Bordeaux 2016: Haut-Brion and the gang

Domaine Dillon has bagged the big release spot after the May bank holiday, giving buyers Haut-Brion (red and white), Le Clarence and La Mission to chew on.

The grand vin of Château Haut-Brion was released at €420 a bottle ex-négociant, a 9.1% step up from the year before.

Available in London at £4,980 a case, volumes released were down a quarter on what they were last year but the first growth is also releasing everything in a single tranche so there’s no waiting for keen buyers as there still is with Lafite.

Is below £5,000 a case fair value? It’s certainly cheaper than the 2005, 2009 and 2010 vintages but above the 2015 which has a marginally better score from Neal Martin at The Wine Advocate.

With Liv-ex’s method it would have to have received 100-points from Martin to be considered ‘fair’, considering how closely the wines tend to correlate to WA scores. On the other hand, James Suckling gave it a straight 100, saying it was a wine that “grabs you by the shoulder and tells you it’s great” and a 19 from Jancis Robinson MW, one of her highest scores.

The Haut-Brion Blanc meanwhile was released at €600 a bottle, the same as the 2015.

More ambitious, and not perhaps in a good sense like Lynch Bages, was the release price of second wine Le Clarence de Haut-Brion.

Out at €102 p/b, which is 20% up on its 2015 release, the 2016 is now the most expensive Clarence on the market (out of the last 10 vintages at least) at £1,200 a dozen.

If it had a score to match then it might make sense but Clarence is not as strong a brand as other second wines such as Carruades de Lafite or Petit Mouton and all its other back vintages are under £1,000 a case, with the 2008, ’09. ’10, ’14 and ’15 all with better WA scores.

Buyers hankering for a second wine today would be better advised to pounce on Pichon Comtesse’s ‘Réserve’, which is also out today (see below).

A wine which makes more sense, says Liv-ex, is La Mission. Martin said it left you scrabbling for a thesaurus to find more superlatives and gave it a 98-100-point bracket. Robinson even gave it an 18 with a double plus.

At €336 a bottle it is 12% more than it was last year ex-négoce and 23% more at market price, being around £3,960 a case.

Nevertheless, its less expensive than the 100-point 2009 and, in WA scores at least, the best wine since then.

Again, there are other wines that cost less and that have decent scores but in the vein of logic en primeur is increasingly adopting, if you want it then this is the chance to pick up what is clearly an exceptional wine. It might cost less later but with the châteaux releasing smaller tranches every year, actually finding stock to buy might be a problem. You can’t drink it if you don’t have it (or if you’re lucky enough to have friends that might deign to give you some of theirs).

As mentioned above, Pichon Comtesse’s second wine is also out. At £365 a case and with a Martin score of 90-92 (“on a par with the excellent 2015,” he notes), it’s the sort of release one can see going well.

A shakier proposition is probably Gruaud Larose. Despite the small hiccup of releasing yesterday (29 May) when the UK and US were on holiday, it was critically judged very well across the board (as was St Julien in general), but at £620 a case it is probably slightly at the upper end of what many merchants were hoping for.

Buyers sniffing around for a deal might veer towards the 2009 and 2010 – if they can find any of course.