It’s a bank holiday in France today, so the 2011 en primeur bandwagon has been pushed into a lay-by until tomorrow morning. To be honest, it’s barely got out of second gear so far. This has been the slowest campaign in history. Given how long it’s taken the Bordelais to release their prices why didn’t we taste the wines in May, when they would have had another month in barrel to soften and come together?
So far, almost no one has dropped their price. This is understandable in some respects. 2010 is a great vintage (arguably even better than 2009 if you like classic wines for the long haul), quantities were smaller and worldwide demand remains strong, at least for the top clarets. And yet the 2010 campaign has failed to engage consumers, at least in the UK, in the same way that 2009 did.
Why is this? It’s partly a question of an embarras de richesses – you can only have so many “vintages of the century” in just over a decade (2000, 2005, 2009 and 2010), but there’s also something more fundamental. For all the hype about the investment potential of red Bordeaux, much of it uttered by people who should know better, most of the 2009s haven’t gone up in price. For every Pontet-Canet (opened at £900, now trading at £1,320) and Léoville-Poyferré (£840 and £1,250), there are scores of wines that haven’t budged. Most wines are still available at the opening price.
En primeur only makes sense to the consumer, as opposed to the châteaux, the négociants or merchants, if two things apply. First, the wine must be in short supply, where demand exceeds the number of cases produced. And secondly, it has to reward punters for their investment. If this hasn’t happened in 2009, why buy 2010, unless you follow a particular château? Save your money in these parlous times.
There are exceptions to this rule, where a château produced an even better wine in 2010 than in 2009, or where the 2009 has significantly increased in price, justifying a hike for the 2010. To take only one example, Pontet-Canet opened at £1,188 last week and sold out instantly. The second tranche, also selling well, is now being offered at £1,465. Not a bad return for anyone who bought it last Wednesday. And yet Pontet-Canet is a one off in many cases, a fifth growth making wine of super second growth quality or better. I rated it higher than Lafite in my Bordeaux report.
Talking of which, the price of Lafite may begger belief this year. If the 2009 is trading at £15,000 a case (having opened at £8,850), the temptation to come out at £12,000 or more (albeit for a lesser wine) may prove irresistible. And in a region like Bordeaux, where everyone is watching everyone else’s opening price, twitching the curtains of their châteaux like so many village gossips, others will be tempted to increase their prix de sortie by a similar margin.
This would be folly. As Stephen Browett of Farr Vintners puts it: “With very few exceptions, the market will not accept a 2010 price that is higher than the current market price from the same château in 2009. Châteaux like Cos, Ducru and Pichon-Lalande have to hold or drop their prices.”
Will the 2009s and 2010s look like good value, even at such high prices, ten years from now? It partly depends on what Robert Parker thinks of individual wines (2009 Grand Puy Lacoste, a great wine, hasn’t increased in price because of a low score from His Bobness), but it also depends on what happens next.
Are we now living in an era when there is no such thing as a really bad Bordeaux vintage? It certainly looks that way. The combination of climate change, sorting tables and new technology has almost consigned such a thing to the poubelle of history.
Will we ever see a vintage like 1984 or 1992 again? If the answer is no – and I don’t have a more accurate crystal ball than the next man – then good and great vintages will be the norm, not the exception. If so, there will be too much top Bordeaux on the market. And at the current prices, that can only mean one thing: the end of en primeur.
You seem to have given two different opening prices for Pontet-Canet.
I was a buyer in the early eighties when prices were staggeringly low but as you reach middle ages there doesn’t seem a lot of point buying wine for the long haul.
One is the current price. The first is what it opened at. Ditto for 2010: first and second tranches.
I agree en primeur should fizzle out: I understand volumes initially released are a lit lower than they used to be and on 2009 there has been zero return to consumers (I have recently bought some more 2009 where I missed out on the first tranche at the same price and am going to buy 2010 later too). Do you think the chateau owners are still feeling burnt about 2008?
