Investment in blue-chip wines from Bordeaux is still worthwhile, despite the recent dip in prices, says Jeannie Cho Lee, master of wine and founder of Asianpalate.com.
Based on a comparison of the 10 most recent vintages of the five Bordeaux first-growth wines against 100 of the most sought-after fine wines over the past five years, she says that although prices have corrected to June 2010 levels, they are still double those of January 2007.
Lee discussed fine wine investment and auction trends at the 'Timeless Treasures' event at Forfar, which was organised by Wing Tai Properties Development and SCMP Marketing Services.
'The Bordeaux first-growth wines have experienced higher price growth than other wines,' she says. 'The recent year-to-date price movements confirm a trend towards price correction as a reaction to extremely high pricing of Bordeaux en primeur over the past two years and their subsequent boosting of prices from bottled vintages.'
In 2009 and last year, some of the most expensive young Bordeaux were released as wine futures - or en primeur, which means the wine is still in barrels and will be bottled in about three years - making it the most investment-worthy vehicle for a lot of fine wine investors.
'The current price of first growth is over Euro1,000 (HK$10,684) a bottle which has broken records,' Lee says. 'That's why a price correction is inevitable because there was a bubble.'
