According to the eRobertParker bulletin board, Issue 220 of the Wine Advocate – due for release today at 5pm GMT – is scheduled to include mini verticals of Angelus and Pavie from Parker. The two wines hit the headlines a few years ago when both were promoted to St Emilion Grand Cru Classe A in the September 2012 St Emilion reclassification, joining Cheval Blanc and Ausone.
As shown above, prices reacted immediately, and the two wines vastly outperformed their parent index in the following twelve months. Since then Pavie’s growth has stagnated, whilst Angelus’ dipped with the market before climbing again since July 2014. Notably in August 2014 Parker upgraded the 2003 vintage from 93 to 99 points, describing it as “one of the greatest successes in St Emilion in 2003”.
As the chart above shows, activity for the two wines has also been above the Bordeaux average. The bid:offer ratio measures the value of all bids on Liv-ex divided by the value of offers. The vast peaks for Pavie and Angelus in early 2013 were following the upgrade, when there was a high interest in buying the two wines. Interest also rose again following the market’s low in July 2014, and the bid:offer ratio for both lifted in the spring in anticipation for Parker's Bordeaux 2005 retrospective – where both scored the perfect 100.
As the first chart showed, Angelus’ prices have risen the most in the last three years – on average 42% for its last ten vintages as opposed to 23% for Pavie. As the table below shows, this also means that its average case price is higher: £2,341 per 12×75 as opposed to £2,105 for Pavie. But the latter, which has a higher average score, actually offers more to buyers. Using Liv-ex POP analysis* – where a lower score represents, in theory, better value – we can see that Pavie outperforms Angelus in all but the 2000 vintage, where both wines have a similar POP score.
There has been activity for both wines in the lead up to Parker’s tasting, with Pavie 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2012, and Angelus 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 trading in this week alone. These would appear to be the wines that traders see as offering current – or potential – value. The major question is: after three years of good news, will this be the final installment?
All prices are in GBP and are for 12x75cl cases. Scores are from www.erobertparker.com
*POP
A wine’s POP score is its price-over-points ratio, our loose measure of value. It is calculated by dividing the price of a nine-litre case of wine by a shortened 20-point score. We have calculated this 20-point score by simply subtracting 80 from the official rating from Robert Parker (for barrel-score spreads we use the mid-point of the score), on the basis that any wine under 80 points is unlikely to attract a secondary market. In theory, the lower the POP score the better value a wine is.
