Some of the best bargains now are French wines. For Easter, I purchased the respectable Roger Sabon Chateauneuf-du-Pape (2006 Prestige) for less than half its ticket price. At Utah liquor stores, there are plenty of Bordeaux wines, of 90 points or higher ratings, that are remarkably priced at well below $50 a bottle. This trend is consistent throughout the United States.

In France, at the recent tastings of the 2008 Bordeaux vintage, oenophiles and journalists wondered if the most-in-demand chateaux were ready to bite the bullet after the big spike in prices (especially after the 2005 vintage) and lead the market by releasing their wine for much lower prices as quickly as possible to keep the market of fine wines from tottering.

And, France has now slipped behind Spain, which now is the world’s second largest exporter of wines in volume, following the leader Italy. France remains the world’s largest exporter of wine in terms of value and its biggest consumer. The International Organisation of Vine and Wine also says that for the first time, the U.S. domestic market surpasses the size of the domestic market in Italy. Some 27.3 million hectolitres of wine were sold in the United States in 2008, compared with 26 million in Italy and 31.8 million in France, according to OIV forecasts.

Chateaux wine prices strongly benefited from speculators, especially those investment bankers and traders who spared no time in spending hundreds and thousands of dollars a bottle. The French winemakers seem handicapped — if not paralyzed — in listening to merchants who see their customers turning in mass droves to inexpensive everyday wines from South Africa and South America.

At last week’s Bordeaux tasting, the crowds were much smaller than in recent years, down 10 percent according to the Union des Grands Crus, and 25 percent at some chateaux. Many U.S. retailers didn’t show, as reported by Elin McCoy, Bloomberg News’ guest wine correspondent, who wrote that they were still “reeling from the money they put out for the last two Bordeaux vintages, both priced while the economy was booming.” For example, one American buyer said that only half of the 2006 inventory had been sold, leaving him up to $400,000 short in cash. Other buyers nixed the trip after failing to see any assurances from the wine chateaux that prices would drop by a market-appropriate 50 percent.

Wine pricing reflects value and worth in terms of branding. The cost of, say, making a Château-Lafite Rothschild, a first-growth Bordeaux, which retails around $500, is no more than $13 or $14 a bottle. However, all sorts of other factors matter in the retail pricing strategy, including advertising and promotion, channel distribution, competitive industry players, cost of sales forces and wine brokers, and other funding. The verdict, of course, comes from merchants and consumers.

At one time, the Bordeaux label mattered. The branding of French wine rested exclusively on the terroir distinction, where the appellations comprised the branded image and where the French government placed severe restrictions on advertising. After all, France ruled the world in wine quality. But, now, France must find its branding voice without falling into the trap of the mass market.

It’s worth closing with the following from Joe Ray, a Paris-based food writer:

“Back in Paris, Olivier Poussier, the best sommelier in the world in 2000 and wine buyer for the distinguished Lenôtre chain, agrees.

“‘Mediocre wines no longer have a place,’ says Poussier, who flutters between a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of wines and an artistic appreciation and presentation of their qualities.

“‘One of the biggest challenges faced by French wine is not to fall into banalization. We’re lucky to have an extraordinary diversity of winemaking styles in France. We can’t put this at risk for financial reasons,’ he says, referring to the low-end winemakers who are trying to keep up with new-world winemakers.

“Instead of jumping on an international chardonnay or syrah bandwagon, which, at best, builds tentative loyalty to a grape variety, Poussier advocates going with the grapes that work best in a particular vineyard.

“‘We can’t fall into the international wine trap,’ he says. ‘Even if these are technically good wines, they’re banal. Quality pays, but only if they’ve got something to say. Nothing is more annoying than something that tastes the same all the time.’”