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The 2022 Grand Vin from Château Lafite Rothschild (picture) is offered in the en primeur campaign at a price of around 800 euros. This means an increase of over 23 percent compared to the debut price for the 2021. The Premier Cru is not alone in this: some wineries are already talking about the most expensive vintage on the market. For Château Rauzan-Ségla 2022, you have to pay about 115 euro, which is even about 40 percent more than for the previous vintage. The Liv-ex wine trading platform has collected average price increases of about 20 percent. According to some traders, this leads to the fact that many customers prefer to buy already bottled Bordeaux. Thus, highly rated wines from the 2019 or 2016 vintages are still cheaper than the 2022s, which are currently only available as barrel samples.
Liv-ex warned more than a week ago that it would be "difficult for merchants to sell many of the wines from this campaign and that most releases do not offer a compelling proposition for buyers". Other merchants are convinced that the high quality of the 2022 Bordeaux justifies the increased prices. Not all châteaux have raised their prices significantly from the lows of 2019, for them demand is good, they say. The en primeur campaign for the 2019 Bordeaux fell in the first phase of the Corona pandemic, which led to very moderate prices.
However, Arthur Coggill, fine wine buyer at Goedhuis in London, talks of some price increases being unaccountable and wineries now suffering from low demand. "I think most people just couldn't cope with prices like that. We probably could have sold twice as much if they had been a bit more reasonable." He fears that some châteaux are "very much in danger of missing the global macroeconomic picture".
(al / source: drinksbusiness; decanter)