Decanter reported on Sunday that Chateau Lascombes has been sold to French health insurance group MACSF for €200 million. The news follows last month's Liv-ex valuations of the great estates of Bordeaux, which placed the Second Growth's value at €161 million.
At first glance, it seems that we undershot the sale price by around €40 million. According to Decanter, however, the chateau produces approximately "500,000 bottles of wine" a year (41,500 12x75cl cases). We were more conservative in our production estimate for the estate, pencilling in 26,000 cases of the first wine and and 4,000 of the second, Chevalier de Lascombes. But we hadn't factored in the 28 hectares from neighbouring estate Martinens that Lascombes added to its production from the 2009 vintage onwards.
If we assume that the production of Lascombes has increased to 30,000 cases, and that of Chevalier to 11,000, then our methodology comes up with a valuation of €200,184,000!
Ultimately, however, our study sought to do no more than suggest a new framework for valuing the major chateaux. You can read more about this in our previous blog post: Valuing the great estates of Bordeaux – who is in the €50m club?
