Bordeaux 2011/2012 dumping

I see hopeful signs of 2011/2012 coming onto the market at much more reasonable prices. In The Netherlands, this is what I just picked up, all in EUR (prices in brackets were en-primeur as I was offered them back in 2013/2014, glad I passed):
2012 Haut Brion: 335 per (512)
2012 Lynch Bages: 89 per (120)
2012 Pichon Baron: 81 per (108)
2011 Leoville Las Cases: 126 per (169)
2011 Pontet Canet: 89 per (111)

I really hope they eventually start dumping 2014s! That may be too much to hope for, but after all the 15&16 hype…

Exactly. why buy en premier? The advantage of getting these wines years before they hit peak are nonsense. The advantage buying en premier went out with the 98 vintage. I followed the thread on current '16 offerings with amazement. There is not much more celing for these wines to appreciate and the quantities are very substantial. They will be in the market for years to come, probably at the same or lower prices.

Side note, I pulled the cork on a wine I bought en premier in 1995, Calon Segur. Pulled the cork on one of these 3 years ago and it was still tight as a drum. Decided to give at go again at 22 years on. It was again disappointing the first day, tight, not much nose, although the tannins had definitely softened. Re-corked 2/3 of bottle and put in the fridge overnight. Next evening lovely development, cassis, ripe plummy notes, earthy tang with decent acidity still intact. Pleasurable 30 second finish, an altogether agreeable wine, perhaps 93-4 on the Parker wind speed meter. (Night before I would have called this an 88 pt wine). Color was just starting to show some bricking on the side, but still pretty dense in the middle.

Two lessons. Old school Bordeaux DEFINITELY needs time, lots of it if you have a cool cellar (58 ish in my basement). Second, those who maintain wines never get better on the second day are full of …well you know. This wine had two different personalities. I should have given it a decent decant as this is surely a 30 year, probably 40 year wine. Still have 10 bottles left. Now the price at release? 25 bucks. But then again I sat on this wine for 22 years, costs have inflated over time. So we are talking a wine bought at about 5x minimum wage in that era. Todays en premier wines are going at 10-15X minimum wage for a lot of middle of the road classed growths. I just don’t think there is going to be a big bump in the future. Might as well wait and let the producers or negociants age these for a few years in those massive warehouses then buy up at a cheaper price!

It helps to live in places where they are allowed to do fire sales.

States with minimum pricing requirements make this sort of dumping impossible.

Excellent point, but with the changes in retailing overtaking even the most conservative institutions, how long will it be before the market worldwide will drive the prices? I can forsee that the antique liquor laws in the US are likely to go the way of the dodo before long. Imagine what will happen when marijuana is a legally available product in 50 states…OK maybe not Utah. It will be difficult to keep the stranglehold on alcohol prices once there is more that one legal intoxicant out there. Perhaps the pressure of the internet will finally erode lots of these artificial barriers.

I think you are dreaming of a future that is not so close as you believe.

In the future Elon Musk will build a self scooping dog. It will also have gull wing ears though, that don’t always work properly.

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I’ve only seen two small dumps of 2012 BDX stateside, at least that were available to retail customers. Perhaps more have happened quietly behind the scenes. Sometimes this stuff never makes it to collectors, and just gets poured BTG in business class lounges.

Has anyone seen wider 2012 dumps in the US?

Yes, this is also what was in my mind when I started this thread. It is now 5 years since the en primeur season, and I can buy these high-end wines at substantially lower prices…

Is it different in the US?

I picked up a few of 2011 LLC in February at $88 each at Binny’s.

That is a really good deal!

I think the real question is why buy sub par (underrated) vintages en primeur, hearalded vintages,if your into such things will always be (for the most part) cheaper en primeur.

Costco has been a buyer.

Used to be true. Doubt it in the future. the well known chateau are already pricing at the top of the market. If you believe that in the future liquor laws will stay exactly the same and that the people holding these vast quantities of wine in warehouses will store them indefinitely, then I think you are being unrealistic. This is the reason WTSO and Last Bottle have a business model. If big retailers are not worried about wider competition, then I wonder why there are states (like Illinois) that are pushing to restrict out of state sales direct to consumer?

Pity because many of the smaller producers still seem to get ignored. Maybe there will be wider availability now that the Brits will likely be buying a bit less and may go seriously downmarket in everyday wine purchases. Always seems like the little guys will be in for the most struggle.

Any chance that 2011 becomes a vintage like 2001? That is, for my taste, an underrated vintage following a VoC where the wines are balanced, have charm and can be safely consumed 10-15 years in. I must admit that I didn’t even bother with the '11s when they came out as I yanked the plug on BDX when the pricing on the '09 and '10 vintages came out (plus my wife would argue that I have plenty of BDX ).

None of the above noted deals look like fire sale prices, but instead reasonably good sale prices. What’s clogging up the Bordeaux pipeline these days - 2011s, 2012s, 2013s (even older vintages) - and we may soon be able to add 2014s and maybe 2015s and 2016s to the backlog. It doesn’t seem that any of these recent vintages has seen strong futures sales (still early on the 2016s), so the backlog may continue to grow at least in the short term. Would love to see aggressive discounting but have rarely seen it for Bordeaux.

yeah, these prices are fair prices, as opposed to some of the crazier levels of price inflation we’ve seen in the past, but not truly discounted to me. A wine like 2014 Malescot at $45 is certainly a fair price in that it’s certainly better than you could do in CA or elsewhere for a Bordeaux blend of this quality, but it’s not a back up the truck price, at least not at my basically middle class income level it’s not.

I only do EP for 375s or through total wine for the 50% now 50% later on bottles that aren’t always carried post EP

I suspect 2012 is more likely to be like 2001 or 2004 than 2011. Of course that’s a vintage level generalization and there will be commune differences.

I think '11 in underrated as I do '12…I had the same wines from both vintages and some I prefer '11 and some I prefer '12
from what I read many winemakers say their grapes reached preferred phenolic ripeness in '11…So then whats the problem?

When we talk about great vintages of Bordeaux for me they tend to have this wonderful ripe fruit quality about them…
but that’s not why I drink bordeaux

and that’s probably why I love '01 and '04 so much…I want classic.classic.classic…

I recently had a '97 beau sejour becot… Was it very ripe? Hell no, probably a tad under and it had some real assertive acid…but the profile was old school classic right bank style in a less than stellar vintage…I can’t stop thinking about it

nabbed a 2012 clerc milon for $30…first sip and my wife exclaim’s “damn that’s good”…and it is…def. not the best vintage of clerc, but it’s solid.
still primary, but the fruit has some ripe, lush fullness if you like that. The classic pauillac profile is there, but it’s hidden in the background…it can be consumed now for the fruit lover…as for team classic, your going to have to wait a bit.