With the Chinese New Year approaching, the hugely successful Farr Vintners Asia office in Hong Kong currently has strong demand from mainland China for all vintages of Château Lafite. With prices having risen dramatically in the past couple of years, now may well prove to be a very good time to sell any stocks of Lafite that you might be holding. What is for sure is that current Lafite prices are now too heady for almost all European and US buyers and it would appear that nearly every case of Lafite on the world market is heading for China.
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The big question is whether China can continue to absorb the world's stocks of Lafite and how long it will take for this young, emerging fine wine market to realise that there are other great wines in the world. Last week I spent some time in Beijing and Hong Kong and was very surprised to find that many of our customers there were not as Lafite obsessed as I had imagined. On the top shelves of most retailers that I visited, Latour shared the prime spots with Lafite. Margaux and Mouton were positioned on the shelf below. Poor old Haut Brion (a real Farr Vintners favourite) was on the bottom shelf because the name is apparently difficult for the Chinese to pronounce.
People I spoke to said that Lafite was the name asked for by Government officials and new buyers but the wine that is most attractive to people who have started to acquire knowledge is Latour. One customer told us that he had personally opened 500 bottles of Lafite in the last year but was now looking for something else! If I had a cellar full of First Growth claret today I would be selling my Lafite, buying Latour and drinking Haut Brion.
Of course there is no guarantee that the Lafite bubble will burst, but the recent price rises make impressive reading and clearly anyone selling Lafite today stands to make a significant profit. I would suggest hanging on to the 2006 and 2005 for the time being as these years have not yet risen spectacularly. In fact the 2005 at half the price of the 2000 still looks like quite a good deal. I would also hold the 2007 as that looks set to be worth £4000 when physical in a month or two. The vintages to sell are 2004 and older. Here is a table showing how prices have risen recently:
| Lafite | Lafite | Lafite | Latour | Haut Brion | |
| Vintage | Current Price | Feb-08 Price | Release Price | Current Price | Current Price |
| 2004 | £4,500 | £2,800 | £950 | £2,600 | £1,850 |
| 2003 | £7,800 | £6,600 | £2,050 | £7,500 | £1,950 |
| 2002 | £4,600 | £2,800 | £680 | £2,800 | £1,550 |
| 2001 | £4,750 | £2,900 | £900 | £2,800 | £2,050 |
| 2000 | £14,000 | £9,800 | £1,950 | £8,000 | £5,350 |
| 1999 | £5,000 | £2,850 | £750 | £2,650 | £1,800 |
| 1998 | £5,800 | £4,400 | £750 | £2,350 | £2,850 |
| 1997 | £4,000 | £2,500 | £900 | £2,250 | £1,650 |
| 1996 | £9,350 | £7,200 | £950 | £5,550 | £2,350 |
| 1995 | £5,500 | £3,700 | £650 | £3,450 | £2,600 |
| 1994 | £4,500 | £2,500 | £375 | £2,400 | £1,800 |
| 1990 | £5,650 | £4,300 | £375 | £6,400 | £5,200 |
| 1989 | £5,500 | £3,600 | £400 | £2,750 | £9,500 |
| 1986 | £12,000 | £7,900 | £350 | £2,750 | £2,500 |
| 1982 | £26,500 | £18,500 | £300 | £15,500 | £5,200 |
All prices are approximate and subject to market change. Please enquire for further details
If you have Lafite that you might consider selling, the Farr Vintners buying team would love to hear from you. Please contact us on 020 7821 2000 or e-mail sales@farrvintners.com. We will be as flexible as possible and can offer outright cash purchase, commission sales at current sell prices less 10% or we can arrange to swap your Lafite for other wines. An example of this would be a customer who recently exchanged 1 case of Lafite 2000 for 10 cases of the great Ducru Beaucaillou 2005.
