By Guy Collins Severe frost hit Bordeaux vineyards during the night of Tuesday April 6 into Wednesday morning April 7 and over the following 48 hours through to Thursday April 8, according to Bordeaux newspaper Sud Ouest citing local producers. It was part of a wider cold snap that brought sub-zero temperatures to vineyards across France from Burgundy through Champagne to the Loire and Rhone Valley, according to the Guardian, citing Agence France Presse. Temperatures fell to as low as between -4C and -6C in parts of the Medoc, according to Sud Ouest, which said some of the…
By Guy CollinsBottles of Pauillac first-growth Chateau Latour from the landmark 1961, 1959 and 1945 vintages are going on sale at a Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. auction this month, according to its online catalog. A single bottle of the 1961 vintage (lot 384), with the wine level described as “very high shoulder” and a nicked label, is estimated to fetch between $3,000 and $4,500, according to Hart. Two bottles of the 1959 (lot 583) carry a combined estimate of between $5,500 and $8,500 while a single bottle of the same vintage (lot 1605) is priced at between…
By Guy CollinsBordeaux remained above 30% of the trading on the Liv-ex online wine market by value for the second consecutive week as the 2018 vintage became physically available, according Liv-ex’s Talking Trade market blog. While trade for physical Bordeaux 2018 is now greater than that seen during the en primeur period, buyers’ focus remains on the standout 2016, 2015 and 2009 vintages, Liv-ex said. With Chinese Lunar New Year imminent on Feb. 12, the Year of the Ox is about to start. Since the Zodiac calendar runs on a 12-year cycle, the last Year of the Ox…
By Guy CollinsChateau Fleur Cardinale, a Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, is starting a three-year conversion to organic farming and will complete the process by 2024, according to an email from the estate. The vineyard, which has been owned by the Decoster family since the 2001 vintage, comprises 49 plots spread over about 23.5 hectares (58 acres) in the village of Saint-Etienne-de-Lisse, in the eastern part of the Saint-Emilion appellation, according to the estate’s website. It’s a close neighbor of Chateau Valandraud, which is a Premier Grand Cru Classe B wine. The average age of vines is 40 years, and…
By Guy Collins A 12-bottle lot of Petrus 1989, from the Pomerol appellation of Bordeaux, sold for HK$375,000 ($48,400) at a Sotheby’s online wine sale in Hong Kong which ended Jan. 22, according to the auction house’s website.A further 12-bottle lot of Petrus 2004 sold for HK$237,500 and 12 bottles of Petrus 1988 for HK$187,500, according to the website. The Petrus vineyard is 11.4 hectares (28 acres) and situated on a plateau on the highest part of Pomerol, according to the website of London wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd. The topsoil and subsoil are almost all clay,…
By Guy CollinsThe 2008 vintage of top Sauternes dessert wine producer Chateau d’Yquem traded at 1,862 pounds ($2,552) per 12-bottle case in bond on the London-based Liv-ex online wine exchange, a gain of more than 40% since 2016, according to Liv-ex’s “Talking Trade” market report. It was the second most traded Bordeaux wine on the exchange in the week ended Jan. 28, after Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2015, and the fourth most traded after Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvee Vieilles Vignes 2018 and Realm Cellars, Napa Valley The Bard 2018, according to Liv-ex.Yquem’s website describes…
By Guy Collins The 2015 vintage of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild traded at 5,400 pounds ($7,400) per 12-bottle case in bond on the London-based online wine exchange Liv-ex this month, its highest level for three years, according to Liv-ex’s “Talking Trade” market report.It also had the highest share of trade by value on the exchange of any Bordeaux wine in the week ended Jan. 28, when Bordeaux’s share of overall trading accounted for 33.6%, Liv-ex said. That was up from 27.3% the previous week, but down from the 2020 share of 42%.The 2015 vintage of Lafite was a blend of…
By Guy Collins The Liv-ex Bordeaux 500 Index gained 3.5% over the past year, bringing its five-year advance to 34.1%, according to a market blog post from the London-based online wine market.That was slightly below the 2.0% gain for the broader Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 during 2020, taking its five-year climb to 44.8%. The Bordeaux Legends 40, including older vintages of renowned wine estates, gained 3.7% in 2020 and 38.4% over five years.Burgundy saw its spectacular recent gains stall, with the Burgundy 150 Index slipping 1.5% last year, although still up 81.9% over five years, according to Liv-ex.
