Ditton Wine Traders’ fine wine blog

I haven’t seen any official data for October yet but based on our trades, my feeling is that Fine Wine is doing pretty well.

For a very welcome change, it’s not Lafite or its siblings that have been driving demand. Prices for Lafite have been stable in the last few weeks and the physically available vintages of Carruades have actually softened in price, while volume traded has significantly declined. Looking beyond Lafite, demand has been healthy and quite widespread: not just Asia, but a lot of UK trade, investors and private customers are buying. As a consequence, prices have generally increased. This is true for the trade and especially for auctions, who have seen some stellar sales and "sale-through" rates. Every auction that is currently held boasts very good sales and prices.

Whilst prices on the whole have increased, there is one vintage and one Chateau that have attracted particularly high attention: 2008 and Mouton.

From our own experience, we have seen a lot of demand for 2008 Bordeaux, quite a step up from previous months. Particularly for Lafite, Latour, Mouton, Ausone  and Petrus. On the surface of it, this is rather puzzling, seeing that these wines had already increased a lot since primeur. Take Lafite: first traded at roughly GBP 1,500 and post Parker at GBP 3,000. There it stayed for a while but in the last 2 months it has gone up to as much as GBP 4,500. Latour sees a similar development. It looks like investors take the view that Parker was right in praising 2008 so high and that therefore, the top scoring 2008’s still have some upward potential.

Mouton Rothschild merits some extra attention. I have mentioned before that Mouton might be the next in line to benefit from the extreme demand for Lafite. I was not the only one who predicted this. Perhaps it’s a self fullling prophecy because we now indeed see Mouton really take off.

In the last say 20 years, Mouton has been underperforming – in both scores and prices - when compared to its First Growth peers. Partly because, ever since 1986, Robert Parker didn’t particularly like it and partly because Mouton did indeed go through a rough patch. That might have changed with the 2006 vintage (the wine of the year with 98+ points from Parker). Baroness Philippine de Rothschild – the proprietor of Mouton – has really upped their game and invested a lot of money and knowledge into making a top wine once again.

On top of that, there’s sentiment. Again, there has been a widespread expectation of Mouton being the first one to follow in the footsteps of Lafite. Mouton is getting increasingly "hot". Whereas for the last few months, there was just talk about this potentially happening, the last 2-3 weeks have seen the prospect actually become reality: prices of Mouton are going up fast. Particularly the 1982 and 1986 – both 100 pointers – but also 1995, 1996, 1998 and indeed the cheaper, more recent vintages. Demand is there and vendors are not keen to sell so prices are on the up. Interestingly, demand for Mouton is not just coming from Asia. Rather, there are a lot of investors piling into Mouton, anticipating an increased demand from Asia. There’s heavy buying of the top scoring Moutons and on the back of it, vintages like 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004 and of course 2006.

I must say that it’s a very welcome change after the frenzy for Lafite and nothing but Lafite. It was getting both boring and unsustainable. Obviously, it’s very healthy for the market in Bordeaux Grand Cru Classes that there are more flavours than just Lafite. It also shows that Asian demand is getting more mature, inevitably leading to increased attention for other top wines. Mind you, Lafite is still top dog, but slowly other contendors are taking the stage.

One final thought: If Lafite would no longer be the "primus inter paris" of the First Growths, will this lead to a) Lafite becoming cheaper or b) the other First Growths going up in price?  Another question: after Lafite and Mouton, which remaining First Growth will be next in line to become the "new flavour"? Is it c) Latour, d) Margaux or e) Haut Brion?

My answers are b) and c). But that's just my opinion. I'd love to hear your thoughts or indeed any other feedback. Please let us know by sending an email to info@dittonwinetraders.co.uk