I am really wondering who is buying 2024, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and I just can’t justify spending $$ on this vintage knowing that I can buy 2019 at a similar price, and the quality is significantly better.
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Addicts. The most addicted among them.
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Man, if I don’t get a fix in two and a half years, I’m gonna die! 
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Buying addicts.
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I’m sure people liking the prices have bought selectively but they’re definitely not selling out of anything.
If this was a strong vintage there would absolutely be buys but there’s no reason to chase at this point.
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I quote Robert Mathias of Lay & Wheeler here:
“One clear success was Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion, he said, noting that in addition to “a good price” it had a “cult following”, and had produced 60% less for the 2024 vintage.”
Please show me a wine merchant who offers a Les Carmes Haut Brion 2019 at the price of 2024.
What’s more, the price will certainly be higher in 2 years’ time.
2024s by and large are cheaper than 2019s. In some cases, quite a bit cheaper.
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Unfortunately compensating for quality (at least in so far as scores indicate), disproportionately worse too.
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While I don’t really buy Bordeaux En Primeur generally, my last being 2020, Despite the quality, I feel like I am obligated to buy some 2024s for the birth year of my daughter. At the very least, I am thinking of either:
- choosing top tier producers that I wouldn’t generally buy a case-worth of Bordeaux (such as first growths)
- buying only large formats as I usually don’t buy anything bigger than a magnum.
I was wondering if anyone has made a similar choice regarding a birth year wine purchase of a lesser vintage.
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I bought 2023 for my birth year wine. Six mags each of Carmes and Montrose.
If your plan is a big celebration when your kid turns 16/18/21 then a couple of 3Ls isn’t a bad idea… One sauternes one something else?
If you’re in the UK, Tom Mann has an interesting horizontal I think of LLC, Montrose cheval blanc, Lafite Carmes and something else at no premium. That i find very tempting for ep as a way to taste broadly without being stuck with a lot of bottles
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In this case, I would also buy on a small scale and cherry pick the wines that got the best reviews or your favorite Chateaux
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We all have different priorities when it comes to wines from our children’s birth years, so your experience may not match mine.
I bought fairly widely, including some firsts, some large formats, and some Sauternes from our daughter’s birth vintage. Not case quantities of any single wine except Lynch Bages, which I had a soft spot for and which killed it in 1989. I cellared a 6L of 1989 Climens in anticipation of serving it at her wedding.
We’ve opened a few with her on birthdays, but she’s not that interested. She actually has a discriminating palate but just doesn’t care. Turns out most of the bottles have been enjoyed by my wife and me without her. And the 6L for her wedding? She said she didn’t want the wine to distract from the festivities. I sold the bottle.
My advice is to go for top quality and those likely to age best for decades. Include some firsts just because of the cachet. Not necessarily case quantities unless something looks really attractive. A few mags, maybe, but not many, and nothing larger than mags. YMMV.
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I have bought one 3L of Montrose. That will likely be the extent of what I buy.
I paid $471.97 (well, half now and can cancel whenever) from TW.
The cheapest 2019 3L on Wine Searcher is $861.98.
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I am one of those who likes to buy a certain set of wines in every vintage so I can see how they all perform over time. Additionally, as noted in an above post, as a Le Pin buyer it is absolutely to my financial advantage to buy that on futures since that is my only real chance to get it via normal channels and take worry-free delivery at a local wine store- at any price.
To reiterate, I also think that as with 2017- though for different reasons- there is not likely to be a whole lot of excess stock at release outside of what customers commit to in advance. 2017 turned out rather nicely in many cases, but due to COVID very few merchants were stocking the better wines at release- and by the time they were the prices had gone up substantially.
There is no telling if that will be the case with 2024 or if the wines are going to get dumped, but given the fact there is now a far broader customer base world-wide than has been the case for fine wine in our lifetime, the higher up the chain you go- the less likely it is the wines will lose a lot of value unless there is some kind of catastrophic world economic event. When you add in the fact the prices came in much lower than recent vintages, I think it at least worth considering buying futures provided one likes what they are reading from the critics they trust.
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BTW - more general note for all, a good friend ITB who goes over to Bordeaux to taste every year has reported to me that Vieux Chateau Certan really hit it out of the park in 2024.
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Also my favorite visit. By far the most “Burgundian” experience – standing out even among the other producers where the owner visited with us during our tasting.
Many Chateaux have grand experiences for the trade tasting – large tasting rooms, art galleries, hosts are dressed up, every place setting has a bottle of Evian and Zalto spittoon, professionally printed materials, etc.
Alexandre, in his Barbour jacket, tasted with us at a very plain table in his barrel room, he poured one wine for us, talked about 15-20 seconds, and then just gave us a very French shrug and “voila” and pointed at our glasses and let us taste. The wine speaks for itself, as always.
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472USD for a 3L Montrose?! That is much better than the 530 euros it would cost in Europe…
Yes, $471.97 to be exact. However, with sales tax (it’s not included here) it comes to $520.82.
Also, who knows what the tariffs might be when it arrives (if any)?
we had a question on discord i thought i’d cross post here - what/how much did everyone buy ep compared to previous years?
There’s one of those happening right now, albeit in slow motion.