EVERY Spring the world’s top wine tasters, négociants, merchants and oenophiles flock to Bordeaux for the ‘En Primeur’ Tastings. The finest clarets of the previous vintage year from Bordeaux’ exceptional 200 – 300 châteaux are sampled, judged, priced and offered to buy as Futures.
France’s lockdown response to Covid has seen the Bordeaux ‘En Primeur’ Tastings Festival suspended, with doubt about what next to do.
Around 5000 leading experts were set for this year’s ritual from 3o March to 2 April in the world’s wine capital, Bordeaux, to be the first to taste the 2019 vintage from the barrel, destined for bottling and sale two years hence. Uniquely the privileged ‘En Primeur’ élite can place Futures orders there and then at whatever price a producer accepts.
This allows for a huge secondary wine market before the 2019 vintage is bottled ready to reach the market. Fortunes can be made and lost.
The predictions for the 2019 vintage were upbeat, given the success of 2018. Previous top vintages were 2012 and 2011. Worries about China’s thirst for fine wine traditionally sourced via Hong Kong were already troubling the wine world, alongside a US tariff of 25% on imported French wine.
If you’ve got the buying clout and the reputation, there’s nothing stopping top buyers sourcing direct from producers – but any such deals done during Covid will be done ‘blind’ without tastings. The 2019 wine vintage promises to be fascinating. It might just prove profitable due to Covid alone even if it tastes awful.