I think they are trying to maximise their profits, with little thought for the long term health of the market. But I may be wrong…
Shouldn’t investment be about shouldering the cost of storing and maturing the wine until it is close or in its ideal drinking window? Isn’t a lot of this chagrin down to the ridiculous returns the prescient or downright lucky saw in 2008, a vintage over-rated and subsequently down-graded by Parker, and one released at a very low price? The 100s of %s certain wines accrued by within 12 and then 24 months both fueled demand for wine as investment beyond your usual speculators and embittered the Bordelais.
For all the media hand-wrining over Pontet Canet, 1st Tranche 2009 was a mere blink, and for much of 2010, and literally days after the 1st tranche release, it was selling for £1200 or more. If you were selling a product that did that, why would you repeat the trick 12 months later? Why not ask for the extra amount the previous vintage was selling for, and pocket that extra profit instead of giving it to the hands of the speculators?
For me it is these swift spikes in price that must annoy the Bordelais. Why should a wine appreciate in value in the intervening time between en primeur sales and actual physical release? And if it does, then why shouldn’t the Bordelais, the people that work year round to produce these wines, be the beneficiaries? For me they are releasing these embryonic wines at closer to mature prices to steal the thunder of the investor and maximise their returns.
One thing we can be sure, wines that rapidly accrue in value in the short term are due to demand from speculators rather than consumers (Carruades must be a case in point: what discerning claret lover would pay £3500 for a case when they could buy a case of say Ormes de Pez and get a wine as good, if not better?) and it is generally they that are losing out in 2009 and 2010. Bordelais eyes are busily gazing Eastwards and one wonders if they hear, or care, about the complaints of the UK marketplace.
Agree with you about speculators. The people who buy the top wines aren’t drinking them, and the people who drink them aren’t buying them. In the old days, we were all happy with a small increase in price over a decade or so (and were happy to drink the wines). Now, wine has become an investment vehicle. This is what I had to say about the vintage on the Today Programme last week. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9509000/9509658.stm
Very interesting artice but I would question your conclusion. I think the natural course of things – if as you suggest supply of good wine is increasing faster than demand- will be lower prices, not an end to en primeur. I would wager that as long as Bordeaux is making wine, there will be an en primeur system. Prices on the other hand have always gone up and down.
We shall see. But if we keep having good to great vintages, most of the wines are available and the prices don’t go up, why buy? I think en primeur will be with us for some time, but the current system is deeply flawed and favours the producer, not the consumer. We journalists are part of the game, sadly.
Not only does it mean the end of en primeur, it makes no sense to buy these wines for 10+ years… Leoville-Poyferre 2000 got similarly high praise from RP as the 09/10, and now costs £1250 – the same as the 09 and just £150 more than the ’10. Taking storage and the cost of money into account, it’s half the price – and you can start enjoying it soon
Couldn’t agree more. And there are lots of lovely 2001s on the market at the moment. It’s only the blue chip wines that are worth buying en primeur (Lafite, Latour, Pétrus), assuming you can get hold of them, if you are investors. Drinkers can afford to take their time.
Much logic goes your way.
But people love it: wine journos love it; consumers love it; chateaux love it; retailers love it.
It may be a ‘slow’ campaign, but I’ll bet Farrs, Berrys, Lay & Wheeler and the like shift more wine in June than they do in the rest of the year. And I’ll bet your website gets more hits. And I’ll bet Decanter magazine sells more copies. And I’ll bet that some Chinese millionaire has a thrill when he knows that he’s bagged one of the wines of the century.
It gives people a peg on which to hang their interest in wine, a peg with a thousand angles: the Chinese invasion, the slide of chateaux up and down the price scale, the fading of the right bank in favour of the left bank, the plateau of pricing for sauternes, the effect of global warming on vintages, the use of new technology in vinification, the inter-necine glory of which of the 1st growths wins that year, the point of the 1855 classification.
And then the rest of the wine world loves it.
If Talbot can release at £465, then my £300 case from the Rhone/ California/ Argentina looks mighty cheap.
