Bordeaux activity has improved this week with the region taking a healthy 80.9% of trade. The most active Bordeaux wines were the 2014s. The vintage took a larger proportion of Bordeaux market share than the ‘great’ vintages of 2010, 2005 and 2009. Interest in the 2014s has been building since the vintage started to become physical. Adding to this, critics have recently started to release their in-bottle scores.
The Fine Wine 50 dipped lower this week, down 0.3%. However, First Growth trade was higher at 17.7%, but still remains low in historical terms.
After a number of strong weeks for Burgundy, the region dropped back to 6.4% this week, close to its average for last year. Activity for Champagne increased, boosted by Salon Mesnil 2004, Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2002 and Louis Roederer Cristal 2007.
Overall, the top two wines traded by value were 100-point (RP) Cheval Blanc 2005 and 98-point (RP) Lafite Rothschild 2010. The rest of the top five were all Bordeaux 2014s. Mouton Rothschild 2014 has received critical acclaim with James Molesworth (96), James Suckling (99), Antonio Galloni (97) and Neal Martin (94-96) all rating the wine highly.
Likewise, Cheval Blanc 2014 has received high scores. James Molesworth scored it 97 points in-bottle and said it has “notes of Lapsang souchong tea, smoldering cigar and cold charcoal wafting up from the core of dense yet supple currant, fig and blackberry preserves.” Neal Martin said it is “a formidable Cheval Blanc” and awarded it 95-97 points in-barrel.
Bordeaux 2014 was also prominent among the top wines traded by volume. Ducru Beaucaillou 2014 was awarded 99 points by James Suckling and described as “Complex. Full-bodied, yet agile and complete.” One of the top-scoring wines from Bordeaux 2015 was also active. Canon 2015 (98-100, NM) is now up 86.9% from its release price of £750 per 12×75.
100-point Petrus 2010 traded at an all-time high of £29,450 this week. It is up 33.5% over the last year. Robert Parker said it is an “awesome Petrus”.
Looking for weekend reading? This week, Liv-ex published two blogs on Bordeaux 2007- Ten years on: Left Bank 2007 and Ten years on: Second Wines 2007. It also looked at recent in-bottle critic scores for Bordeaux 2014 – Bordeaux 2014: scores in bottle.
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