Autumn releases pour from La Place

The latest vintages of Napa giants, Super Tuscans, South American and now Australian icon wines and even another ex-cellar release from Latour have all gone on sale through La Place de Bordeaux this month.

With an ever-expanding portfolio of non-French estates signing up to make use of La Place’s global distribution network, autumn is quickly becoming the equivalent of summer’s Bordeaux en primeur campaign for buyers wanting to get their hands on more blue chip fine wine.

So far this month there have been releases from Almaviva, Seña (both 2018), Opus One, Masseto, Clos Apalta, Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance (all 2017) and Latour (a re-release of its 2009).

This year has also seen the first releases of a raft of Australian wines through Bordeaux, notably the 2016 vintages of Wynns’ John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon and Jim Barry’s ‘The Armagh’ as well as the 2017 Cloudburst Cabernet Sauvignon.

Liv-ex has noted a fair bit of activity for top Aussie wines in the past eight months, with Australia’s market share by value in that time surpassing its entire performance in 2019 (with Italy having achieved the same milestone too) and the number of distinct Australian wines rising 66% over the past three years.

The number of wines being traded on the Liv-ex platform has broadened greatly this year, chipping away in particular at Bordeaux’s market share which has fallen from 72% three years ago to 34% in August.

There are many more wines to be released this month which will also include Château Palmer beginning its new ex-cellar release programme ’N-10’.