Like the Oscars, it’s hardly fair, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but en primeur will go on because everyone ultimately wants it to go on. And frankly, everyone can play. Of course, we can’t buy Latour, but my case of Senejac at £114/ case means that even I can get into the party.
And then sometimes we win: D’Angludet 08 came out at £150/ case: it’d now cost £200.
Some years, it’s worth it.
It is. And the 2010 d’Angludet is delicious. You are right that the en primeur campaign is stimulating. I just wonder if it serves the interests of consumers.
Great piece and too true. In order to encourage the makers to list at sensible prices all we consumers can do is vote with our wallet and not buy. On the other hand, other markets allow for faster ways for prices to reach fair value using some form of short selling or options/futures trading. Do you think this would help the wine market too?!
It might well do. But what is “fair value”? Maybe the whole thing should be regulated. What proof do we have, for example, that the samples tasted in April are representative of the final blend?
Tim, your insights right to the point!
I first bought en primeur 2005 purely for investment, case of Lafite which at that time I found quite expensive. Then traded on some back vintages Lafite – 96, 98 & 04. Skipped the 06 & 07 en primeur. For 08, tried to get Lafite but due to ridiculous allocation only ended up in a case each of Latour and Les Forts. But 2008 was the last year I was able to buy First Growth! For 09, even Latour was going through the roof so I only managed to get Les Forts, Lynch Bages & luckily Pontet Canet (at 1st tranche 900GBP)!
But comes the 2010 Pontet Canet with a hefty 39% up from 09, I know it’s an outstanding Flying Fifth but as an investor I really feel the pressure of my margin being squeezed to a point where it might not balance out forex and counter-parties risks. So instead of getting case of 12 for investment, I just got case of 6 Pontet Canet for drinking!
I really see what you mean and after few more great or excellent vintages yet to come with untouchable release prices, I’m already seeing the final days of my investment in en primeur. Just hope I would still be able to afford few more vintages of Pontet Canet for drinking!
Drinking is better than investing, but I know what you mean. I bought six bottles of Cheval Blanc last year because I thought the wine was fantastic and would increase in value. So far, it hasn’t budged. Its future as an investment largely depends on His Bobness’ retaste when it’s bottled, which is a crazy state of affairs. I might well end up drinking it!
not too much of a bad thing that….
Some interesting points. I’d add two things: en primeur continues today because on the medium and long haul, all good and great vintages have increased in price. Some increase dramatically soon after opening while others (1995 and 1996 if I remember correctly) start stagnant but achieve very respectable appreciation over a decade or so, as they are more sought on the secondary market. The Bordelais have gotten away with incredibly insolent prices last year and it just takes a while for the market to digest that shock. (The premiers crus + Cheval Blanc + Ausone make 1m bottles roughtly, releasing at 700EUR last year meant 700m EUR changed hands within a day or two).
Your second point about the market becoming saturated is even more interesting. But aren’t we underestimating the growth of the new markets: BRIC & co.? If those new economies continue to grow as they do today and their wine culture continues to improve exponentially, the demand for superseconds, troisiemes, bourgeois and everything else could well change from 1 to 2 within a few years.
I think if the Bordelais are coming out at 2009 prices or higher, they are probably right. En primeur has always paid off to the producers. I think they know their market better than us, simple mortals.
I think that’s true. But if we have a greater incidence of good and great vintages (as appears to be the case) will the wines show the same return in the long run? In the short term, almost nothing is increasing in price, so why buy it en primeur if it’s still available a year later? Even a bank provides a bette return these days.
I must say I agree Wojciech, I personally buy en primeur for 2 reasons, some for drinking some for investing, I do see the investment wines as as medium to long term investment dependant on Mr parker’s final decision upon bottling, but I very much doubt that we are going to see year after year of great wine, 06/07/08 were nothing to write home about. I hold 09/10′s en primeur and intend to do so for 5 years+ once bottled I will divide them into drinking / investing wines and trust me when i say I have no problem at all with them all being for drinking.
