Anyone who follows the wine press will have seen plenty of articles in the last few weeks about how much the 2015 Bordeaux releases cost. The 2015 vintage of Bordeaux is trading in a futures market at the minute, where you buy the wines 2 years before they’re released. So everyone’s waiting to see how much the Chateaux are releasing their wines at. And you hear plenty of comments like “oooh it’s the most expensive for 5 years” like that’s a terrible thing. So what?
Thing is, wine to a certain point doesn’t have an intrinsic value. You can’t break down the components and say this costs this, and this costs that, so this bottle of wine costs dot dot dot. It can only be the price one person is happy to sell at and one is happy to buy at. Usually that boils down to a simple supply and demand issue.
Look at house prices. What’s the point, when you’re trying to buy a flat in London, in saying “ah well this place only cost £200,000 in 2010, so I won’t buy for now”? Doesn’t matter what it cost 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or last week. If people want to buy it and there’s only so much to go around, there’s only one way the price is going.
In the past, Primeur trading used to offer a discount so buying wines across the board was a good idea. It doesn’t anymore. The only thing it offers anymore is access to the most sought after wines. So does it matter how much they cost compared to 5 years ago? Not really! All that really matters is who wants it and how much is available.
Maybe we could just talk about that?
Cheers
