It’s important not to prejudge quality as the official tasting week for Bordeaux 2024 en primeur gets underway, but tough market conditions mean there is already talk of price cuts in the upcoming releases campaign.
Discounts could help ‘rekindle demand’ among consumers, found a survey of global trade professionals by consultancy group Wine Lister.
Respondents called for a year-on-year price cut of around 31% on average, although opinions varied widely. That would follow price cuts by major châteaux in last year’s campaign, too.
‘Rumours out of Bordeaux suggest that some châteaux are considering a return to their 2014 release prices,’ said Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, in its en primeur preview. This could present ‘serious value’ to buyers, it noted.
Its data, tracking wines in its Bordeaux 500 index, showed average prices in many recent vintages have fallen since en primeur release.
Each producer has its own strategy and market context, though.
Georgie Hindle, Decanter’s Bordeaux correspondent who is tasting 2024 barrel samples for a comprehensive tasting report on the vintage, said there was a broad acceptance that release prices need to fall.
Yet, she said the nature of the 2024 vintage and producers’ individual circumstances mean it’s unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all approach.
Some estates have reported significantly higher costs in order to make relatively little wine. Meanwhile, châteaux at the lower end of the price spectrum might not have as much room for discounts.
UK merchant Corney & Barrow (C&B) called for a ‘proper reset’ in its preview report on Thursday 10 April.
‘We love the wines of Bordeaux,’ it said, yet it added the region needs to attract a new generation of consumers and pricing is one part of the equation. Some wineries are consistently releasing at astute prices, ‘but the vast majority are not’, it said.
Last year, UK merchants tended to be most enthusiastic about châteaux that pitched 2023 as the cheapest available vintage on the market.
Beyond en primeur, one recent success story has been the ‘monumental’, 100-point Château Latour 2016, released for the first time in March at around £6,200 (12x75cl in bond, Liv-ex).
Geraint Carter, of merchant Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform, told Decanter magazine’s Market Watch, ‘It was, by some distance, the standout sales “event” of the year to date.’
Miles Davis, market expert at merchant Vinum Fine Wines, said in his March market report: ‘We sold out very quickly indeed and it felt like the good old days again.’
