Anson: March releases through the Place de Bordeaux

As the Place de Bordeaux continues to expand, we are now seeing releases of international wines in March as well as September, alongside older vintage releases of key Bordeaux estates.

This year, releases include Ornellaia 2018 (technically due 1 April), Luce Brunello di Montalcino 2016, and Promontory 2015. Also released this month, with a tasting note included below is Sassicaia 2018, although it will not be being sold through the Place.

From Bordeaux itself, releases include Château Léoville Las Cases 2001 and 1995 (released as part of a special edition case), and the first-time release of Latour 2013, Les Forts 2015 and Pauillac de Latour 2016, all tasted here.

Scroll down for Jane’s tasting notes and scores for the Place de Bordeaux March releases

The timing is helped perhaps by the delayed en primeur season that is now taking place towards the end of April, but it’s also a sign of what is clearly a growing market.

Place de Bordeaux: A growing hub for releases

Jean-Quentin Prats, director of Joanne Rare Wines, a startup business within an existing négociant that is dedicated to growing this section of the Bordeaux industry, sees this category going one way.

‘The great wines of the world are no longer specifically linked to one region, and this is a trend that isn’t going away,’ he says.

‘The Place de Bordeaux has serious assets in terms of providing solutions to both wine importers and to wine estates, not least centralising logistics to collect the great wines of the world from one single point with assured provenance and traceability.

‘The Place de Bordeaux probably has access to around 10,000 clients globally when you take into account all the routes to market across merchant houses. It is simply impossible to recreate that elsewhere.’

Yet it ‘remains a business-to-business activity’, he is quick to add, showing all the diplomacy of his trade.

‘Our expertise is not selling to consumers – and we continue to specialise in direct allocations for the first release of the wine, not trading it afterwards.’

To date the focus has been mainly on wines from outside of France – South America, Italy, California, South Africa and Australia, but there is surely the potential for other French wine regions to join, notably Champagne and the Rhône (which already has one or two names in the system).

I have heard some négociants extremely bullish about the future, even suggesting that in five years a full 50% of wines sold through Bordeaux will be from outside of the region. One to watch for sure.

Latour 2013 release

The headline of this tasting, however, is the release of Château Latour 2013, only the second vintage of the grand vin that the estate has put on the market since it left the en primeur system after the 2011 vintage.

The timing, in March, follows the schedule originally planned in 2020 for the 2012 vintage, but the general chaos of France going into Coronavirus lockdown 12 months ago meant last year’s release was delayed until May.

Latour 2012 was priced at £350 per bottle in the UK market, making it among the most affordable Latour grand vin available, and was extremely well received.

Whether that will be true also for the 2013 remains to be seen.

The Château is releasing at the same time the highly acclaimed 2015 Forts de Latour and the 2016 Pauillac de Latour – both from superlative vintages, and on my tasting this week both fantastic examples of why these years enjoy such acclaim.

So how is the 2013 looking alongside them? Well, as I say in the tasting note, there is real pleasure in finding a Château Latour that doesn’t have to be cellared for decades after release.

We are used to complaining that Bordeaux vintages are getting too similar, and then along comes a year like 2013 that blows that theory apart – and yet still manages to deliver nuance and complexity.

When I tasted the 2013s during en primeur back in April 2014, Latour and Mouton Rothschild got my highest marks (94 for both of them), and it has delivered close to that estimate here.

I have put it down to 93, because this is clearly a Latour to drink, not to hold. But it is one that is full of finesse, and I continue to think that it stands out as one of the wines of the Bordeaux 2013 vintage.

See Jane’s tasting notes and scores for the Place de Bordeaux March releases

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