Given the way the past six months has panned out, it's either a wonder that anyone can afford to buy wine at all – or it's a miracle that we aren't all blundering through the year with bottle and glass permanently attached.
To say it has been a tough year is a risible understatement. As the year began, most wine people had plenty to worry about – tariff threats loomed like the sword of Damocles, the global economy was struggling to grow, wine sales were down in the world's largest market, oversupply was being furiously denied by Californian producers, and climate change worries were giving growers sleepless nights.
It couldn't get much worse, could it? Well, we all know the answer to that – Covid-19 has stomped through the world like an ogre in a kindergarten, taking swipes at human mortality, medical capacity and the world's already fragile economy. On one hand, it's a wonder anyone can be bothered about wine at all, given the more immediate challenges; on the other, it would drive a saint to the wine flask.
The past 12 months have seen some pretty intense pressure on prices for wines generally. Even "collectable" regions like Napa, Burgundy and Bordeaux have seen price rises slow down. The average price for Bordeaux blends from Napa, for example, rose by 28.75 percent from 2016 to 2018, across all wines on our database. For the period between 2018 to now, the average price rose by just 15 percent. Napa Cabernet average prices rose by 18.57 percent over the 2016-2018 period and by 13.4 percent since.
Bordeaux shows similar slowing growth, as does Champagne, where the average price of a bottle fell by 1.54 percent since 2018, after a rise of 4.8 percent across the previous two years.
Of course, these figures take into account all wines from a region but, as we have seen across this series of articles, growth hasn't been easy at the top end either. However, when it comes to the crème de la crème there appears to be still plenty of leeway, although the $20,000 a bottle average price mark seems curiously hard to break.
What's also hard is talking about the world's most expensive wines without the word "Burgundy" cropping up repeatedly. This year, 33 of the top 50 most expensive wines are from Burgundy; Mosel is the silver medallist with five.
For a region that produces effectively two types of wine, Burgundy's influence far exceeds its output, but that's part of the attraction: its top wines are so rare and so terroir-specific that they attract collectors and, consequently, the list of the world's most expensive becomes something of a victory parade for Burgundy, as prices rocket ever higher.
Except for that $20,000-a-bottle average price ceiling, of course. This year, our top wine has actually fallen in price, illustrating how tough conditions have been. So let's take a look at the top 10.
The Most Expensive Wines on Wine-Searcher:It's interesting to compare this list with last year's. While it's predominantly the same, there are three new faces in the top 10, while the relative performance of the wines' average prices has seen some interesting contrasts, too.
First the new arrivals, and they are the Jayer Cros Parantoux, Graham's Ne Oublie and the Domaine d'Auvenay Bâtard-Montrachet. The first two are there based on rarity; since Henri Jayer died back in 2006, no more vintages of his wines will appear again, while the Port was a one-off limited to 656 bottles.
The d'Auvenay, however, is there purely on its well-flexed price muscles, with the average price rising by 16 percent in the past 12 months, allowing it to displace its Chevalier-Montrachet stablemate (which only saw a "mere" 8.75 percent rise in its average price). The other two to fall from the list this year, the Screaming Eagle Sauvignon Blanc and the Domaine Leroy Richebourg Grand Cru, also saw their average prices rise, but not as quickly as the others.
Surprisingly, the wine that saw the biggest fall in its average price has been the one at the very top of the tree. DRC's Romanée-Conti Grand Cru saw a 5 percent fall since last year, although it is still in the sort of price territory one more normally associates with a new compact car. It has come back a little since April this year, when it went below $20,000 for the first time since January 2019.
The runner-up, Domaine Leroy's Musigny Grand Cru, peaked in April 2019, when it hit an average price of $22,484, a staggering sum. While it has rallied from an August 2019 low of $14,514 a bottle, it has managed an overall rise of 9.85 percent in the past 12 months.
These two wines have been fighting it out for the top spot for some time now, and it's fascinating to watch the relative long-term performances. Notwithstanding the last year's hiccup, DRC's performance has been stately, a leisurely upward swing over the past five years, unruffled by major upsets. By contrast, the Leroy has been up and down like a hyperactive trampolinist, showing volatile swings across the same period. Despite that, however, it's a winner in one sense: in the past five years, its average price has increased by a massive 286 percent, compared to DRC's relatively tame rise of 46 percent.
Elsewhere, only one other wine fell back in price and, curiously, it was the other DRC – the Montrachet's average price fell by almost 3 percent. The Roumier Musigny remained static, while all the others rose; the lowest was the Egon Müller Trockenbeerenauslese with 3.16 percent, while the d'Auvenay Bâtard-Montrachet jumped 16 percent and the Leroy Chambertin by 15.5 percent.
Outside the top 10, it's educational to see which regions are elbowing their way amongst the princes of Burgundy and Mosel. The most obvious candidate is Bordeaux, but there are just three wines from there in the top 50, with the only Left Bank representative the maverick Liber Pater, which remains below the $5000 mark, despite the release price of its latest vintage sitting at $34,000. Petrus and Le Pin are Bordeaux's other runners.
Napa has two wines in the top 50, the Screaming Eagle Sauvignon and its Cabernet stablemate, while Port and Madeira have two apiece. Champagne, the Rheingau and Chave's Cuvée Cathelin from the Rhône round out the 12 non-Burgundy/Mosel positions. It seems even a perfect storm of catastrophe cannot remove those regions – and Burgundy particularly – from their thrones.
And this past year certainly confirms that.
July 31, 2020 at 07:02AM
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