Risk of unsold wine for Bordeaux 2009

Published: 10 June, 2010

The 2009 Bordeaux en primeur campaign is "on a knife edge", it has been claimed - and there is a real risk that producers will be left with unsold wine.

That's the warning from Liv-Ex, the fine wine index, which believes "there is a very real danger that Bordeaux has overestimated demand in what remains an exceptionally challenging economic environment".

Release prices are higher than expected, it reports, up 20% on the 2005 prices in euro terms and 40% in sterling. "Either the 2009s are massively overpriced, or the 2005s and 2000s are currently far too cheap," it said.

"The volume of stock offered from Bordeaux has been low, with many merchants struggling for the allocations they would usually receive.

"It seems that no more than 10 of the releases we have had so far have been real successes and completely sold through. A repeat of the 2005 campaign - which saw collectors buy on an unprecedented scale - this is not."

Liv-Ex believes producers may have overestimated demand from Asia, partly because wines that are available for drinking now are on the market for less money than the 2009s.

"Will we see merchants left holding significant amounts of stock? This is understandable in a poor vintage such as 2007, but would be disastrous in what is supposed to be one of greatest vintages in history," it said.

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