Reviewing Bordeaux 2012

Two years back during the Bordeaux 2012 en primeur campaign a friend asked if I thought that it was worth buying into the futures, noting that the pricing seemed reasonable. My reply was that there was better value to be found elsewhere, and that prices only looked reasonable because they went up so high for the 2009 and 2010 vintages. Since then, prices for most wines from this vintage have either been stable or drifted lower. A notable exception is Château Angélus, and this can be explained by its promotion to Premier Grand Cru Classé “A” in September 2012, a perch on which only three other St-Émilion châteaux roost.

Do Second Wines Merit a Second Look?

At a recent dinner, I overheard two friends having a discussion. The first was lamenting that a product made by the company where friend #2 worked had continued to rise in price even though the raw material cost had been dropping. To which the second friend replied that the first law of economics was that supply and demand determine the price of a product, not its production cost.