Bordeaux 2015: Buying En Primeur
Further down the page is a brief guide to the concept and process of buying wine en primeur, for those new to the idea, as well as some hints and tips on how to avoid en primeur pitfalls (in other words, how to avoid losing your money). First, however, I have some advice of a different kind.
When I started buying Bordeaux for drinking, many years ago, the basic concept was perfect. Buyers handed over money, little more than an unsecured loan in exchange for wine to be delivered two years later, but the advantage to consumers was that you obtained the best price, while the châteaux improved their cash flow. The acceptable disadvantages to the consumer included the unfinished nature of the wines, their ‘value’ therefore an unknown quantity, and the buyer had to be guided by critics’ scores (there is also an unacceptable risk, that you lose you money when a business in the supply chain goes bust in that two-year period). The acceptable disadvantage to the châteaux was that they although they raked in some profit at this time, it was perhaps less than they could have achieved had they sold later.
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