Tuesday, 29 September 2009

The rise and rise of Carruades

Posted by Tom Jenkins, Bordeaux Buyer

If you analyse the top investment wines over the last five years, there's no doubting that there have been some meteoric risers - none more so than Carruades de Lafite. To put it in context, Carruades has outperformed Gold and any of the major world indices over this time period. The Lafite brand is the darling of the newer and increasingly important parts of the Asian market and the insatiable demand has driven prices to extraordinary levels. Only a year or so ago we surmised that Carruades had hit the ceiling at £1000/case. How wrong we were; now most vintages trade at circa £2000/case.

So to be very tabloid and vulgar about it, what does £2000 buy you. Well it probably doesn't even fill the tank on the latest luxury yacht, or pay a premiership footballer's salary for a day, but it can buy you a case of Mouton Rothschild 2002 or 2004 and there'd still be change for dinner at one of London's Michelin starred restaurants. Alternatively, and rather extraordinarily, you could buy over seven cases of the wonderful 2008 Grand Puy Lacoste, one of our star Pauillac buys from the acclaimed 2008 vintage.

It has never been our position to dictate what represents value to our clients. After all, we are all individuals and we each assign a different worth to nearly everything we buy; we merely select and point out wines based on our tastings. But if you purchased Carruades with the intention of drinking, you might like, given the astronomical prices, to reconsider your position. If you are a stockholder or simply a follower of the fine wine market, you may be interested to see our purchase prices listed below:

Carruades de Lafite 1996 - 1800GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 1998 - 1620GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 1999 - 1620GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2000 - 1890GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2001 - 1710GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2002 - 1620GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2003 - 1620GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2004 - 1755GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2005 - 1485GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2006 - 1350GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2007 - 990GBP/cs
Carruades de Lafite 2008 - 1035GBP/cs

Should you wish to sell, please don't hesitate to contact our broking team on 020 7484 6408 or contact
jacqueline.barfoot@justerinis.com