial judging (see elsewhere). I tasted with complete honesty and transparency,” replies Jean-Marc Dournel. Inevitably, there are clients on a tasting table. But I don’t know all my customers’ samples by heart, or else I’d have the memory of an elephant… I don’t think the judgement is appropriate, and it opens the door to all competitions being called into question”.
François-Xavier de Saint Exupéry, owner of Château de Tiregand, echoed the same sentiments, stripped of his 2011 gold medal. “Anyone who knows the art of tasting knows very well that you can disparage your own wines. The court ruled in terms of law, but in terms of tasting, I challenge anyone to recognize their own wines in a series of 30…”
Unsurprisingly, Antoine de Corbiac disagrees: “I’m able to recognize my wine. Not only is it good, very good in fact, but it’s also very distinctive: it’s fruity. If you harvest it when it’s overripe, you get a wine that’s more aromatic and unctuous”. That’s what he says.
Daniel Bozec – in Sud-Ouest, Saturday 17 December 2016
“THE FIRST TIME
Commissioner of the Concours Général Agricole de Paris, Benoît Tarche refuses to “go into the details” of the case, other than to point out that “this is the first time in 125 editions and 146 years of existence” that an administrative court has annulled a prize list. It should be noted that since 2010, the competition has delegated the organization of regional pre-selections to the Chambers of Agriculture, which in Dordogne relies solely on the Bergerac and Duras Wine Federation (FVBD) to take the samples. Benoît Tarche underlines “all the means deployed to ensure the independence and impartiality of the judging process for one of the world’s greatest competitions”, including the computerized recording of “the anonymity of the samples, the composition of the jurors, the independence of the products they are asked to taste, the criteria and comments made”.
“Stop the persecution delusion”.
Antoine de Corbiac is satisfied with the cancellation of the prize list. He certainly is. But the Bergerac winemaker isn’t stopping there, seeing his regional non-selection as retaliation for his sensational 4×3 advertisement for “the best Pécharmant”, launched in the summer of 2013.
“A spirited campaign that led to a certain amount of controversy and rumors. It was: ‘You’ll have to calm him down. “What’s all this about?” sighs François-Xavier de Saint Exupéry, owner of Château de Tiregand, in l’était ex-médaille d’or 2011; “When he ran his campaign, everyone said we had to react and we didn’t react. Everyone does what they want…”. Director of the Bergerac and Duras wine federation (FVBD), Pierre-Henri Cougnaud doesn’t feign weariness at the mention of Antoine de Corbiac: “I can’t understand how people can build their communication like that. The persecution delusion has to stop. There’s no trickery, no people manipulating and that’s why he went looking for a detail in the organization. I was in charge of pre-selection (until 2010, this was entrusted to the wine federation), so we can look at ourselves in the mirror,” he asserts. “François-Xavier de Saint-Exupéry asks, “Apart from the glory of winning a case, I don’t really see what he’s gaining in terms of image. “But then, that’s Antoine, that’s the way he is, he’s a protestor about everything”, says the winemaker. The winemaker is happy to turn his legal stance into a marketing argument: “The Corbiac 2011 vintage is the wine to have”, concludes Antoine de Corbiac.
