Bordeaux was in the spotlight this week as additional in-bottle scores from the 2018 vintage were released. Reports were published from both Antonio Galloni of Vinous and Lisa Perrotti-Brown of The Wine Advocate.
In both in-bottle reviews the critics found multiple instances of perfection. For Galloni it was Lafleur, Petrus and Palmer that all achieved 100 points – the latter was upgraded from an in-barrel score of (95-98).
Perrotti-Brown agreed with the Petrus score but also found that Latour, Lafite Rothschild, Haut Brion, Ausone and Margaux merited 100 points. An additional 6 wines were awarded 99 points which included Mouton Rothschild.
Last week we highlighted that Burgundy was closing in on Bordeaux’s market share by value. This week, even with critical coverage surrounding Bordeaux, Burgundy share of trade value surpassed Bordeaux, for the first time in Talking Trade’s history, helped in some part by high value Leroy changing hands.
The trade share difference was even more pronounced amongst US buyers, where Burgundy made up 37.9% of trade share by value compared to Bordeaux’s 19.2%. There has been a large uptick in Burgundy trade since the 25% tariffs were put on pause. Burgundy led weekly regional trade share across all major buyer regions except that of Europe.
Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2018 and Haut Brion 2018 both saw increased activity after receiving their in-bottle scores from Lisa Perotti-Brown of the Wine Advocate. Both were awarded 100 points. Haut Brion found itself being compared to the 100 point 1989 (Robert Parker). While Perrotti-Brown noted both wines would benefit from another 7-8 years in bottle – they carry drinking windows outwards of 40 years.
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