Vintage Lafite to Boost $963,000 Sale as Bordeaux Prices Surge
Chateau Lafite 1989
Sotheby's via Bloomberg
A bottle of Chateau Lafite 1989 Bordeaux. The wine is part of an auction taking place at Sotheby's in London on June 16.
A bottle of Chateau Lafite 1989 Bordeaux. The wine is part of an auction taking place at Sotheby's in London on June 16. Source: Sotheby's via Bloomberg
La Tache 1978 Burgundy
Three bottles of La Tache 1978 Burgundy. The wine is included in an auction at Sotheby's in London on June 16. Sotheby's via Bloomberg
Three bottles of La Tache 1978 Burgundy. The wine is included in an auction at Sotheby's in London on June 16. Sotheby's via Bloomberg
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild wines will lead an auction that may raise 650,000 pounds ($963,000) today as prices surge for top Bordeaux.
Buyers awaiting the release of the 2009 vintage have the choice of wines from the last 30 years at Sotheby’s in London. The Lafite may fetch as much as 34,000 pounds a case.
Top wines are recovering from a slump in the final quarter of 2008 when the banking crisis cut investors’ wealth and reduced demand. The Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine Index rose 4.4 percent in May, boosting it 23.8 percent since the start of 2010 and taking it to a record high. At the same time, Bordeaux producers are seeking increased prices for their 2009 vintage.
“Over the past five years wine prices have tripled,” said James Miles, a co-founder of the London-based Liv-ex wine exchange. “I don’t think it would do any harm to consolidate at these levels.”
The U.S.-based auction house is offering Lafite from the 1982 and 2000 vintages as well as wines dating from 1986, 1989, 1996, 1998 and 2002. The top price is for 1982s and drops to as low as 4,000 pounds for 1989s. Lafite is the largest of Bordeaux’s first-growth wine estates.
Sotheby’s estimates a 12-bottle case of 1982 Lafite offered duty-paid will fetch between 22,000 pounds and 34,000 pounds, while six magnums will sell for a similar amount. This Bordeaux vintage is rated among the top 15 of the last century by wine critic Michael Broadbent, a senior consultant to Christie’s International, along with years such as 1949 and 1961. Prices reflect growing rarity as stocks are drunk down.
Case Estimates
Estimates by Sotheby’s for 12-bottle cases from other Lafite vintages include 13,000 pounds to 17,000 pounds for two lots of 2000s and as much as 14,000 pounds for a similar case of the same year with slightly damp-soiled labels.
Lafite accounts for more than half of the anticipated top 20 lots in the auction. Other wines on sale include a 12-bottle case of La Tache 1978 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Burgundy estimated at as much as 40,000 pounds and a similar 11-bottle lot of La Tache estimated to fetch as much as 38,000 pounds.
Other lots include an imperial, or six liters, of 1988 La Tache; 12 bottles of Chateau Petrus from 1994 and three from 2000; 11 bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000; five bottles of Chateau Lafleur 1982 and a case each of Chateau Latour 1996 and Chateau Ausone 1998.
Christie’s Sale
At a Christie’s London auction on June 10, several cases of Lafite comparable to vintages on offer today sold for higher prices than the latest estimates, even taking account of the 15 percent buyer’s premium. The 2000 Lafite fetched 16,100 pounds including buyer’s premium, the 1996 11,270 pounds, the 1998 7,360 pounds, the 1989 6,555 pounds and the 2002 5,980 pounds.
While the auctions have focused on wines going back over the past 50 years, collectors’ attention has been turning to the release prices of the Bordeaux 2009 vintage.
Top chateaux are likely to announce prices by early July, and indications from rivals who have started selling are that the 2009s are priced at almost 20 percent above the record- breaking release levels for the 2005s, according to Liv-ex.
“The 2009s are coming out at very high prices,” Miles said. “That will take away fire power from buying the back vintages. Bordeaux has priced the wine to the absolute limit of what the market can bear.”
To contact the writer on the story: Guy Collins in London on guycollins@bloomberg.net
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