En Primeur Flashcards
I’ve just bought wine as futures. what does this mean? Do I get to take some wine home with me?
Unfortunately no,
Futures refers to a paper transaction where the wine is sold a year
to 18 months before it is bottled
When does en primeur take place?
What is the advantage for buyers looking to resell the wine?
These wines are sold in the spring following the harvest, while the wines are still in barrel and not finished or bottled.
The idea is that consumers can secure hard-to-buy wines and at a lower price than they will appear in fine wine shops once they are bottled and shipped.
The en primeur campaign begins in ____ following ____ when barrel samples are provided by estates to be tasted by ____ ____ and _______. 5–6,000 wine professionals taste and assess the wines while they are ____ in ____.
April following vintage
wine buyers and journalists
still in barrel
Explain what the first tranche is and what effect if has on following tranches.
The estate will put up for sale a small amount of wine, the price of which will be heavily influenced by the individual château’s reputation and the experts’ reviews.
This first tranche is intended to gauge what the market is prepared to pay for the wine.
Depending on how it sells, the price will be adjusted for subsequent tranches. Usually, the price goes up for each tranche
The time between each tranche is a time for trade buyers to make decisions about what wines they will buy and in what quantities.
It is also a time for journalists to publish their scores for the wider consumer market to read and consider purchasing.
As a consumer, how would I buy something en primeur? Who would I be best to talk to?
Fine wine merchants (hopefully with a connection to the estate you’d like to by from)
The final buyer can then decide whether to have the wine ____, ____ until it is ready to drink (which may be up to a decade) or to sell on the wine,
The idea being that the price will ____ as it matures and as the wine is no longer easily available
delivered
stored
rise
Wines in demand, especially the rarest and most sought after will be on allocation.
Being a negociant or trade buyer looking to keep a good relationship with the estate/courtier. It would be advantageous for me to only buy the good vintages and say no to any vintages that aren’t as nice to save on having wine that doesn’t sell for a long time
True or false?
Absolutely not, even in bad years that might sit in storage for 5-10 years before sold, if I have a relationship with the estate it is best for me to buy this vintage in hope of future vintages being better and selling quicker/for more than those of bad vintages.
Various leading critics recently are expressing their concern at how much their reviews influence the price of the wines sold via En primeur.
What is it about the wines that the critics/journalist taste and furthermore publish review’s on (effecting the consumer outlook) that could skew the image of the wine?
wines they taste are often not even the final wine, simply a
representation of what the producer expects it to be like after blending etc
