A week into the campaign I am delighted to confirm that the 2014 vintage represents great buying opportunities for Bordeaux enthusiasts.
It has been a big week of releases with many offers each day. We now take a small break with just one offer today and a public holiday (one of many in May) in France tomorrow. With a small intermission it does give time to reflect upon the events of the first week.
I finished tasting the wines early in April in Bordeaux confident of the quality of the 2014 vintage. While these wines are not the ‘eternal’ cellaring propositions of the 2009 and 2010 vintages the quality is extremely good, pretty even across the board and will be exceptional short to medium cellaring propositions.
What remained to be seen was their value for money. With a good range of wines released right across the spectrum it is now possible to review pricing and it is now clear producers have been very restrained in their pricing to the point that this vintage will now be regarded as both very good and particularly affordable. Genuine bargains abound! Appropriately, given the state of the world economy and the fact 2014 is not a blockbuster vintage, right up to the First Growth level the wines are significantly lower in price than their counterparts from the 2009 and 2010 vintages.
Admittedly some Châteaux owners have put their prices up from the 2013 vintage, but it pays to review the offering back a little further than just comparing to last year. Remember, 2013 was one of the most challenging vintages in a long time in Bordeaux. That’s not to say there were not good wines last year, there were, but only from those who selected severely and dramatically culled the on the picking table. We did offer 2013 En Primeur, I tasted this vintage En Primeur as well. Our 2013 offer was the smallest in breadth ever with only those good wines offered.
To summarise, the 2014 wines are very good, offering claret lovers some great bargains and it is not a vintage where either bank shines dramatically over the other, although the left was a little stronger. They will have high quality short to medium term cellaring potential offering great enjoyment at very very reasonable prices. Worldwide, after only a few weeks into the campaign, the market has recognised this so don’t put off your decision making. And brace yourselves, next week will see a flurry of releases!
