Didn’t 2017s get delivered to the US (for the most part) before the tariffs? I know that is true for 2017 Burgundies and German wine but I did not follow 2017 Bordeauxs.
Isn’t the problem with 2017s is that it has the reputation (at least) of being one of the two worst vintages of the decade (along with 2013s). Haven’t weaker vintages like this always had lower demand and having prices always had to be reduced to clear the stock. I can remember this happening as far back as the 1980 vintage and I am sure it was even more true for vintages like 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1977. Talk about 2017 seems to me to be pretty much a red herring. In this thread, when people are talking about the price of Bordeaux dropping are they really talking about 2017s or are they talking about for better vintages. The OP can answer for himself, but I thought when he said that prices have been dropping since 2017, I thought he was talking about prices generally being lower than they were in 2017 rather than prices for the 2017 vintage dropping. If he really was talking about vintage 2017, I think the real answer is “well, duh.”
I have not tasted 2017s apart from a bottle of VCC which was delicious, and a good Phelan Segur. From what I understand, it is actually quite a good vintage, seriously overpriced of course, balanced and easygoing but less intense than others. Certainly close to how I would describe the VCC. The 2013 was really mediocre, arguably the worst vintage of the century. I did taste them, and it was valiant effort to make halfway decent wines from weather that did not cooperate.
The overpricing of 2017 and the fact that it came in the middle of so many great vintages means that they are unlikely to sell quickly. I do expect the prices to come down, but it will take time before sellers realize that there is no market for them at current prices, and decide to sell at cost or even take a loss. For instance, I will buy one bottle of the VCC for a tasting, compared to multiple cases of many recent vintages, as I think the $220 plus being charged is absurd.
Most 2017 showed up in the US in 2020. I don’t think this is pre tariff.
2017 is not a bad, weak or off vintage. Where did you read that? Having tasted close to 700 wines, there are several very nice wines. 2017 does pale in comparison to its neighbors, 2016 and 2018.
Yes, in the short run, vintages like 17 drop in value. But in the long run, as they mature and restaurants buy them and drinkers want a wine that doesn’t need cellaring, they slowly increase. Look at 2007 as an example. And 2017 is a much better vintage than that. 2017 is better than 11 and 12, and for several wines, it’s better than 2014.
This is why just looking at release price is not a good indication of where the market is (at least not without knowing how subscribed the release is). The Bdx indices, while not perfect, try to smooth out vintages to get a sense of where the market is for Bdx (also helps you see past distortions likes tariffs).
Didn’t 2017s get delivered to the US (for the most part) before the tariffs? I know that is true for 2017 Burgundies and German wine but I did not follow 2017 Bordeauxs.
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Yes and no.
Regarding German wine, mostly, yes, except scenarios like Bordeaux and Burgundy below could have occurred. More so than Bordeaux and Burgundy, German wine is brought in at one time and in entirety, or at least less often and to less locations, to a centralized location within US and disseminated to each state. So, inventory arrival into US is not as staggered as Bordeaux and Burgundy, although dissemination to each state within the US may not be uniform.
Regarding Bordeaux, in theory, yes, based on when 2017 vintage was available to ship from Bordeaux. However, with Bordeaux there are far more Importers, Distributors, and Retailers(who have 3rd parties clearing wine) ordering independently and during a far wider time frame. For example, an Importer in NY may have placed an order in June 2019, which arrived by July/August 2019 while an Importer in California may have placed order in August 2019 with wine arriving at end of October/November 2019, and, thus, the specific California tranche is subject to tariff. Simultaneously, there could be other California tranches which were ordered and arrived prior to tariff. It’s more about the specific shipment with Bordeaux than 2017 vintage guaranteeing no tariff.
Burgundy is the same as Bordeaux. 500 cases of a Producer’s Gevrey Village may be allocated to US and then further allocated between 30 states. Those states may be ordering Direct Imports to each state, and not buying from a centralized location within the US, and ordering at different times. Furthermore, DRC, Rousseau, Barthod, etc. were not released through authorized importers until this year because 3rd year following vintage is the historical release time in US.
I agree with many of you that the basic reason for any drop in prices is simply the market - “It’s the economy, stupid!”
As Jeff has written many times over the last ten years or so when people like me ranted about rising prices, if the market thinks the price is right, the wines sell. he was of course absolutely right. But it works both ways and now it’s a different reality.
One market influence nobody has mentioned yet is the crisis that restaurants are going through, all over the world. Why would they buy Bordeaux when they’re closed or only open intermittently? In France, it’s a huge market, not only for Bordeaux of course.
As to the drops in prices, I can only offer a tiny bit of insight from my neck of the woods:
During lockdown here, auction prices for older vintages actually rose! There were no “real” auctions, so everyone went online and the few auctions that were organized were extremely successful. Post-lockdown, prices are back to normal but not really dropping.
Vintages from 2014 onwards are performing as you would expect at auction a few years after release. Some prices are increasing, most are decreasing compared to EP. I have picked up lots of 2015 and 2016 at discounts ranging from 10 to 30% - but this is normal, nothing new and not necessarily Covid-related. 2017 is still too expensive but it’s only a question of time before it plummets. I only have a very small number of data points for 2018, but so far it looks fragile (eg Beychevelle at EP - 25%), and this is inevitable when so many dropped their 2019 prices.
It’s a good time to buy recent Bordeaux but I think the prices still have some way to go down before they stabilize and it will be interesting to see if the 2019 price drops were actually sufficient.
