Nothing is
sacred to the boys in the city. Now even the world of wine has become
a bun-fight between investors keen to make dramatic returns over
very short periods and claret lovers despairing as their favourite
wines spiral out of their reach. At the very top end of French wine-making,
the enormously collectable Petrus of Pomerol is now around £23,000
a case for the wonderful 2000 vintage. However, I have no doubt
it will soon find a buyer as the market for fine wines refuses to
slow down. Customers who bought into the celebrated 2000 vintage
en primeur (ie buying while the wine is still in France at the Chateaux
maturing) are now laughing into their checkbooks. A case of Mouton-Rothschild
2000 that went for around £1000 will now fetch somewhere in
the region of £6000. That’s 600% growth in just 7 years,
no wonder the city boys are scrambling to get their hands on good
wine!
This begs the
question: who is actually drinking these wines? Contrary to common
opinion the vast majority is still being bought to be drunk, what
has changed is the nature of the buyers. Wine Merchants are seeing
their customers change from older clients following a wine vintage
to vintage to younger, cash rich buyers looking to establish a cellar
but comforted by the fact the wine will appreciate. The Asian market
has also grown enormously, with wine merchants in China and Japan
doing record business.
So what does
this mean for those of us who fancy a dabble in the world of fine
Claret? Well there are two main points to bear in mind before you
take the plunge. Most important is the quality of the vintage: 2000
and 2005 command such high prices because they were both superb
vintages, demand for both will always be high. Secondly, the influence
of the American wine critic Robert Parker is crucial in the modern
market. His 100 point scoring system is massively influential in
the value of a wine, many would say too influential! A wine with
from a good Parker score from a good vintage is a sound investment,
though obviously still at the whim of global markets. If you fancy
buying into the top wines but find the prices a little on the heavy
side, look to lesser but decent vintages like 2004 or 2006 or buy
into the 2nd Wines of these Chateaux: these can represent terrific
value.
Simon
Fisher is a Wine Advisor at Averys Wine Merchants. Averys
Wine Merchants list a wide range of vintages of classed growth Bordeaux
including all the first growth Chateaux. More information please
visit us - www.averys.com
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