I know this is not the first time the future of en primeur has been questioned and it probably will not be the last either. Nevertheless I think there is much validity in what you say. The producers of Bordeaux do not know the future, although by a mix of good fortune and good management they have obviously done exceptionally well in rceent years. Part of that good management has been a process of reinvestment, upgrading both the vineyards and the vatrooms, the technology and expertise, as part of that process of improving quality and possibly removing the risk of the most dire vintages of the past.
Even so, like you I regularly seem to be shaking my head at the judgements “experts” make about what constitutes a “good investment” – pronouncements which seem to only add fuel to the fire when it comes to demand during the en primeur season each year. It made sound dreadfully old school (Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet and all that) but usually the best investments in the long haul are the cheapest relative to the quality or value of what you get. Just how paying top dollar for a later tranche can ever be an intuitively good investment is curious indeed (although Bordeaux prices sometimes do indeed defy such logic).
What is clear is that the en primeur “market” is decidedly skewed in favour of the larger producers. There is no way that this could be mistaken for a perfect market where prices are set by supply and demand. The core assumption for a perfect market is perfect knowledge – where all participants know all the relevant information and price transactions on that basis. In the case of en primeur buyers are faced with two forms of imperfect information: reliance upon reviews of unfinished samples; and, more significantly, the black box which is the knowledge of exactly how much wine is for sale through the en primeur process. We have very little information indeed about how much wine is kept back by larger producers for sale into the physical aftermarket. (By contrast, for smaller producers – largely price takers – the answer will often be very little). The tranche system is a further manipulation that simply highlights how flawed the market is. Releasing tiny quantities as an opening tranche ensures panic buying if buyers fear they will face higher prices later; it simply becomes self-fulfilling.
Which brings us back to your point about the two reasons for buying en primeur. The truth is that for many smaller chateau, a buyer may not get a second chance until the future drip feed onto the auction market. For larger chateaux the other part of the equation, if prices do not move appreciably because the offers have been fully priced, is the cost of holding. All of those buyers of static priced 2009 wines are still paying either actual or opportunity costs of funding their undelivered wine (and, depending on where in the world you may be there may be currency gains or losses as well). The gamble that prices will rise before the flow of wine onto the retail market after bottling can be a folly in both “poor” years and “great” years alike.
What a totally brilliant deconstruction of en primeur. It is a gamble, but a gamble where the odds are stacked against consumers most of the time. I don’t think there are many wines that are “must buys” en primeur in 2010, however brilliant they are. Production isn’t small at most of the top chateaux (Le Pin and L’Eglise Clinet are exceptions), so the wines will be available for some time yet. And, I predict, at opening prices. But if 2011 and 2012 are poor vintages, this may change, as 2009 and 2010 will be effectively revalued.
I am not sure who is paying £1400+ for 2010 Pontet-Canet, but you can get a case at £1270 at N&P – http://www.nickollsandperks.co.uk/np_stocklist.asp?cat=6 Whether that is a reasonable price for this wine, I shall leave up to your judgement, but hurry – while stock lasts…
But does it really mean that N&P can secure you the physical stock when it is bottled?
Almost a bargain!
Well said Tim. I have to say, as a part time blogger and full time avid wine fan I am increasingly seeing Bordeaux en primeur as something of an insignificance. It’s something to enjoy reading about, almost akin to browsing Ferrari catalogues.
Ultimately I prefer to spend my time browsing the Rhone en primeur offers which are much more down to earth…..
Richard
Hugh makes the excellent point that “We have very little information indeed about how much wine is kept back by larger producers for sale into the physical aftermarket”, and as Tim alluded to previously, in most other markets there would be (a) Some sort of regulation (or market and quality – i.e. is the wine the critics rate, the one that is supplied)… and I would add (b) Some form of anti-cartel measure to prevent price fixing and protect the consumer.
I wonder if the European Community will take a look at this, or are they just happy to sit back and admire one of the only areas where a positive trade imbalance is achieved with the BRIC trading block?
