In fact, demand is skyrocketing: A case of the 2008 vintage was already selling for the handsome price of £8,500 (which is $13,420 US). Following the proclamation about the new embellishment on the bottles, however, cases jumped 20% and were selling for £10,160 ($16,040 US) in a single afternoon of trading. Simon Staples, the sales director at Berry Bros and Rudd, was quoted as saying “It’s gone bonkers; we sold 75 cases this morning…we literally cannot buy any more of it.”

The Lafite 2008 experienced something similar in April of 2009 when Robert Parker gave the wine a score of 98-100. Cases were selling for £2,000 ($3,160 US) prior to his announcement. Afterwards, the price for a case shot up to £3,500 ($5,530 US) and also sparked a buying frenzy.

For a wine that sold en primeur for £1,950 ($3,080 US) per case just 18 months ago to now be selling for over £10,000 (nearly $16,000 US) per case is simply incredible. The managing director for Farr Vintners, Stephen Browett, indicates that “almost everyone who buys it is Chinese or an investor planning to sell it to China, once it becomes physically available in the New Year.” It is thought that the addition of the Chinese symbol will make the bottle the ultimate gift to both give and receive among Chinese elites.

In the rush to find a safer alternative asset class, it is wise to consider the following points before you place your hard earned funds:

Not all wines appreciate in value. Only the top wines of each vintage can yield good returns. Bordeaux wines make up more than 70 percent of the fine wines market.
Consider the wine’s rating/score. A high rating/score from influential wine critics, such as Mr. Robert Parker or Ms. Jancis Robinson, could create a demand for that vintage with the inevitable rise in prices.

Keep an eye on price trends. In general fine wine prices rise but some wines do see a fall in demand. In a given vintage, different labels could see a different rate of price increase. For instance, a 2005 Lafite may appreciate at a different rate from a 2005 Mouton. Even within a label, demand will vary. For instance, demand for a 2005 Lafite is greater than the demand for a 2007 Lafite. The fine wine investment market consists mostly of Bordeaux vintages which have, over time, earned their reputation as quality wines that improve with age. Ensure that you only select the best Bordeaux from the best vintages.

Beware of fake wines! Experts believe that around 5 percent of the fine wines available are just plonk in original bottles. Buying from a reputed distributor could save you a lot of trouble.

The 2005 vintage, frequently heralded as the vintage of a lifetime, yielded an astonishing 27 wines that received a 100 point rating. No other vintage has done as well, before or since.

The next best vintages were the 1990 and the 2000, both with an impressive 21 wines that scored a ‘perfect’ 100. The 2001 and 2003 vintages included 18 and 17 ‘perfect’ wines, respectively. In fact, the first five years of the 21st Century have been quite bountiful in terms of 100 point wines, with 2002 producing 12 and 2004 producing 9. 2006 was a less remarkable year, with only 4 wines achieving the prized rating. And as of yet, none of the wines from the 2007 or 2008 vintages have a ‘perfect’ score.
Furthermore, most of the years of the 20th Century, with the exception of the 1990 and 1998, did not produce 100 point wines. Even the 1986 vintage, touted as an excellent one, had only 2 wines that were scored as ‘perfect’ – several years passed without a single 100 point wine.

It is no coincidence that these vintage wines command fabulous prices. You can expect to pay over £47,000 for a Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes 1811 vintage. Another Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes, the 1947 vintage, can be found for a little under £39,000. Furthermore, of the top ten most expensive ‘perfect’ wines, as many as seven come from the stable of Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes.

While there are expensive wines that are not necessarily ‘perfect’ ones, there is no 100 point wine that is inexpensive – if you are going to invest in wines, these would make prudent selections for a high-end portfolio.

Liv-ex
This Fine Wine Exchange is the leading market place for a network of fine wine investment professionals around the world. An electronic trading platform which provides excellent access to a trusted source of financial information about the wine market, it can also offer non-professionals various packages of information. It can be used by both wine merchants and professional traders or those who just want to keep track of the value of their cellar.

