+1
That boat already sailed. A decade ago…wait, no, closer to 2 decades ago.
Well, okay, but historically Margaux would always have sold above CSJ. Now the CSJ has gone up and the Margaux has come down. So what was your point?
I am interested, but have grown into loving wine in an era where Bordeaux is stupidly priced. All of 2014 thus feels like a deal if indeed it’s a decent to good vintage. Someone needs to disabuse me of this and tell me how low prices are going to fall in the next few years so that I can convince myself not to buy.
Count me as one of the “not interested in buying Bordeaux no matter what the price” votes. I can’t tolerate the pencil shavings smell. It ruins the entire experience. I even shy away from Cabs that I see the word graphite in the description.
The insane prices are just cementing my decision to forgo Bordeaux too. Everybody else can wrestle with that. I’ll stick to non-cult Cabs (don’t even buy Shafer HSS anymore - the closest I get is with Lokoya), Burgundy, and the odd Chianti. There’s PLENTY of great wine to be had at comparably reasonable prices.
“The food is terrible, and the portions are too small.”
On a related thought, there is a thread on the BWE board about things that taste like bdx, and might be less costly.
Dennis that’s a really curious position to put down the pricing of Bordeaux and then prop up Burgundy and Lokoya. Just about all the classified growths save the first growths are less expensive than Lokoya, no?
The pricing is more of a secondary reason - it’s the pencil shavings smell that kills me. However, you’re correct that Lokoya isn’t exactly cheap nowadays. A few years back before their run of near perfect and perfect scores, they were much more reasonable… but I guess you could say the same about some Bordeaux houses, eh?
If you don’t care for the graphite, many other communes to check out.
And while the great growths seem to get the bulk of attention, there are so many other estates there, most of which have no pretensions at making luxury status symbols.
Great question, Kirk! And so interesting to read people’s responses. Bordeaux was my first love - the first wine book I read was The Emperor of Wine, and I had (and still have) a great respect for what Parker and Bordeaux did for the world of wine. That said, I recently attended James Suckling’s “Bordeaux Confidential” tasting, and my impression for almost every wine was:
“Hey, this is really good! OMG IT’S SO EXPENSIVE THOUGH.”
about 1983
+1000 on that.
The idea of paying hundreds of dollars for wines whose production is in the tens of thousands of cases is ludicrous to me.
Are you paying for “quality” or are you paying for rarity? Just because Margaux makes a lot of wine doesn’t mean that it’s quality lags behind a producer like Fourrier or even a smaller Bdx estate. OTOH, just because a wine has Margaux on the label doesn’t mean it’s currently one of the world’s greatest wines. Or does it?
Noah, it’s not that quality lags. I simply think the wines are overpriced for the quantity of production. The big Bdx houses produce hundreds of thousands of bottles every vintage. Many great Burgs produce less than 10,000. For that level of expense, I want rarity and quality.
As for the original question, I won’t buy Bordeaux on futures at any price.
Where is Alex R. when we need him. As was mentioned briefly above, pricing on many very good wines is back in the completely competitive range. Sociando is under $30. Lanessan is under $20. Why not buy and drink Bordeaux at those prices.
Quality and demand is way more relevant than quantity of production, IMHO. And it appears that the market acknowledges that. Another factor is simple recognition of the brand. I bet if you were to poll wine drinkers (premium buyers), Margaux is far better known than Fourrier. Heck, I’ve never had a bottle of Fourrier. Not even sure I could spot it on a shelf.
I know the differences in available quantities is huge. But that’s not a justification for lowering the price of Bdx or raising it for Burg unless market forces dictate. Is the incremental cost per produced bottle highly different (I don’t know the answer to that. Margaux presumably involves a lot of labor just as Burgs would). People will pay for rarity, reputation, etc. the price of Margaux is high because demand remains high and we, wine collectors as a group, have fed that. We have ourselves (and that includes the Chinese, etc) to blame for sustaining high prices, critics to blame for artificially inflating demand, etc. It’s now so entrenched that the market is hard to correct even if the USA as a whole boycotted Bordeaux and Burgundy in protest.
These exercises in price evaluation are relevant but also always interesting. One thing I rarely see factored into the equation is everyone’s ability to buy the wines at prices now versus the ability to buy the wines when you first started drinking them. I started buying Pichon Baron and Lynch Bages after law school grad in '92. I recall thinking $40 was insane and struggling over spending that much on a bottle of wine, when before that, my most expensive wine was $25. Twenty-three years later, I can more readily afford Pichon Baron and Lychn Bages now than I could before, yet I have to admit not jumping on recent vintages with their pricing. Funny psychology there.
Demand is murky, manipulated (particularly by the tranches system for Bordeaux futures), and often irrational. You can argue it justifies the market price, but not for me.