Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Yes, the sale of Carruades is a no-brainer at $200-$300 per -- ten times what I paid, but Lafite is approaching that excessively priced level too -- should I sell it? The 1988 Lafite Mag I bought for $150 in early 90's is probably worth $2,000 now?! -- that's a LOT of 1989 Angelus, which is probably a better wine(?). Such a dilemma. Who's selling or sold . . . who's holding and why?



--Gary Rust

Yeah, I've got a mixed case sitting at the bottom of a stack of cases:

1996 (5 bottles)
1998 (1 bottle)
2001 (1 bottle)
2002 (3 bottles)
2004 (2 bottles)

I may drink them in the future but I'm sure they'll still be valuable ten or twenty years from now if I decide to sell them.

I sold a 750 of 1988 Lafite about 6 months ago. This is a good time to unload.

Gary,

The 1988 Lafite is a very nice wine but if you can get serious money for it that might be the way to go . A lot of options with $1500 or $2000 to play with. I have very little Lafite - never one of my favorite producers.

Chris Bublitz

sold my '00 recently 3x's what I paid for it.
My '03 mag may follow suit.

Lafite is one of my favorites and I have never sold a bottle of wine, but the incredible prices are making me reconsider. There is a bid on WineBid of $720 for the 2002 Lafite, which I bought for just over $100. If this wine goes over $1000 at auction, I think I will sell.

I live in a small town of 100,000 people -- that's on a good day! -- on an island off the east coast of Canada (so far east, in fact, it makes Maine seem "out west", and England is little more than 4 hours away). And this is the largest "city" in the province by far (lot's of communities here number in the 100s). Yet, and to the credit of the provincial liquor board, most classified Bordeaux is available here; albeit at very inflated prices. All first and second growths and lots of 3rd-5ths are here. And because Newfoundland hasn't been a wealthy place (I say hasn't been because the oil now being pumped off our coast is changing things), a lot of older vintages of Lafite, Latour, etc have been available here long after wine stores in more affluent places have long run out of their supplies. However, and this is really annoying, all the Lafite product has disappeared -- all of it. All the "left over" bottles from the 80s and 90s have all gone. Not a single bottle of any vintage of Carruades can be found on the shelves of any of the stores. There are only 6 bottle of the '06 vintage of Duhart Milon left on the island, and none of any other (correction, I have discovered that one store has a single bottle of 2000!). After doing a little detective work I discovered that earlier in the year a jet from China landed in our airport. They visited the largest liquor store in the city and bought every bottle of every vintage of lafite that was in that store. When they discovered that other stores in the province also had a variety of lafite products, they arranged to have every bottle shipped to China!! This really annoys me. We in Canada are completely at the mercy of government run liquor/wine stores There is no free market here where alcohol is concerned. So there has been a kind of silent pact between government and consumer. They bring in all sorts of wines, even stuff that sells very little, and we pay their over-inflated prices. If there were other outlets available to us, this wouldn't matter. But in selling these stocks off to China, they have, in my view, violated this unspoken agreement whereby they make these wines available even if they don't sell well or quickly. What disturbs me even more is that this foreign sell-off seems to be extending to other wines. Only a couple of months ago I could find Grange at nearly every store in the city, and vintages stretching back to '97. All Grange is gone now. There remains only a few bottles of the most recent release. In my detective work, I've discovered that they're shipping the wines out through one particular store in one particular small town (called Long Pond). My most recent discovery is that all Latour products are disappearing from the stores, and are all ending up in that Long Pond store. Which makes me wonder, is Latour the next Chinese craze?!

Bacchus - can you have wine shipped to you in Newfoundland from other Canadian provinces?

Not legally, DavidG. The provinces are greedy so don't allow alcohol to cross provincial lines. If I were to buy from Ontario, that would cut into the profit that would otherwise go to Newfoundland -- at least I think that's the reasoning! It's certainly not a good situation for the consumer.

I sympathize, Bacchus. The laws are a crazy-quilt patchwork in the US. It's a felony to ship wine into my home state of Maryland. I've known people who've rented mailboxes in Virginia or West Virginia to have wine shipped to them. The state legislature is unlikely to "free the grapes" because of distributor pressure, and a number of state lawmakers or their are said to have a financial interest in the business.

By the way, as an FYI, the auction price for 2000 Carruades is now north of $400 btl!!!. 2005 is easliy $250 and higher. If anyone is choosing to hang on to theirs I'd think twice. That means you could sell a bottle of 2000 Carruades and easily turn it into a bottle of 2000 Leoville Las Cases or maybe even 2000 La Mission.

I saw a case of '05 Carruades at Costco for around $50 per bottle a couple of years ago, but it is such a hassle to resell and transport wine legally where I live (and I was not interested in buying for consumption) that I passed it up.

Costco made a huge effort to deregulate the shipping/transport/distribution process to a public vote here through a public initiative process (they collected enough signatures within their stores within 2 weeks to put the issue on the ballot), but lost the vote due to heavy (and clever) campaign advertising by the distributors.

Guys
I have sold off ALL my Lafite except the 2002 vintage.
So that includes clearing out my 1975, 76, 81, 83, 88, 89, 90, 2000 plus various Carraudes as well.
Sorry but if Chinese arbitragers want them that much they can have them.

I'm drinking a very nice Marques de Riscal Rioja Riserva 05 now.
Very nice...
About $US25. Wow.

As I have never purchased wines with the intention of reselling them, what have you found to be the best method to sell your wines, i.e., least hassle, max. price? I have a full case of 2000 Carruades in the wood case and at these prices I may just consider selling.

Thanks, Tom

First, I freely admit that a few times in the past I have bought wines that I thought I could flip for a few extra bucks to help offset the high cost of other wines that I enjoy. I never looked upon selling wines to make money but to lower my overall cost since I'm not of unlimited means.

Carruades presents a unique situation because most of us bought it for around $25-30 bottle with the opinion that it was a passable second wine and thought that it was worth $30. Despite the fact that it may be the second wine of lafite, what's inside the bottle is worth no more than $30 despite it's blood relative. It's a wine that I doubt most people would have an overwhelming affection for. The fact is the quality is dubious for a 2nd wine of a first growth, give me Duhart Milon anyday as an alternative.

I've been slowly unloading all of mine over the last year while the prices have just kept escalating to ever higher insane prices. Hopefully I'll be rid if it before the Chinese regain their sanity or the economy utterly colapses. At $400 a bottle my reply is " how many do you want?"

Gerry M. wrote:At $400 a bottle my reply is " how many do you want?"

Is it possible to open up an online shop to sell into the Chinese market? Maybe call it "1er krewe", something catchy like that, and accept orders on a "prearrival basis" and see what happens say over the next three years or so while waiting to source the wines?

Genius business model, Hound! Maybe we need such an outfit in the US!

I wouldn't be surprised if some people are "selling short" on a "pre-arrival" basis assuming the price will eventually come down.

No brainer. Sell what you want, Keep your favorites.

I have no such luxury.