This week Latour announced that its first ex-chateau release of 2017 will be its 2005 grand vin, 2011 second wine (Forts Latour), and 2012 third wine (Pauillac de Chateau Latour).
As can be seen in the chart above, 98-point Latour 2005 has not seen significant price growth since the Bordeaux market started to recover at the end of 2015. It is up only 2.4% since December 2015. Over the same period, 95-point Lafite Rothschild 2005 is up 36%, while 100-point Haut Brion 2005 has increased 22.8%.
Latour 2005 has something of a chequered past. It was originally seen as a potential ‘perfect’ wine. Robert Parker first awarded it 98-100 points in barrel and its price increased rapidly in the two years before physical release, rising 126.7% between April 2006 and April 2008.
When finally released in bottle, Parker awarded it a reduced 96 points and its price subsequently fell. Even during the dizzy heights of the China-led boom the wine failed to match the price level achieved during its pre-bottle phase. Although Parker did finally upgrade the wine to 98 points in his ten-year retrospective of Bordeaux 2005, this did not appear to do much to revive interest in the wine.
Liv-ex will follow this blog tomorrow with a more detailed analysis of the Latour release using its ‘fair value’ methodology.