By Guy Collins An historic bottle of the 1865 vintage of top Bordeaux wine estate Chateau Lafite sold for $31,070 at a Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. auction on Dec. 18 and 19, well above its presale estimate of $11,000 to $17,000, according to an email from the Chicago-based auction house.The wine was made three years before Baron James de Rothschild bought the first-growth Pauillac estate on Aug. 8, 1868 from the Vanlerberghe family heirs, paying 4.14 million francs, according to the second edition of Charles Cocks’s `Bordeaux et Ses Vins,’ published that same year. According to Cocks,…
By Guy CollinsHistoric bottles of Bordeaux, stretching back to the mid-19th century, are on offer as part of Hart Davis Hart Wine Co.’s auction of the personal estate of Napa Valley winemaker Joseph Phelps, scheduled for Friday. A single bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1865, recorked in 1953 and 1986 and bought at a Christie’s auction in March 1981, is on sale at an estimated price of between $11,000 and $17,000, according to the Hart online catalog.The collection also includes a bottle of Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion 1918, estimated at between $4,000 and $6,000, a bottle of neighboring…
By Guy Collins The 2020 vintage at Chateau Angelus “is going to be really beautiful, ” coming after the “exotic, opulent” 2018 and “more classical, traditional” 2019, according to Stephanie de Bouard-Rivoal, head of the family-owned Saint Emilion wine estate.Angelus described the 2020 vintage in a recent newsletter as having “silky, tight-knit tannins, a very deep color, precision in the ripe fruit aromas, amazingly intense aromatic complexity and very long, very lively freshness of flavor on the mid palate.”Unusually wet weather between November 2019 and June 2020 was followed by very dry conditions until storms in mid-August, according…
By Guy Collins Satellite and ground station data gathered by Saturnalia, a service developed by Ticinum Aerospace, a spin-off company of the University of Pavia in northern Italy, is shedding fresh light in great detail on precipitation and other climatic details of the Bordeaux 2020 vintage in comparison to its predecessors. While the broad profile of the weather during the 2020 vintage has been well-documented already, featuring primarily a period of drought from mid-June to mid-August in what was otherwise an unusually wet year, Saturnalia data drills down into conditions not only in each appellations, but also individual…
By Guy Collins Bordeaux’s share of the London-based online wine market Liv-ex rose to 40.5% in the week ended Nov. 19, only the second time in the past 10 weeks that it has risen above 40%, according to Liv-ex’s Talking Trade blog. Bordeaux’s 2010 and 2015 vintages led trade by value for the region, according to Liv-ex, while the cheaper 2017 vintage led by volume. The top-selling Bordeaux on Liv-ex during the week in terms of share of trade by value was the 2010 vintage of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, which traded at 5,706 pounds ($7,599) per 12-bottle case…
By Guy Collins The 2016 vintage of Chateau Lafite Rothschild traded at 6,240 pounds ($8,296) per 12-bottle case in bond on the London-based Liv-ex wine market during the week ended Nov. 5, its second-highest level on the secondary market since release and the highest for the past two years, according to the Liv-ex Talking Trade blog. It was the top-traded wine of the first week of November on the exchange, Liv-ex said. The blend for Lafite’s 2016 vintage was 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, with the estate’s website saying grapes were able to reach “exceptional levels of…
Chateau Latour, a Bordeaux first-growth estate in Pauillac, has made an offer of more wine from its 2009 vintage direct from its own cellars, according to an email from Chicago-based merchant Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. HDH Wine is pricing it at $3,705 per three-bottle case, or $2,470 per magnum, it said. According to Liv-ex data on Cellar-Watch.com, Latour 2009 traded at 10,500 pounds ($13,640) per 12-bottle case in bond in July 2013, before falling as low as 8,200 pounds in January 2016, then recovering back to 10,500 pounds in January 2017 and slipping back again to 9,000…
The 2019 vintage of Chateau Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande points the way to the style of wine the Pauillac estate is developing as it transforms its vineyard and benefits from its new winery, and represents a major step in a multi-year programme along that path, according to Managing Director Nicolas Glumineau. “First, it’s our best vintage for a very, very long time,” he said in an interview earlier this summer. “2016 was good, ’10 was good too. ’19 is unique. It has everything in terms of what we look for to define the future of Pichon Comtesse.”The blend…
Vieux Chateau Certan, a wine estate in the Pomerol appellation of Bordeaux, put its 2019 wine on sale at 168 euros ($189) a bottle ex-negociant in bond, down 20% from its 2018 release price, according to London-based online wine market Liv-ex. That compared with its 2018 release price of 210 euros, Liv-ex said.
Christie’s International plans to hold live wine auctions in Hong Kong on July 12, Geneva on July 21 and London on July 28, according to an emailed statement from the auction house. It also plans to hold an online sale in New York running from July 16 to July 31, it said. Bottles up for sale range from a 1775 Madeira to Bordeaux 2015, Christie’s said. The New York on line sale will feature wines from the cellar of California-based collector Benjamin Ichinose.
Chateau Troplong Mondot, a wine estate in the Saint Emilion appellation of Bordeaux neighboring Chateau Latour, put its 2019 wine on sale at 60 euros ($68) a bottle ex-negociant in bond, down 19.4% from its 2018 release price, according to London-based online wine market Liv-ex. That compared with its 2018 release price of 74.40 euros, Liv-ex said.
Les Carmes Haut Brion, a close neighbor in Pessac-Leognan of Bordeaux first-growth wine estate Chateau Haut Brion, put its 2019 wine on sale at 64.80 euros ($73) a bottle ex-negociant in bond, down 6.1% from its 2018 release price, according to London-based online wine market Liv-ex. That compared with its 2018 release price of 69 euros, Liv-ex said.
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