Liv-ex Fine Wine Market Blog

Market forces

The above chart shows the percentage difference between the London release price of the 2012s and the current market price for their cheapest vintage available. For just over a third of wines, the 2012 is the most affordable on the market. For the rest, earlier vintages can be bought for less.

Secondary market trade at or above the release price has been heavily concentrated in those chateaux that took note of current trading in back vintages, and dropped prices accordingly. This strategy has paid dividends.   

Pichon Lalande listens to the market

Pichon Lalande released today at €57.6 p/b ex-negociant – 20% less than the release price of its 2011 last year. In contrast to its fraternal neighbour Pichon Baron, this makes the 2012 the cheapest vintage available.

The wine is being offered in London at £650 per case: 10% less than the current price for its 2007, 2008 and 2011. It remains to be seen whether the 2012’s affordability leads to demand, but this is certainly the kind of pricing that En Primeur buyers will welcome.

Pichon Baron misses the mark

The pause in the 2012 releases last week did little to quell fears that this will be a ‘forgotten’ campaign; many worried that a scrum of late releases will result in wines being overlooked.  This morning the campaign resumed.  Pichon Baron was out of the blocks at €65 per bottle ex-negociant: a 10% reduction on its 2011 release price but a 51% increase on its 2008.

Consequently, the 2012 is more expensive than the current prices of several earlier Pichon Baron vintages. It is being offered in London at £710 per 12x75: dearer than the 2006 (£650) and the 2007 (£684), and almost the same price as the 2008 and 2011.

With the 2012s so far failing to rouse interest – only the Firsts and Carruades have traded in May – keen pricing is more important than ever. Pichon Baron is unlikely to provide reassurance. 

First Growths show the way

Today Haut Brion 2012 was released at €240 per bottle ex-negociant, the same as Margaux and Mouton. It is being offered in London for £2,800 per 12x75. This makes the new wine 4% more expensive than its next more affordable recent vintage, the 2007.

As last week’s blog highlighted, it is the wines at the top end of the price spectrum that offer the most handsome reduction on the 2011s. In particular, Lafite and Margaux 2012 – as shown in the chart below – are significantly cheaper than their next most affordable vintage. 

It is early days for Haut Brion 2012: it is yet to trade.  Meanwhile Lafite, Margaux and Mouton have accounted for 84% of all Bordeaux 2012 trade on Liv-ex to date. In a campaign where price is everything, the Firsts are leading the way.  

波尔多2012：一切在于价格

下图比较了2012年和2011年现价的下跌程度（灰色的异常上升是由於柏菲庄Pavie, 金钟庄Angelus 和宝马庄Palmer的升价所致）。一级酒庄 - 在图表的右侧 - 作出了最大的降價，使他们的葡萄酒在二手市场上開展了一些初步的活动。否则, 总體而言, 波尔多2012年还未能激起市場的兴趣。

罗伯特•帕克(Robert Parker)上周五发布了他對2012年波尔多的酒評分数。波美侯(Pomerol) 的評分相当高，木桐(Mouton)得分是一级酒庄之冠，但并没有太多令人惊讶的高分。对于那些尚未公布價格的酒莊，现在价格成了一切的关键。

逆市而行：柏菲庄Pavie和金钟庄Angelus 2012

与其他波尔多2012成鲜明对比，上周柏菲庄和金钟庄公布了他们的前酒商发行价，为每瓶180欧元，都远高于其2011年的前酒商价格及许多以往年份的市场价格。

由于他们去年九月的推广，其酒庄的2012年葡萄酒已预期会较去年的昂贵。然而，不是人人都预见到这种程度的加价。在Liv-ex的期酒调查中, 会员预测(平均而言) 2012年柏菲的前酒商发行价将为每瓶120.4欧元; 这已比2011年升价了6％，而不是现时58 ％的加幅。

如下图所示，这俩酒庄的2012葡萄酒均比其2006年，2007年，2008年和2011年都更昂贵。自酒庄升级以来，柏菲庄价格平均上涨了23％，而金钟庄则上涨了25％。酒庄已发布了其最高价格的挑战。现时在Liv-ex的出价为每箱(12×75) 1,500 至1,600英镑或每瓶146至156欧元，显示买家愿意为2012支付多一点, 但其上限似乎不太可能高达现时这昂贵的发行价。

Bordeaux 2012: all about price

The chart below shows how prices have dropped for the 2012 vintage against current 2011 prices  (the anomaly in grey is due to Pavie, Angelus and Palmer). The First Growths – to the right of the table – have made the biggest effort, and they are the wines seeing tentative activity on the secondary market. Otherwise the Bordeaux 2012s have by and large failed to ignite interest.

An hour ago Robert Parker released his Bordeaux 2012 scores. Pomerol scores highly, and Mouton is the First Growth of the vintage, but there are few surprises on the upside. For those chateaux yet to release, price is now key.

Guest blog: Gavin Quinney on Bordeaux 2012

Today's blog is by the Bordeaux wine producer and writer Gavin Quinney (@GavinQuinney), who has kindly provided us with his notes and scores for Bordeaux 2012.  He has tasted over 500 wines from the vintage.

