Customers who bought Bordeaux 2005 en primeur from collapsed wine merchant the Cellaret, still do not know whether they will get their wine.

Ownership of the wines may be disputed as the Cellaret’s two secured creditors – Euro Sales Finance and General Capital Venture Finance – may claim that the en primeur orders are part of the company’s assets.

‘We are getting advice from our solicitors over who has title to these wines,” Lisa Jenkins, the liquidator at the Macdonald Partnership, told decanter.com.

Jenkins also said ‘a lot’ of the money paid by customers to Cellaret had been passed onto the Bordeaux négociants which supplied the wine. She could not be more specific than that.

Previously Ray Dutton, CEO of the Cellaret had assured decanter.com that wines bought en primeur were safe.

The company went into liquidation on 29 May with a deficiency of £550,000 owed to some 60 creditors. This does not include en primeur sales. It is uncertain how much en primeur wine was sold by the Cellaret previous to the collapse.

Written by Jim Budd

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Jim Budd
Jim Budd
Decanter Magazine, Wine Writer & Photographer

Jim Budd moved from education to wine in 1988 and has written for Decanter since 1989. He is the former editor (1991-2015) of Circle Update, the newsletter of the Circle of Wine Writers.  He writes the award-winning www.jimsloire.blogspot.com and is one of the five members of the Les 5 du Vin blog. Budd exposes the dangers of drinks investment on his award-winning www.investdrinks.org website, and complementary www.investdrinks-blog.blogspot.com blog. He also contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, Wine Behind the Label and the Academie du Vin. Budd is a keen photographer – especially in the Loire.