Bordeaux’s most celebrated châteaux are bucking the global economic gloom to charge record prices for their wines after the world’s most influential critic described the 2009 vintage as the best he had ever tasted.
The region’s finest wines are on the market at up to €700 (£575) a bottle — up hugely on last year’s price and an average of 18 per cent higher than the price in 2005, the previous record.
Although detractors say Bordeaux’s top vineyards are creating a speculative bubble that could burst in their faces, merchants insist there is strong demand, particularly in Asia and the UK. “It’s not winemaking, it’s a cash till,” said Sud Ouest, the region’s newspaper.
The 2009 vintage is still in barrels and will not be delivered until 2011. But when experts were allowed to taste it this spring, some said it could match or even surpass the great years of the 20th century, such as 1947 and 1959.
The decisive stamp of approval came from Robert Parker, an American whose advice on French wine, particularly Bordeaux, is followed religiously in the US and in emerging markets.
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He said 22 wines were potentially worth a score of 100/100 and added: “2009 may turn out to be the finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux.”
Château owners, stung by a sharp drop in demand and prices last year, seized on his words to justify huge price rises. Château Latour, for example, is on sale with Bordeaux’s merchants for €600 a bottle (up 361 per cent on last year) and Château Cheval Blanc is selling at €700 a bottle (a rise of 133 per cent). The retail price is likely to reach £1,000 a bottle in the UK.
The prices were defended by Philippe Castéja, chairman of the Conseil des Crus Classés 1855, the committee that represents vineyards in the first division of the French wine league table. “These are unique products in a world market. You have 100,000 bottles for I don’t know how many millions of buyers. In China alone, there are 10 million potential customers,” he said.
According to the experts, the 2009 vintage is remarkable because of sunshine and rain in the right quantities in May, warm weather when the grapes first appeared on the vines and then a long dry spell from July to October. For winemakers, the climate was ideal.
However, some observers question Bordeaux’s claims for the vintage and the existence of a global stampede for fine wines at unprecedented prices. They say Asian customers are only interested in the top half-dozen vineyards and that chateaux are keeping back stock so that they can proclaim a sellout and increase the hype around the 2009 vintage.
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Justin Gibbs, director of Live-Ex, the London fine wine exchange, said the “extraordinary prices” indicated that Bordeaux was “cocooned” from the reality of the global economic outlook. He added: “We are struggling to see whether people really are buying.”