Apologies. I thought I read in another thread that you bought Lafite. A mix up. I need more than 2 hours of sleep.
No apologies needed, I’m not insulted 
unless you meant it as an insult!
I do get some Lafleur, but that started in 2019. Same with Mouton, HB, LMHB, Palmer. I got all those for the first time in 2019. I do have Le Pin from 2017 onwards, though, but only small amounts.
If I look at BI Wine in the UK, it looks like their 2018 Lafite is physically in-bond now, rather than futures.
Cheers,
H
My experience of Bordeaux is that it is tough for them to sell two great back to back vintages even if the surrounding years are mediocre. The market is much larger than it used to be, but there is no way that they will able to sell the five out of six great vintages since 2015. And frankly I would even add 2014, which despite less love from the critics, I think will prove to be rather fine. Their marketing is better than it used to be, the demand is greater, but it is not at least double which it would need to be to absorb all that inventory.
while I agree with what you just said, with the negociant system, does it matter “as much”?
That said, when are the fire sales on 2017?
to be fair, i havent done an exhaustive review of the 17s, but at least some of what I bought (Canon) is down fairly noticeably.
Pricing is in line with 12 and 14, though.
If you look at Farr, for example:
You’ll notice there’s a reasonable amount of stuff that’s marked down noticeably.
While it’s not exactly a “fire sale”, K&L has been offloading many 2017 Bordeaux at discount for the past few months. Pickings are now slim, but they previously had Beychevelle and Clinet at ~$80, Tertre Roteboeuf at $140, etc. Those are at or near 2019 EP prices (at least 2nd tranche) and at a decent discount to other recent vintages.
JS drank 400 wines so far and his favorite is Ch. Margaux. I have no idea what the other wines he drank are.
Personally I would stock up on the 2014, a generally better vintage and some is drinking nicely already.
the problem I have is that I love buying wine but I bloody hate paying 20% VAT on it…
No square roots?
Generally cheaper in France and you can still bring back a case each, but since Brexit you have to go further up the food chain for it to be worthwhile.
Okay, some information is starting to flow now from the critics. Jancis has been uploading for a couple of days now. I get the impression that quality isn’t as high as in 2019, so substantial price increases could be hard to justify. Has anyone seen any information from other sources?
Yes Jancis and Quarin have published a lot of information (so has Suckling but every vintage looks the same score-wise). Both critics have lower ratings so far compared to 2018 and 2019 (and 2016 of course).
that seems broadly consistent with what I’ve seen elsewhere too. BBR’s email earlier this week suggested pricing would increase, but GBP:EUR would probably mitigate the impact of it, so they (admittedly without any inside info) are braced for prices that are roughly in-line with 2019. I’d be surprised if that is true, personally, I expect it to be a bit of an increase on 2019 even in sterling, but we’ll see!
I will probably look to pick up some standard drinking wines, and my allocations, but nothing more.
It is amazing how the end price is about the same in the UK and US.
You have VAT, where at least some of the money does some good, we have the bloody three tier system, an oligopoly that exists thanks to Prohibition.The money goes into the pockets of the middlemen, who keep the current system going thanks to large donations to the politicians.
Low interest rates are allowing the negotiants to hold inventory. Even so, they can survive in the short term but not the long one. Gone are the days when negotiants really dictated to the chateaux; the pendulum has clearly shifted in favor of the (major) chateaux.
2020 does not sound like a vintage that will be as good as 2019, but if the pricing is close, they will sell some. If negotiants are forced to buy at higher prices, there will few sales. They will then they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Accept the higher prices and the wines and hold ridiculous amounts of inventory, or refuse and lose the allocation.
A few factors will dictate the market. Low yields of 2021 may help but rising interest rates as economies cope with free spending from the cost of Covid, the Chinese buying less and large amounts of inventory still unsold are likely to cause some serious problems.
No idea why I’m receiving emails from Jamessuckling.com but for the 2020 bdx this " It appears to be an excellent year for merlot in particular"
I’ve subscribed to liv-ex.com’s free updates. Nothing revelatory so far except Suckling is pushing Croix de Labrie hard this year.
Total Wine has the 2020 Bordeaux futures site ready to go. No wines listed.
Still has the tariff callout : * The price reflected on your order form is subject to change after the order is placed if tariffs or taxes are imposed, or in the case of currency fluctuations of 10% or greater at the time of importation into the U.S. If any changes impact your order, you will be notified and given the option of a full refund for goods not received.