Reassuringly hard to find

This phrase can be applied to wines from Bordeaux’s five premier cru (first growth) estates

Friday, 8 September 2023, 13:29

There appears to be no limit to the number of tricks wine producers get up to on the sales front.

The most common, and among the most effective, is to suggest there is a limited supply. In some situations, this may be true, but more often it is an insulting marketing trick to persuade us that if we do not buy that particular wine right now, we may not get another opportunity. Insulting because although there may be idiots out there who get taken in by this claptrap, in 90% of cases, it is marketing BS.

A recent promotional campaign for a brand of champagne appeared under the banner ‘Reassuringly hard to find’.

What are we supposed to deduce from this? If a wine is hard to find it is because so few bottles have been put on the market that we may have to dig around to locate them. So why advertise it in the first place? And why ‘reassuringly’? What is there to be reassured about? The possibility that the supply may have dried up before we get our hands on a bottle?

Unsurprisingly AI agrees with this nonsense, suggesting that ‘reassuringly hard to find’ can be applied to wines from Bordeaux’s five premier cru (first growth) estates.

These include wines such as Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Margaux, to Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, a Napa Valley wine known for its high quality and scarcity, making it challenging to acquire, and Pingus, a Ribera del Duero, from a boutique winery known for its powerful and complex wines, are all produced in limited quantities.