Decanter Magazine
Online version of noted British wine magazine that contains everything you need to know about good wine. It includes a database of over 20,000 wines from around the world, a ‘learn about wine’ tool with and all the information you need to know about wine courses, a wine auction price tracker, the ultimate guide to vintage wines and a wine forum.

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
This is the Independent Consumer’s Guide to Fine Wines by the most influential wine critic in the world. You can explore a database of over 135,000 wine tasting notes and read reviews and articles by some of the world’s top wine experts. ‘My Wines’ launching later this year will provide a unique set of tools for acquiring wine, managing a wine cellar and interacting with a community of wine lovers from around the world.

Vinotheque Ltd
A massively constructed 19th century grade II listed industrial building in Burton-upon-Trent houses the Vinotheque wine cellars. It offers the perfect environment for the long term cellarage of fine and maturing wine. London City Bond’s market leading systems have been extended to enable Vinotheque’s 4,500+ private customers to have full visibility of their stock over the internet at all times, as well as giving the ability to make and monitor orders online too.

Wine Spectator Magazine
The definitive wine magazine for wine connoisseurs containing just about everything you ever wanted to know about wine. With full access to a 218,000 strong wine rating database, all the latest news and tasting reports and learning everything about wine from tasting like a pro to buying strategies to storing and serving. And for the wine collectors, search an auction database, which tracks prices and performance for more than 12,000 of the world’s most collectable and cellar-worthy wines.

Wine Library TV
WLTV is a fully-fledged community run by fine wine and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk. The viewers (self-named “Vayniacs”) convene on an extremely active forum, and have organized numerous off-line gatherings. He has up to 80,000 visitors a day. Gary and the viewers have teamed up with Crushpad in the past year to create the first ever community wine, Vayniac Cabernet.

Zachys Wine Auctions
Zachys is a purveyor of fine and rare wines with an ever-expanding worldwide auction market. As well as an auction division, (hosting 9 or 10 auctions a year worldwide) it also hosts an online retail store and has become the nation’s largest and most powerful retailer of fine Bordeaux. It also offers a private storage service. Its website offers thousands of selections of wine complete with label images and tasting notes and an inventory system that updates constantly.

Christie’s
The world’s leading art business offers fine wine auctions featuring vintage port and rare collections of bottles in parcels in which you can view, register and bid for online.

Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s wine department offers both auction and private sales specialising in offering the finest wine cellars in the world. Auctions are held in London, New York and Hong Kong featuring fine and rare wines for both current drinking and cellaring. If you are nterested in selling your wine, a detailed evaluation of your entire collection will be provided, along with a proposal of how to maximize the value of your wines and complimentary storage until sale. They also offer cellar management, recommendations on wines for investment and for current drinking.

Bonhams
Bonhams fine and rare wine specialises in auctions, valuations and appraisals of fine wine. Seven fine wine auctions are held during the year at New Bond Street in London, alongside a number of tutored tastings and events. The website offers online valuations for those thinking of selling, information on forthcoming auction sales and all the latest news and announcements within the wine industry.

Wine Anorak
This online wine magazine is a consumer-focused site giving reliable, interesting wine content, including buying advice, tasting notes, wine travel and featured articles. This site is by wine writer Jamie Goode and is designed to appeal to wine novices as well as long-term wine nuts. It has reviews and articles as well as a blog of vinous interest.

Jancis Robinson
World-renowned wine authority and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson delivers her tasting notes, wine news, intelligent and courteous members’ forum, and fine wine writing aplenty plus exclusive unlimited access to the world’s only online versions of the award-winning classic Oxford Companion to Wine and the sensationally detailed maps of the World Atlas of Wine.

