Extreme price cuts for Lafite wines

"It was particularly the French Premièrs Crus that recorded all-time lows“,explained Justin Gibbs, director at LIV-EX. According to the index' numbers, Château Lafite was hit the hardest. In January, the numbers for 12 bottles from Lafite were still at 16.043 £ (roughly 17.000 Euro) whereas late December 2011 only had about 8.108 £ (roughly 9.830 Euro) left. This is a drop of a sad 45 percent.

In hindsight, the index also shows that there was only once in the past 4 years that the market meant well for Château Lafite, namely in 2010. Back then it was revealed that Lafite would have the number "8" printed on the bottles of the 2008 vintage for Chinese buyers and thus its value grew by 20 percent basically overnight. However, the 2009 vintage brought the value down again by 28 percent. Another sad reduction happened for Lafite's Carruades de Lafite. The price for this wine dropped by "only" 29 percent in the second half year of 2011. Back in June the Carruades was said to have a value of 380 £ (about 4.600 Euro) bewertet, late December 2011 it had dropped to 2700 £ (roughly 3.270 Euro).

"Other regular wines from Bordeaux, like the Château Leoville-Las-Cases or Château Cos d'Estournel, were able to keep their prices to the most extent“, says Justin Gibbs. „For these wines there was only a drop of 7.1 percent. I have to say though that noone in Europe or the United States pays the high prices for Lafite - it was the speculations for and in the Chinese market that brought these prices up. However, this trend is over now".

According to LIV-EX, this trend is also confirmed by the LIVE-EX Claret Chip, which only counts erste Gewaechse from Bordeaux. However, the price drop seems to be rather stable for all other wines than red Bordeaux. Thus, the strongest wines that were able to keep their prices were top wines from Burgundy, among them from the Domaine del la Romanée Conti or Weine from Château d`Yquem, but also Sassicaia from Tuscany remained pretty unchanged. (red.yoopress)