Château Palmer 2019 was released this morning at €161 per bottle ex-Bordeaux. That is down by 33% on the 2018 release price, according to Liv-ex.
Decanter’s Jane Anson is one of the only critics to have tasted Palmer 2019 so far, and she rated it 98 points, just one point below the Margaux appellation estate’s 2018 first wine.
‘The Palmer signature of energy and precision is here in spades, and altogether the wine is both measured and elegant, with textbook floral Margaux character,’ Anson said.
UK merchants Fine & Rare and Millesima were offering Palmer 2019 at £999 for six bottles in bond this morning, with Millesima promising delivery ‘by early 2022’. Justerini & Brooks was offering six bottles for £1,000 IB, and listed Palmer 2018 as sold out.
Palmer is one of the first major châteaux to enter this year’s Bordeaux en primeur campaign, and it follows the release of Pontet-Canet 2019 last week.
Yields returned to more normal levels at Palmer in 2019, up to around 45 hectolitres per hectare, which means there is more of the first wine to go around. In 2018, the biodynamic third growth said yields dropped to just 11hl/ha.
However, not all of the wine is released en primeur.
Thomas Duroux, CEO of Château Palmer, told Decanter.com today, ‘Since the 2010 vintage, we sell more or less 50% of Château Palmer en primeur. That is exactly what we did this morning.’
On the drop in release price versus 2018, Duroux added, ‘2019 is a really fantastic vintage, but of course the world is not the same as it was last year.’
Liv-ex data showed that Palmer 2019 had entered the market below the prices of the widely lauded vintages of 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2016, in sterling currency. It was also cheaper than the 2018 wine, but it was more expensive that several other vintages.
Palmer’s second wine, Alter Ego 2019, was being sold for the equivalent of £540 per 12-bottle case IB.
Also released today was Château Cantemerle 2019, at €16.8 per bottle ex-Bordeaux, which Liv-ex said was a discount of almost 18% on the 2018 release price.
This article was updated at 14:55 UK time on 2 June to include extra comments from Thomas Duroux.