Wine Pages
Online UK wine magazine which includes fine wine tasting notes, recommendations, articles on major wine producing areas, wine sites, visiting wine regions, wine appreciation course and quiz. It provides a very useful round-up of the week’s reviews from the weekend’s papers and some excellent contributors.

The Wine Doctor
Chris Kissack’s medically oriented wine site that includes independent opinions, recommendations, advice and restaurant reviews. The wine advisory tool is a resource packed with information and advice, aimed especially at the beginner, although there should be something of interest to everyone. Most sections concern storing, opening, serving and tasting wine. There is also advice on reading wine labels, as well as one or two articles on winemaking and other technical aspects, also an insight into the beneficial effects of wine on health.

Wine Searcher
This is the world’s number one search engine of wine stores, winery, and wine auction, price lists and catalogues. Up-to-date, with 4,025,433 offers from the price lists of 14,872 wine merchants, all refreshed (on average) three times a week. The site also offers a wealth of information about wine, whether you are a merchant, winery, connoisseur, a consumer, investor, or a wine marketing company.

The Wine Education Service
A specialist wine education company with qualified staff that provide wine courses and tastings in the UK to suit all levels of knowledge and experience, they also offer wine holidays.

Robin Garr’s Wine Lovers’ Page
This is the oldest, largest and most popular independent wine-appreciation site on the worldwide web. It focuses on wine education, value priced wines and wine-food combinations and includes tasting notes archives and active forums with worldwide participation.

Wine Topix
A wine community that helps people learn about wine whether a beginner or an experienced wine enthusiast. From wine tasting to buying wine and from reading wine labels to wine collecting. Comments and/or participation are welcomed in wine discussions within the forum.

Ebacchus
Unbiased wine ratings, reviews, tasting notes, wine labels, and information.

Arblaster and Clarke Wine Tours
Wine tours specialists with 22 years of experience. They offer the widest range of Wine Tours available, including their famous and original Champagne Weekends, a range of Wine Tours in the major vineyard regions of Europe, plus superb wine touring in the New World (destinations for 2010 are California, South Africa, New Zealand and South America for Chile, Argentina and Uruguay). All guided by some of the world’s wine experts

In sharp contrast to the gloom that prevailed in May (mainly brought about by hailstorms that caused extensive damage) many Bordeaux wine producers are actually excited about the 2009 vintage. They expect it to match, if not better, the 2005 vintage, till now trumpeted as the vintage of the century.

The excellent weather the region experienced in July and August has ensured that there would be a larger yield and healthier grapes with around 13% higher alcohol potential. However, whether the vintage will be truly exceptional or not, will depend on September’s weather.

While the French agricultural ministry believes the harvest will be at least one-third more than that of 2008, the average yield is expected to be around 35 to 40 hectolitres per hectare, in spite of the losses sustained in the hailstorm damage. At the moment it does look like Bordeaux will have a very good harvest.

Wine investors and oenophiles alike will be eagerly watching the harvest, hoping the hype that surrounds the vintage is no exaggeration.

With the Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine Index in September 2009 showing year to date increase of 12.2%, a good harvest could see the value of the index continue to rise. There are already rumours circulating that the recession may be over, so there could also be a return to the dramatic pricing that was seen with the 2005 en primeur. There is even hope that an excellent 2009 vintage will boost the prices of the 2008 vintage, which have already been rated very highly by American wine critic Robert Parker, who feels that the best of Bordeaux is yet to come.

Why would anyone want to pay £12,000 for a single bottle of wine?

For one thing the wine (produced in 1945 at the end of the Second World War) is, despite its age, drinking well; which is one reason why it is so expensive. Another is that the world’s pre-eminent wine critic Robert Parker rates the 1945 Mouton Rothschild as “truly one of the immortal wines of the century.” And as we all know – his opinion matters.

