The May 2019 Wine Investment Market Report
by CloMlr
2019-06-07
The wine market in May was completely dominated by Bordeaux en primeur. Overall the market is steady but lacklustre, ongoing concerns over U.S. and China trade wars and boring old Brexit rumble on and even a weaker GBP hasn’t managed to inspire substantially more marginal demand from USD based buyers. The secondary blue chip Bordeaux market is solid but a little stodgy. The bids are there but nothing much is moving north. As a result it is little surprise that merchants’ 2018 Bordeaux offers, backed by some exuberant critic’s reports and scores, have been flooding the inbox.
For our Bordeaux 2018 ‘in a nutshell’ report on the 2018 vintage, please click here.
Obviously the more exuberant critic reports and scores, of which there are (too?) many, have been the ones used by merchants and their sales teams. Julia Harding MW, of JancisRobinson.com, provided the reviews most in common with our own team’s appraisal and her scores are more subdued than others. She lends perspective to a vintage that we do not regard as highly as 2016 and one that may turn out to be overblown in some quarters. Antonio Galloni of Vinous Media is another commentator in the less exuberant camp and we look forward to his colleague Neal Martin’s commentary when it arrives (Neal did not taste en primeur this year due to ill health – we wish him a full and speedy recovery).
A very important point regarding the ’18 vintage, largely ignored by the salesmen and one I would like to repeat, is that whilst certain wines are very impressive, incredibly concentrated yet well balanced, they are really, really BIG. Nearly all of the alcohol numbers are between 14 and 15%. The poor unsuspecting punters may get quite a shock when they sit down, sometime from now, to enjoy their excellent claret only to discover they have something they weren’t quite expecting in their glass!
It'll be fascinating to see how the wines from 2018 develop as wines, but also from a market perspective. The Chateaux are holding back more and more wine every year and in some cases, releases are up to 50% lower than last year. Will this drive some scarcity seekers to market or will it have the opposite effect of creating a nervy overhang? It is fair to say that so far, Latour has not exactly flourished since retreating from the age old system. En primeur to my mind, apart from a certain few every year, has not made clear financial sense for years and few releases have come close to our ‘proto-prices’ (where the price needs to be to make clear financial sense to buyers), more here on JancisRobinson.com.
Successful releases so far include: Calon Segur, Canon, Carmes Haut Brion, Lafleur, La Mission Haut Brion, Leoville Las Cases, Pichon Lalande, Pontet Canet and Rauzan Segla. The majority of releases have not sold through.
In other areas there is still plenty of demand for high end Burgundy, it’s just that the prices that are being achieved by sellers are well below advertised levels. Piedmont is in good health but in low supply, a good thing for holders! Champagne holds firm, so do Super Tuscans.
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