Last year's excellent vintage of Bordeaux reds is selling for 15-30% less than the crop of 2018
gloom, a small solace for wine investors. Last year’s excellent vintage of Bordeaux reds is selling for 15-30% less than the crop of 2018. Top labels retail for $350-500 a bottle and the second tier for $100-175, prices last seen in 2016.
The bargains will not sustain tipplers through lockdowns. Bordeaux estates sell wine two years before bottling it, via a system called. They set prices based on scores from critics, who taste wines as they mature in oak barrels, and are paid up front by middlemen. TheseThe modern version of this network evolved 70 years ago, when wineries needed money and patient buyers snapped up cheap claret. By the 1990s leading estates had cash aplenty. But the system turned into an investment vehicle.
Although Bordeaux is abundant—the biggest names make up to 200,000 bottles a year of their top wine—inattentive farming and inconsistent weather have limited the stock of truly great wines. Until now. Mid-range estates have raised quality by investing in modern wineries and row-by-row vine monitoring. Climate change has helped grapes ripen. From 1980 to 2010 Bordeaux enjoyed two or three blockbuster vintages per decade. Critics’ scores put four of the past five years at or near this level.
So the case for a price cut by the estates was strong, and bolstered further by a new 25% American tariff on European wine. Except that discounting the 2019s would have leftand investors who ponied up last year feeling bitter. Covid-19 provided the perfect pretext. Saskia de Rothschild of Lafite Rothschild, the priciest big producer, speaks of “a good opportunity to reshuffle the cards”. Having reset the system, most estates have also cut the amount they offer, to avert another glut.
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