Without much expertise, I think the question for me as to whether Bordeaux finds a new baseline or this is just a temporary depression is, obviously, correlated with the economy in the next few years. It’s likely to be a slow-ish recovery from COVID, so I’d expect 2020, which by all accounts looks like a noteworthy vintage, to come out at a lower price as well. If you suddenly have 2, 3, maybe more good vintages at low prices, then it will start to impact historic prices quite substantially I suspect.
If 19, 20, 21 weren’t good vintages, then at least it’d be easier to justify decreased prices not impacting historic!
I don’t think restaurants have bought much Bordeaux in recent years except at the low end, or in the secondary market at auction. The economics of buying even mid level classified growths young and storing them does not work. Also Sommeliers are anti Bordeaux in general, as it is not cool enough.
I feel the reason for strong prices at auction is that people are bored and not spending money on vacations and restaurants. So bored that they spend it instead at auction, so in the Summer, when there wasn’t much action, prices rose, now there are a ton of them, so the buying has evened out.
I know this seem simplistic, but it seems to me this comes down to three factors that are driving prices…
Fashion. Hemlines go up and down. Denim is hip this year or declassee the next. Bordeaux is seen as sexy and refined at one time, now more as fusty and old. There are only so many hard core wine collectors. Millennials have VERY short attention spans. I know, have been raising three of them.
Greed. When the bubbles were hyping these wines to the stratosphere (I am looking at you in the biz) it seems that this was a place to put free floating money that was more interesting than boring stocks and bonds. 09 and 10 finally brought Icarus back down to earth. Now at the top tier, they have finally hit the ceiling. No more quick profits, no more Johnny-come-lately “wine lovers” looking to buy and flip for easy money in the short term. Much too complicated to hunt down super seconds and up and comers that may appreciate in value. That takes more work than just loading up on cases of first growths/petrus in bonded warehouses, then selling when the market seems right. (Andrew Lloyd Weber) “I hope the new owners enjoy my wines as much as I have and I look forward to reacquainting myself with them in restaurants all over China,” he said. You can almost hear the last mumbled breath…sukkahs.
On top of this there is a lot made, every year. Cabernet ain’t pinot noir. Many areas of the world can produce quite delicious cabernet, at a variety of price points. You can listen to the blather of terroir along the Gironde, but it’ just not that unique. I can drink cabs from Washington, California, Chile, Italy, Australia, that come pretty darn close and versions that are very difficult to pick out in blind tastings. Hell even the Chinese are planting vineyards in pretty marginal climatic areas of China to grow cabernet/merlot/etc. Bordeaux is coming from the other direction in making early accessible wines that are riper and don’t need 20 years to mature, thus tasting more like wines internationally.
Throw in some difficult economic conditions, and voila…less demand for the labels. Go ahead…
well something weird happened to cut up my last post…the amendment
the Gironde, but it’ just not that unique. I can drink cabs from Washington, California, Chile, Italy, Australia, that come pretty darn close and versions that are very difficult to pick out in blind tastings. Hell even the Chinese are planting vineyards in pretty marginal climatic areas of China to grow cabernet/merlot/etc. Bordeaux is coming from the other direction in making early accessible wines that are riper and don’t need 20 years to mature, thus tasting more like wines internationally.
I think I saw some Corona related drops here in NL on back vintages in which i managed to buy Prieure Lichine '17, du Tertre '17 and Tour Carnet '15 at 50% discount last few months. Maybe overflow stock due to restaurant closing here in NL and Western Europe?
I also join the opinion that 4 excellent years in the past 5 vintages contribute to a surplus in buy worthy wines. 20’ is looking good as well…? great, further reason for lowered pricing.
Great time to be a buyer! I don’t care about the “why” at all, and it is likely a confluence of multiple factor, as i only care about the “now”. I’m a buyer and a back-filler in this current market. We have these trends periodically in the marketplace, take advantage of it if you can. I’m surprised by how cheaply I have grabbed some 2016s recently, like Brainaire for $49.99 (also saw it cheaper than that but had already grabbed enough).
As someone who can’t afford to be a wine investor and looks back at the prices of the 1980s with a sigh I am currently more happy than I have been in recent years.
It’s probably an even better time to be a wine drinker than most of us here appreciate. If you can let go of your attachment to the higher-level classed growths, you can drink insanely well in Bordeaux on $25-50 a bottle. I sometimes wonder if the attachments I formed to wines like Leoville Barton or Pichon Baron back when I was just starting out and they were more affordable get in the way of maximizing my QPR dollar.
As I see it, Bordeaux that I’ll have to age for 20+ years might be slightly cheaper right now, and I have little interest. I had enough interest to buy a small amount, but I’m not young enough to fill up on these. My favorite producers that are even close to drink were cheaper when I bought them just a few years ago (2014-2019). Every offer I see contains wines I already bought with asking prices that are substantially higher than the prices I paid.
You may have touched on another factor: To the extent that the '17s were viewed as good bets for restaurant lists, where wines that require less aging are often preferred, the market is – well – not so great right now.
Robert, you have this weird attitude about Bordeaux prices (that it is better that they go down rather than up) because you have this warped view of Bordeaux. You actually drink the stuff. I do not see how you could possibly hope to make money on your Bordeaux (which apparently is the purpose of Bordeaux) if you insist on drinking the wine.