On a personal level I actually find the whole process quite fun, watching the debate, and the prices fly (stagger?) in (whilst I consider buying some back vintages of my favourites to drink, and safe in the knowledge that I will at least be able to drink some of my 2009s this side of 2020). But then I’m not Simon Staples (et al) trying to flog the stuff…
A very interesting article – I agree that I’m not sure if the en primeur system can continue in its current form indefinitely. I tried writing a blog post about this topic last week (http://samsthoughtsonwine.posterous.com/en-primeur-ennuyeux) but it ended up being more of an uneducated rant than this rather more informed, eloquent piece!
I can’t help feeling that we’re in a similar situation here to the stock markets a few years ago with investors anticipating that prices will continue rising and basing their buying decisions on past performance and what ‘experts’ are telling them. I think that the long term effect of the Chinese market is still uncertain and I would personally be reluctant to put all my eggs in that basket, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Sadly the original principal purpose of en primeur has gone; to fund the development and ‘in utero’ stockholding of wines during their elevage.
It seems to me that fragmented wholesale markets, fragmented distribution and morcellated channels-to-market play neatly to the luxury brand-building agenda of chateaux, newly endowed through the recent accumulation of unimaginable riches. (To add obscenity to fortune, during this same period, some have even managed to secure non-repayable EU grants for the building of grandiose chais.)
The en primeur system has in effect morphed into a mechanism through which to manage asset appreciation.
Good luck to them, but this extension of purpose/ repurposing does not augur well for an orderly future market shorn of growth drivers such as the escalation of land prices in China.
Tim
Hopefully we will be able to discuss this face to face on a golf course at some point but very intrigued by all the comments given my new role as a fine wine investment broker. I just have a few comments:
I believe en primeur evolved as a result of the desire of chateaux to maximise their cash flow before the wines were eventually released to prevent bankruptcy ? If this state of affairs no longer exists then there is no reason for it.
The UK formed the initial love affair with great claret and has just spread the message worldwide as wine drinking has been adopted by the masses rather than the elite. Therefore I see no reason why demand should not continue to increase in the emerging BRIC countries and elsewhere.
If people cannot afford 2010 en primeur there are bargains aplenty in the back vintages. How about 2007 ? Whilst not a stellar vintage it should be drinking very well very soon at very reasonable prices. As an investment this is a big growth area compared to more recent vintages.
The crazy campaign in 2009 highlighted the inadequacies of the system but how do you replace it ? I know prices for 2009 may not have increased much yet but according to the Financial Times fine wine has achieved double digit growth every year since the 1950′s. It is less volatile and even if it goes down in price you can still drink it plus it isn’t subject at the moment to CGT. Admittedly you need to keep it for 3 – 5 years and we are mainly talking about the 1st Growths but even my humble last 2 bottles of 1996 Talbot have increased in price. I will be drinking them though.
And that’s the point the amount of wine produced in any given vintage is finite (plc’s can always issue more shares) and I can’t see any time soon that demand is going to lessen so the Bordelais will continue to use that to their advantage as will speculators/investors.
“It is less volatile and even if it goes down in price you can still drink it plus it isn’t subject at the moment to CGT.”
I personally think that this sentence is one of the main reasons it will remain a popular investment vehicle for the forseeable future.
There are several things going on here with en primeur and, I think, there is no doubt that there is a real bubble at the top. You mention in one of your replies ‘if 2011 and 2012′ turn out to be poor vintages: have you looked at the weather and the daily weather records for Ch Palmer on their website? So far, 2011 is a better version of 2010 with an even and ample fruit set with some cooler weather and necessary rain coming in June; that harvest will be late August or the first week of September. It is that, for me, that indicates the bubble really is about to burst, as I can’t see how you sell an ample and ‘great’ vintage on the top of 2009 and 2010 without dropping prices. It seems to me that anyone spending more than say £600 a case is mad: for that you can get the likes of Malartic Lagraviere and d’Issan with Decanter marks of 18 and a thirty year plus lifespan, and even then I think those wines are overpriced.