Another reason is that Mouton Rothschild is one of the top five wines recommended by most fine wine investment advisors who choose from among first growth from the Bordeaux region. This wine also has the Pauillac appellation, which is arguably the most attractive appellation within Bordeaux. Pauillac wines have a lot of body, tannin and acid when young and as they age they develop a rich bouquet with the aromas of blackcurrant and cedar.

Why are Bordeaux wines among the world’s most sought-after? This region is the second largest wine-growing region in the world with a little over 287,000 acres under vine cultivation. Two major reasons for the success of Bordeaux as a wine making region is its location (midway between the North Pole and the Equator) and its soil structure (mostly a limestone foundation, so the soil structure is rich in calcium). The region is also well irrigated by the Gironde. Bordeaux also has a rich wine-making history, with vineyards in existence as early as the 12th Century.

The combination of grape-growing and wine making know-how has developed over the centuries and, even today, some of the best wines in the world come from this part of the world. In fact, Bordeaux is synonymous with excellent wine.

Bordeaux wines have had competition from other regions in France as well as other wine-growing parts of the world including the U.S., South Africa, Chile, Australia and New Zealand. However, if you are looking for a top class wine, either for drinking or for investment (or for both), you generally can’t do better than top-rated Bordeaux.

This explains why those Massachusetts thieves targeted the 1945 Mouton Rothschild.

Provenance Fine Wines has come to expect somewhat controversial ratings from the fiercely independent critic but Parker deemed 2008 as ‘a notch below 2005, but it is better than any other vintage of the last decade except 2000.’ As a result, certain wines have seen huge increases in price, putting the entire en primeur campaign in jeopardy.

After continuous bad weather and set-backs in the vineyards had lead to widespread doubt over the quality of the 2008 vintage, many of the wines had exceeded critical expectation. Furthermore, many chateaux dropped their prices in a visible move to encourage drinkers back into the market. The whole campaign relied upon this sensible pricing strategy and it’s unfortunate that Parker released his sensational review. Parker raved about the 2003 vintage while most critics were left cold; he was initially underwhelmed by the now infamous 2005 vintage, and his latest critical offering seems to fly in the face of what can loosely be called the overall consensus of the 2008 vintage.

Here is a summary Parker’s notes:

Source: www.erobertparker.com

Several chateaux are yet to release their prices so let’s hope they price to the market rather than to the review of one critic. As Simon Staples, Berry Bros’ sales and marketing director remarks, we ‘can only hope the properties yet to release their wines prices will continue in the same, sane way their peers had done.’

However, it is exciting nonetheless to be see opinions begin to unfold…

Liv-ex (The London International Vintners Exchange) have published the results of their 2008 Bordeaux En Primeur Survey, which prove extremely interesting – especially when considered against the views of those major critics whose judgements are already known.

Robert Parker of course has (at the time of writing) not yet given his own verdict, but James Suckling of Wine Spectator, Jancis Robinson MW, the magazine Decanter and the Parker affiliate Neal Martin have, and it would appear that – a few exceptions aside – consensus is not a word that can easily be used.

First things first, the results of the survey taken amongst the Liv-ex membership look like this:

1. Lafite
2. Latour
3. Ausone
=4. Cheval Blanc
=4. Mouton Rothschild
6. Haut Brion
7. Lafleur
8. Le Pin
9. Leoville Las Cases
=10. Palmer
=10. Petrus

But the ratings of the other major critics differ widely. The top wines of each of the others are as follows (where more than one is noted they are scored equally highly):

Decanter did rate Ausone in their second placing and Neal Martin in his third, so according to the Liv-ex “survey of surveys” it would appear that Ausone is indeed by a loose (and certainly not unanimous) consensus the wine of the vintage.

And although Latour would appear the second most highly regarded wine, the fact that James Suckling rated it only joint ninth and Neal Martin did not feature it at all in his top ten means that it only comes in – as the highest first growth – at fourth overall.

So everyone here at Provenance Fine Wines can’t wait for Parker to release his scores, if only to see how he may somehow mettre le loup dans la bergerie…