Lees ik net op decanter.com :
Chateau Angelus – one of the top wines of St Emilion – is the first to release its price on the 2008 vintage, at €50 a bottle.
This is the first wine to be released, a good three weeks earlier than normal. Indeed, in a Vinexpo year it is not unusual for chateaux to wait until the massive trade fair in June before announcing their prices.
This price is 40% lower than 2007, which owner Hubert de Bouard released at €85, and which is now selling for around £95 a bottle on the open market.
It is the same price as the 2004, which de Bouard has repeatedly said is the ‘natural’ en primeur price.
The price of the 08 means that Angelus will be asking customers to buy a better vintage than last year's, for less.
Over the last week many commentators – includind Jean-Guillaume Prats at Cos d'Estournel - have said this will destroy any market that might exist for the sluggish 07s.
De Bouard is sanguine, stressing that his position has always been that you cannot make one vintage dependent on another.
'I could set the price of the 2008 to protect those who had bought the 2007, but I would be sure not to sell anything. It may be tough for those who own 07s, but to link the position of two vintages is never a good thing.'
His view is straightforward: you have to bring customers back and for that you need ‘price adaptation. Customers were happy with the price and the quality of the 2004.’
En ook :
Bordeaux 2008: Cos d'Estournel price likely to be ‘close’ to 2007
Almost alone among the top properties in Bordeaux, there is a strong likelihood that Cos d'Estournel will come out at the same price as last year.
The first growths are adamant that they will make reductions – substantial or otherwise – on the price of the 2007s.
But Jean Guillaume Prats at Cos – the St-Estephe second growth – told decanter.com this morning that of all the options open to him, a major reduction in price was the least attractive.
The best course, he suggested, would be ‘to release very very little wine at a price close to the 2007s.’
If he took that course he would waive the allocation system, by which the top chateaux dole out wines according to how loyal a purchaser the client has been. ‘The next great vintage would be allocated according to the purchase of the 2007.’
Stressing that this was ‘only one option’, Prats went on to make his case, demolishing other arguments along the way.
The first growths indeed had a huge responsibility this year, he said, but to reduce to €100 or €130 a bottle when last year the price was over €200 (this is an unstoppable rumour in Bordeaux this week, and no major proprietor has definitely denied it) would be catastrophic.
'Yes, many people who have been unable to buy first growths would come back into the market,' he said. But to price a very good vintage at so much less than previous, lesser vintages, ‘would seriously anger their other clients’ by implying they had been paying over the odds since 2005.
At the same time it would devalue all stocks of 2007 and 2006, betraying all those who still had considerable inventory of those vintages. ‘They would suffer quite a lot.’
'If I was a first growth I would not downgrade the price. I would keep the same price and invite my clients to buy.'
The implication was, he said, that he would sell some 5% of the vintage.
Last year, Cos was released at around €60 a bottle.