“My impression after tasting the wines in Spring 2019 from barrel was that 2018 could turn out to be an all-time great similar to 2010, 2009 and 1989 or even such classics as 1982 or 1959.”
James Suckling has published his newest report on Bordeaux 2018 in bottle, awarding four wines a perfect 100-points and a further 69 wines a score of 97 or higher.
Three of the four perfectly scored 2018s, Chateau Lafleur, Petrus and Chateau Mouton Rothschild, received 100-points during his 2019 tasting from barrel. Chateau Trotanoy was the final wine to find perfection and was upgraded from Suckling’s initial barrel range (98-99).
Seen in the chart below, using the Bordeaux 500 (the last 10 physical vintages of the 50 most traded Bordeaux wines), market prices increase as the vintages age. This is intuitive as the laws of supply and demand are at play. However, highly scored vintages may accelerate this price movement.
The chart below shows the average market price trend line of all vintages, the green line, compared to that of the lesser scored vintages (red line) and top vintages (purple line).
While these highly scored new releases are coming to the market at a premium to some of the prior vintages it appears their price may also include a long-term growth premium.
There are currently over £500k of offers on the exchange for Bordeaux 2018 – 80% of which are below their London release price.
You can read James Suckling’s newest article for free on his website, but you must be a subscriber to access the full list of scores.
