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Petrus bucking the trend as HDH primes market for record breaking sale

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Overall, Bordeaux fine wine prices have shown modest growth in 2018, following strong performances in 2017 and 2016. Last year saw a 6% annual increase in the Liv-ex Bordeaux 500 index and previously 2016 experienced a 15% rise, strongly driven by the Brexit vote. However, a few key wines have bucked the trend and Chateau Petrus offers further opportunity for growth for the canny wine investor.

Despite the current regional hiatus, a number of wines are still doing well, one of which being the Right Bank Pomerol legend; Chateau Petrus. Petrus is of course one of the most outstanding fine wine brands in the world, driven by superlative quality and extremely low production levels at approximately 2,500 cases per annum.

Liv-ex measures the Right Bank 50 benchmark at a 2.3% growth year to date (14th August 2018), of which Petrus is a constituent wine. In comparison a dedicated Liv-ex Petrus index comprising a number of vintages has risen 8.6% in the same period.

When you look at individual wine performance all Petrus vintages between 2000 and 2012 are enjoying growth with the 2002 vintage topping the scale at 12.7%. More recent vintages since 2013 have experienced mixed fortunes and the market price of Petrus 2015 has actually fallen 3.9% since the start of 2018. The wine was originally scored 98 – 100 points by Neal Martin in 2016, but he reduced this quality score to 98 points in March this year. Wine Advocate’s Lisa Perotti-Brown MW and James Suckling still awarded 100 points to Petrus 2015 on this year’s tastings.

Given the high demand for Petrus and the number of perfect quality scores from international critics there could definitely be room for price improvement for Petrus ’15 in the future.

Meanwhile, US specialist fine wine auctioneer, Hart Davis Hart, has just sent a clarion call out to the market which may prick the interest of those merchants and collectors still prone on their sun loungers. They are holding their largest ever sale 13 – 15 September with an estimated US$10 – 15million auction of collections which includes top Burgundies with over 450 bottles of Domaine de la Romanee Conti on offer.

The Bordeaux collection is estimated at $2.4 – $7million of mainly First Growths in large formats and includes two 18 litres Melchoirs of Cheval Blanc, 35 Imperials of Lafite, 28 Imperials of Chateau Latour, 34 Margaux and 31 Mouton Rothschild. Given the rare large formats it will be very interesting to see the final sale totals in a month’s time.

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