Bordeaux 2008: Cos d'Estournel price likely to be 'close' to 2007
April 1, 2009
By Adam Lechmere in Bordeaux
Almost alone among the top properties in Bordeaux, there is a strong likelihood that Cos d'Estournel will come out at the same price as last year.
The first growths are adamant that they will make reductions – substantial or otherwise – on the price of the 2007s.
But Jean Guillaume Prats at Cos – the St-Estephe second growth – told decanter.com this morning that of all the options open to him, a major reduction in price was the least attractive.
The best course, he suggested, would be 'to release very very little wine at a price close to the 2007s.'
If he took that course he would waive the allocation system, by which the top chateaux dole out wines according to how loyal a purchaser the client has been. 'The next great vintage would be allocated according to the purchase of the 2007.'
Stressing that this was 'only one option', Prats went on to make his case, demolishing other arguments along the way.
The first growths indeed had a huge responsibility this year, he said, but to reduce to €100 or €130 a bottle when last year the price was over €200 (this is an unstoppable rumour in Bordeaux this week, and no major proprietor has definitely denied it) would be catastrophic.
'Yes, many people who have been unable to buy first growths would come back into the market,' he said. But to price a very good vintage at so much less than previous, lesser vintages, 'would seriously anger their other clients' by implying they had been paying over the odds since 2005.
At the same time it would devalue all stocks of 2007 and 2006, betraying all those who still had considerable inventory of those vintages. 'They would suffer quite a lot.'
'If I was a first growth I would not downgrade the price. I would keep the same price and invite my clients to buy.'
The implication was, he said, that he would sell some 5% of the vintage.
Last year, Cos was released at around €60 a bottle.
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What in God's holy name is he blathering about? Mr. Prats has finally lost it and has ensured that I will buy none of his wine - whatever its release price. He says that first growths substantially lowering their price "'would seriously anger their other clients' by implying they had been paying over the odds since 2005." Is this man a fool? Is he blind? Both? These clients (although in 2007 at least, these "clients" are rather scarce) HAVE been paying over the odds since 2005! They know it; I know it; the editors, contributors and readers of Decanter magazine know it. I would venture to guess that even Mr. Prats knows this startlingly obvious fact; admitting it is obviously the problem here. He is correct, however, in saying that if the first growths released at €100, a lot of new purchasers would emerge (of which I am one).
I was particularly moved by Mr. Prats' heartfelt concern for the negociants and merchants who may be left holding stock of the 2007s. It's amusing (or more appropriately, a little sad) that chateau owners weren't thinking about the welfare of these concerns over the last two years. The simple and undeniable fact is that any merchant or negociant holding stocks of 2007 wines (and probably 2006 as well) WILL lose money on these vintages; it is simply a question of when, because the only way anyone will ever buy them is if they are VERY heavily discounted (ie bargain-binned). I would imagine that for cash flow reasons some of these outfits would be wise to start this process now - they'll never get what they paid for them anyway and so just cut their losses and move on. I'm sure they'll be very appreciative, however (as I am), that Mr. Prats has the negotiants', merchants' and customers' best interest at heart when he suggests that prices remain inflated and out of touch with reality.
I now understand why so many people who have been in the wine game for a lot longer than me have long ago given up on Bordeaux, and it now seems (if Mr. Prats' comments hold weight) that their betrayal of a new generation of customers is warming up on the sidelines.
That 2007 Domaine de la Mordoree is looking really tempting right about now.
Dave, Ireland
Of course they have no choice. The wild inflation of prices, unabated for decades, has trapped the growers. If they mark-to-market they will jilt the people to whom they have sold their wines for years, and who will never trust them again. The growers must bite the bullet, offer their wines at prices few if any will pay, and try to make the distribution chain pay for three decades of excess. Now if the distributors are willing to fall on their respective swords for the benefit of the growers and the hopes for a better tomorrow, the reward for their sacrifices will be a good-sized lake of unsold wine, unless they cut prices and offload the stuff at a price we can afford. Maybe I'll be able to afford my first bottle of classed growth wine in six years.
Lewis C Taishoff
This is precisely why the first growths will have to release first if they are to breathe fresh life into the en primeur system by releasing at EUR100-EUR150 per bottle. What Jean Guillaume Prats is effectively saying, and from his perspective it does have a certain rationale, is that it doesn't matter whether noone sells a case en primeur this year so long as prices for the 2006s and 2007s are not seriously undercut. Those who do not hold large stock of the 2006s and 2007s will, however, be desperately hoping that his counter-offensive in the battle over 2008 en primeur pricing falls on deaf ears. Time will tell.
Colin Hay, University of Sheffield, UK
Quel Prats!
Anon
I wonder why journalists always ask HIM what he thinks...there are so many other wise people in Bordeaux!!!! Who says he is the authority? His attitude and ideas (such as having the primeurs in September) are quite often a bad reflexion on all of us...Why don't you ask questions to savy and long-experienced courtiers like Max de Lestapis or other such experts?
Corinne S. Conroy
Its an odd argument to suggest that by reducing the price of 2008 you are betraying the buyers from prior years who paid more for those vintages. If wine is bought to consume then we are all happy to buy it cheaper. Its only if one views the principal buyer as an investor that preserving the current price level matters in order to underpin the price of prior vintages. Many of us buy for both reasons – investing periodically to finance our future consumption. But our predominant desire is to consume. To price wine as an investment asset rather than something that is predominantly to be enjoyed and consumed is to embark on the road to ruination. It is a wasting asset and ultimately has to be consumed. If we price it now with the interests of the investor rather than the consumer paramount in our minds what will happen to the price down the road when everyone has to sell? And why should the now obviously global liquidity driven boom high watermark of 2005 be used as the benchmark off which to price all successive vintages? To be fair to Cos they did price significantly lower last year than most other producers BUT Mr Prats is just wrong to make the argument for pricing first & second growths now on the basis of preserving the value of previous vintages. Those vintages, if they merit it, will inevitably accrue in value as time goes by regardless, but as with all things of value never in a straight line. 2008 will not be bought by investors, it will be bought by traditional consumers of Bordeaux in the midst of a deep global recession & should be priced accordingly.
Gerard Fox
Is Mr Prats also on the Board of AIG or RBS I wonder? Nothing like naked greed. Thank God, like any wine lover with half a brain, I stopped buying luxury commodity (label) Bordeaux in 2005 when the value for quality disappeared in Chinese (etc) smoke. I wonder who Mr Prats thinks is going to buy his wine, maybe he has not noticed that every luxury product in the world sells today for half what it did a year ago…
Adrian Latimer, Paris, France
It looks like Montelena is the bargain now....
Matt, USA
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