With Bordeaux an ‘investment vehicle for the 1%’, it’s time to seek out future classics from Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa
News from Bordeaux used to dominate this time of year. It’s the season when producers in the region host their equivalent of the Cannes film festival – the en primeur tastings. Samples of wines harvested the previous autumn are shown off to thousands of members of the wine trade and press, whose reactions help shape the wines’ release prices, which traditionally emerge, after much feverish speculation and debate, during the early summer.
In recent years the whole circus has begun to seem a little tired. Prices for the top few dozen chateaux have escalated, even for less impressive vintages – a 700% rise in three decades – meaning a generation has grown up without getting to know what are still among the finest wines around.
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