In light of comments made by the
managing director of Liv-ex, on the fortunes of one of France’s most famous fine
wines, Ideal Wine Company has been inspired to ask; is Bordeaux
poised for a recovery?
A Superior Vintage
The Ideal Wine Company exists to
bring you fine vintages from every corner of the globe at a reasonable price.
Many of those vintages originate from the French region of Bordeaux.
Bordeaux wines are a
cut above the rest. The climate, temperature and terrain of the region fosters
the facilitation of superior bottles. Nevertheless, the value of Bordeaux as a
fine wine has been in steady decline in recent years; a trend that according to
Liv-ex managing director James Miles, is set to change.
How Bordeaux Can Turn Its Fortunes Around
According to Harpers, Miles
suggested that now is a good time to enter the Bordeaux market. This is because
prices for Bordeaux currently sit at their “lowest ebb since the early 1970’s,”
after four years of continually falling values. In other words, it’s ripe for a
boom.
Speaking at the Hong Kong
International Wine and Spirits Fair, the managing director gave his opinion on
how Bordeaux can turn its fortunes around. Specifically, he called for a
“well-priced 2014 vintage,” adding that it would act as a “vital precursor to
any kind of sustained recovery.”
A Reasonably Reliable Boom and Bust Every Ten Years
Miles also expanded on the
general boom and bust nature of Bordeaux, which he argued is cyclical. He suggested that evidence illustrates that
Bordeaux experiences a “reasonably reliable boom and bust every ten years or
so.”
The managing director went on to
point out the nature of the boom and bust trend, saying that “while booms and
busts in wine are influenced by external factors – in this case, UK pension
reform, the collapse of Lehman, the removal of tax in HK and the huge fiscal
stimulus in China in 2009 – they also tend to be self-inflicted and tend to
start and finish with successful and disastrous en primeur campaigns, in this
case the 2005 and 2010.”
The 2014 En Primeur Campaign Has to Work
In other words, yes Bordeaux is
poised for a recovery, but that doesn’t mean it will actually recover. As Miles went on to point out, Bordeaux’s 2014 en
primeur campaign needs to be able to work with “prices falling far further than
many in Bordeaux currently appreciate.”