It is not, however, just Bordeaux who is now in the en primeur game: we have Rhone, Burgundy and even German rieslings being offered up front. In some ways, these offer useful guidelines as to how insane the Bordeaux prices are: a case of Bonnefond Cote Rotie Les Rochains is £380, a case of Mugnier Clos de Marechale varies from £415 to £460 (shop around); even Anne Gros Eschezaux is, in comparison, only £378 for six. At some point, the Chinese are going to realise this. There are several dozen Bordeaux wines that cost more than a case of Richebourg. The combination of weather, fashion, and price difference will surely have an effect at some point.
That said, I buy en primeur to secure good drinking wine that is ready in a decade or so; hence the better cru bourgeois and the lowest classed growths. This year I’m buying Senejac (£110), Cambon La Pelouse (£122), Pique Caillou (£135), Capbern Gasqueton (£139), Moulin Riche (£192), Olivier (£209.50), Belgrave (£210), Lynch Moussas (£258), and Ferriere (£260). The one thing I can be sure of is that when the top end crashes, it won’t matter; I doubt these wines will drop in price, at least more than a few pounds a case, and I’ll be able to enjoy them in years hence without having to worry about their long term market value: the price average here after tax is £20 a bottle. For me, that and the tastings are the real pleasure of en primeur.
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I have been a avid wine collector/sharer/drinker for twenty years and I have come to the conclusion that for me buying Bordeaux en primeur has almost lost its purpose. The only reason I still shall buy some wines during this campaign is to secure sufficient 150cl and 37.5cl bottles for my needs. As I get older I either drink less (37.5cl) or take larger formats (150cl +) to dinner parties.
So instead of buying 75cl bottles en primeur I now taste the wines “10 years on” and buy whatever I think is lovely and of comparatively good value. I have not noticed a huge correlation between Bob Parker’s scores and what I think is good “10 years on”, take for example the 2000 vintage in Bordeaux. RP may have made his name by calling the 1982 vintage correctly but I think he was miles off the mark for the 2000 vintage. In my opinion his scores are far too high across the board. Indeed there are some very nice wines in 2000 but I much prefer many of the Bordeaux wines from 2001 vintage instead. I attended a recent tasting of about 80+ wines, from mid-range Chateaux right to the top and thought several 2001′s were sensational. Those that I didn’t have already I bought for a snip if one compares to 2009 and 2010 prices. So unless I need unusual formats I have concluded “screw en-primeur” I’ll buy what I like ten years later.
It’s not what the Chinese are doing and it’s not what UK merchants want to hear but I am the customer and that is what I shall be doing from now on.
Andrew, I couldn’t agree more. Parker under-rated 1990 (initally) and over-rated 2003 and 2008. It’s crazy that his opinion is so powerful in setting prices. I’m drinking 2001s too. He’s good, but he’s not infallible. No one is….
I find Parker’s reviews utterly fomulaic: how many times has a wine been the ‘best ever’, or ‘a sleeper of the vintage’ with fifteen years or so life. His colour descriptions are weak, and his nose seems only to pick up the same things from one wine to another. His flaws, however, point up a larger problem. I’ve read most of the tasting notes out there and all I can say is that many are either hasty or immune to excess alcohol. Take Fieuzal: I’ve tried it twice and it was on my initial wishlist; it was drenched with glue, ie. unresolved alcohol, very nice glue maybe but glue nonetheless, yet I’ve not read a single tasting note recording that fact; and all those MWs should know that ‘glue’ is a technical fault; instead such wines are oten described as ‘glossy’ or ‘polished’. Similarly, Caronne St Gemme was highly acidic and unbalanced, yet Decanter gave it 16.5 and four stars. Perhaps the rise in prices would no be so aggressive if more critics were prepared to call technical faults. I also like the 2001s ….
If you look at the end of my 2010 Bordeaux report, I declined to score Pavie this year because it was undergoing malolactic fermentation. No other critic noticed this, as far as I can tell, or chose to mention it. And you are right that we should be more severe on wines with faults, or that are just badly made. More blind tasting of the top wines would help. We would then have far less sycophancy from the Fourth Estate.
Tim.