Key points about Bordeaux 2012: 

• 2012 is a good to very good vintage, but not a great one. 
• It’s certainly a vintage for drinking, not investment. Many wines will be good to drink in the short to medium term.
• 2012 was a late harvest which tended to favour the earlier ripening Merlot over the Cabernets, partly because drizzle, humidity and finally heavy rain set in from the second week of October onwards.
• It’s an uneven vintage but hundreds of reds have lovely colour, supple fruit, crowd-pleasing texture and no hard edges. 
• Happily, very few wines show any green, unripe character. The fruit is ripe (thanks to ten weeks of sunshine from mid-July onwards) even if many wines lack real depth, complexity and length. 
• 2012 is notably strong in the 'précoce' terroirs of the Right Bank, and south of Bordeaux in the northern Graves. More often than not, for Merlot.
• The plateau of Pomerol is successful, but it’s tiny and expensive. Several candidates for ’wine of the vintage’ come from here.
• Merlot on the clay and limestone terroirs around the town of St-Emilion (and beyond) also fared well. Here there are some great wines, although you have to pick those that suit your palate, and pocket. 
• There are many attractive Crus Classés in the Medoc, yet few big scoring wines for me (or for Mr Parker, I’d suggest). It might have been different if October had been kinder to the Cabernets.
• There are some real successes, and possible values, from all four of the major Medoc appellations (Margaux, St-Julien, Pauillac and St-Estephe) but there are several fairly disappointing wines, including some big names. I think you have to treat them on a chateau by chateau basis.
• It’s not quite correct to say that it’s a Right Bank vintage, however. There are some lovely wines from Pessac-Leognan on the left bank, south of Bordeaux, and many estates there produced fine dry whites to boot. The Graves should prove to be a source of values in 2012.
• There are many pretty wines from the petit chateaux of the Right Bank, less so for the Cru Bourgeois of the Left. It’s a vintage to re-evaluate after bottling at this level. 
• Élevage - barrel ageing - will be key. With such gentle fruit, new oak could dominate while older oak barrels can dry out a wine. It's not that the wines are over-oaked; they could simply be under-wined.
• Thankfully, few estates got it wrong with the dreaded ’over-extraction’. 
• Hundreds of estates have seriously upped their game in the last decade or so. There’s much more precision than there used to be - in the vineyard, with picking dates, in sorting the grapes, in the wine-making - and there’s stricter selection for the final blends. It shows in the wines, almost more so in 2012 than in a uniformly good year like 2010.
• It’s a fine vintage for dry whites, and not just at the top level in Pessac-Léognan. Most Sauvignon and Sémillon across Bordeaux were picked in fine weather in mid-September, in very good condition. 
• The summer drought and October rains proved difficult for sweet wines after three excellent years on the trot. Although some big names declared that they wouldn't be making a wine this year (Yquem, Rieussec and so on) there are, in fact, some heroic efforts from Sauternes and Barsac. In small quantities.

Comparison with another vintage? None, as far as the climate goes. 1998 perhaps, 2001 even? Not really. As it was a case of 'picking before the rains' for many chateaux, 2012 could even be a modern take on 1964 (great Pomerols, St-Emilions and Graves, awkward in the Medoc on the whole). But much has changed since the Beatles. 

Actually, never mind 1964, a lot has changed since 2004. Not least, the prices. Onwards and upwards.

Gavin's top 40 Bordeaux 2012s:

Margaux follows Mouton

Today Margaux became the third First Growth to release its 2012. Its ex-negociant price is €240 per bottle, the same as Mouton, which equates to around £2,460 per 12x75. Released onto the international market at £2,800, it is 12.5% lower than its next cheapest vintages, the 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

It is early days but Margaux 2012 has already seen trade on the secondary market above release price, at £2,660 per 12x75.

With Latour having quit En Primeur, Haut Brion will be the last First Growth to release its 2012. Will it follow the lead of Margaux and Mouton at €240, or Lafite at €335? 

Bucking the trend: Pavie and Angelus 2012

In sharp contrast to the other Bordeaux 2012s, Pavie and Angelus have today released well above their 2011 ex-negociant prices and above the market price of many earlier vintages. Both came out at €180 per bottle ex-negociant.  

Due to their promotion last September, the chateaux’s 2012s were expected to be more expensive than last year’s wines. Yet not everyone foresaw an increase of this size – in our En Primeur survey Liv-ex members predicted, on average, that Pavie 2012 would be released at €120.4 per bottle ex-negociant. This would have been a 6% increase on 2011, as opposed to the actual increase of 58%.

As shown below, the 2012s are more expensive than the chateaux’s 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011 vintages. Since the upgrade, prices for Pavie have on average risen 23%, and those for Angelus have risen 25%. The chateaux have released as high as they dare. And with bids on Liv-ex already ranging from £1,500-£1,600 per 12x75, or €146-€156 a bottle, it seems that buyers are willing to pay more for the 2012 – just not quite as much as the release price.