Trade predicts limited demand for 2011

Liv-ex’s trade survey has revealed that its members predict little demand for the new vintage and rated Lafite as the major disappointment.

The key points in the results labelled Latour as the best wine of the vintage, tipped Grand Puy Lacoste to be the best value for money and for release prices to be on average 42% down on 2010.

The vintage was also given an average rating of 91 points overall, the same as 2008.

Lafite may have been given the “most disappointing” tag but reports so far seem to indicate that its £5,500 trading price, which makes it the cheapest of any Lafite on the market at present, has done it no harm.

As the first big name to release merchants were quick to add that its 30% cut in price was not a model to be followed by other estates.

This seemed to have fallen on deaf ears when Cos d’Estournel released at €100 p/b, a drop of 45% on 2010.

More expensive than 2008, 2006 and 2004 among others, it has been widely decried on Twitter and elsewhere as merchants state their inability to sell any.

That there is little demand for the vintage was countered by Justerini & Brooks’ Bordeaux buyer, Tom Jenkins, who told the drinks business that customers would buy if the wines were “at the right price”.

As the campaign is yet to pick up a gear it is perhaps too early to say whether or not the demand will fail to materialise.

Meanwhile, with Latour being hailed as, once again, the wine of the vintage and with the château’s impending retreat from the en primeur game all eyes will be trained on what it does, how low it releases and more importantly how much of its wine it chooses to release.

Expect very little.