One other factor which I feel the wine press are too blase about when assessing a vintage are the growing conditions. I have lost count of the number of articles I have read which equate good growing conditions with good wine. In my experience many of the best wines come from vintages where the vines have had to struggle to produce their crop of berries. Vines which have struggled in a particular year have reached deep into the ground to survive and produce wines with greater complexity and greater acidity (and thus longevity). People should look at the vintage reports for 1959, 1961, 1975, 1982 etc and they will not find reports of “ideal” weather and burgeoning crops. Good weather and big healthy berries may produce attractive wines when young but in themselves do not result in the most complex wines witnessed in the rollercoaster ride of flavours on the palate which are so sought after by people such as myself. It is well past the time at which the wine press in general figured this out and stopped trotting-out the same old unvalidated beliefs that “good weather and big healthy berries = the best wine”. The wine press wrote-off the 2000 vintage for white Burgundy and yet these wines are absolutely sensational. At the end of the formalities at a Ch. Latour dinner in London in 2008 I asked Frederic Engerer, when he wasn’t drinking wines from Latour, which wines did he enjoy the most. Without a moments hesitation he said “Bourgogne, Deux mille. Leflaive”. We then spent a good 10-15 minutes talking about the various terroirs and what is was that Anne-Claude Leflaive and her team had done to pull the rabbit out of the hat in 2000. Even the village wine is still drinking beautifully but the 1er and Grand Cru from Domaine Leflaive in 2000 are clear evidence as to why collectors and drinkers are right to be passionate about wine. I doff my hat and raise my glass to Madame Leflaive.
I do too. Great woman. But I have had a few problems with premature oxidation with her wines and other white Burgundies. But your general point is well made. Wet summers are never good for wine, but very hot ones aren’t generally either.
I agree pre-ox is a problem but, with friends and family, I have now consumed 12 cases of the 2000 Leflaive wines spread across 1er and Grand Cru and we have had only two bad bottles from the entire batch (so 1-2%). Compared with Sauzet at about 2-3 bottles per case on average and Roulot (who takes pre-ox very seriously) running at about 1-2 bottles per case, from my personal experience I would say Anne-Claude Leflaive is one of the least risky producers.
It’s true that her wines can be wonderful. Have you downloaded my (free) 2009 Burgundy report? Lots of good stuff in there.
Hi Tim
The super rich can afford to buy the top priced wines, in the same way as they can afford to buy yachts and sports cars. Price is no barrier to the purchase of luxury goods. I suppose what might annoy the older wine lovers / collectors is that they are being priced out of a market they were once part of. Personally I’d love to drink something really expensive, in the same way as I’d like to own a yacht, but I can’t afford it. C’est la vie.
Good commentary, like your own, enables the savvy wine drinker to take a pick from the relative bargains if (s)he chooses, or to look elsewhere in world for new and exciting wines that are more affordable.
Cheers
Chris
En primeur is an imperfect system fundamentally based on supply and demand, the prevailing trend in any given year is always a trade-off between the degree to which it is a buyers’ or sellers’ market. At two points in history have the chateaux commanded the seller’s position, 1858 – 1878, the belle époque, and 1961-1991.
In 2010 prices for back vintages went up globally and the British wine investor market doubled, traders and negociants alike made windfall profits, in particular off 2008. There were no complaints then, nor cries that merchants and the traditional collector not chateaux were not watching out for other customers.
Of all the considerations of the Bordeaux chateaux, perhaps one feature influences pricing policy, or instinct, before all others. And it lies not in en primeur, the primary market, but rather with the secondary market; the continual trade between merchants, collectors/investors and auction houses. Chateaux owners see huge gains in, of late, a very short time on the wines they have made and sold, often only a few hours or days prior. It is comprehensible, then, that those who make the wine position themselves to see some of the returns which that wine will soon give.
As we can see, at none of the above examples would the public (consumer) appear to be top of the agenda, or even a closish second, but it is also clear that current rails against chateaux fails to account that it takes two, or three, or more, in the primary-secondary market game, to Tango.