Beneath the Label
When you think of the best wines of the right bank, Lafleur is undoubtedly one of the first wines to make the list. Sitting comfortably on a par with such titans as Petrus and Le Pin it is a true legend.
Critic Score: 100 Points – Robert Parker
This wine is described by Parker as rivalling the 1982 and 2000 vintages, a truly titanic statement.
Region Rating: Vosne Romanee – 95T
The T is key, a tannic wine and subsequently a slow developer.
Drinking Window: 2020-2050
After quite some time maturing the wine has entered into the drinking window and will begin being consumed in volume.
Production Volume: sub 1,000 cases
Right bank productions are typically smaller than the Bordeaux average but 1,000 is small by any global measure.
Summary:
This is one of the only wines that consistently competes with Petrus and Le Pin. When you consider that a case of Petrus 05, holding equi-scores for quality, demands £22,500 per 6, this is somewhat of a bargain.
Lafleur’s production volume and packed waiting list ensures it is one of the most exclusive wines in Bordeaux. This is a top top wine and the price action acts accordingly.
“The only wine to not just rival, but outperform Petrus countless times“
Money Matters
Brand Power: 96/100, rank 4th in BiBO Brand Power Metric
The highest-ranked Bordeaux Brand in the world, an extremely relevant wine and one that can take on the dominance of the top Burgundian producers.
Liquidity: 50%
The wine is less liquid because of the price point.
Inter-Trade Price Volatility: 4.8%
The wine has performed extremely steadily over the past 5 years as to be expected from such a fundamentally sound wine. These top right bank wines are very uncorrelated from the market thanks to their well-heeled, insulated buyers.
Summary
The wine has tracked along extremely well for the last 5 years and it is likely to continue to do so. It has entered into its prescribed drinking window suggesting the primary underlying driver of price, the supply and demand imbalance, is likely to become an ever-increasing driver of the price. As the item becomes ever rarer those end consumers desperate to try or own the item should drive the prices consistently higher.
Position for Profit
Lafleur is a wine which holds very limited downside risk over a long enough timeline. It will absolutely have volatile moments, but that is expected of a super low volume wine like this produced in the 100’s of bottles.
This scarcity in combination with volume creates the potential for a very big win in the long term. Just as icon tier wines in Burgundy react positively to price opacity, this too will jump higher as availability shrinks.
Described by Parker as an equal to the 1982 iteration in terms of quality. If true, the 05 should increase nearly 4 times in value to reach the same heights as that comparison.