Clos Fourtet bucks Bordeaux slump

Saint-Emilion estate, Clos Fourtet, has recorded one of the best performances so far this year of any Bordeaux property.

Liv-ex noted on its blog that the property has bucked the trend in what has been a fairly torrid year for the French region – not helped by one of the most disappointing en primeur campaigns on record.

Clos Fourtet is up 7.7% on the year-to-date and its performance since the market peak in 2011 has been “even more impressive”.

Since that high three years ago, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 and Fine Wine 100 indices have fallen 37.4% and 32.3% respectively, yet Clos Fourtet has risen a full 53.1% over the same period.

It hit a record in February this year and has dipped slightly since then but it is still far out-performing its parent index, the Right Bank 100 which has started to decline following a strong 13 months when it was the sole Bordeaux sub-index showing any positive signs of growth.

Solid scores from the likes of Robert Parker have boosted its standing, within two months of Parker calling its 2009 vintage “one of the greatest young Bordeaux I have ever tasted and scoring it 100 points back in 2012, its market price leaped from £690 a case to £1,700.

The 2010 followed up with 98 points and the 2012 an impressive 93-95. A long-standing advocate of the estate, Liv-ex notes that the market has “come round to his view” as case prices of back vintages have risen 30% or more since 2011.

Clos Fourtet is just one of six Bordeaux estates that have seen any gains so far this year – one other being Rieussec which has climbed 5.9% so far in 2014.