GOODOCTOR

2010 is not looking very promising for the wine market despite what appear to be rather buoyant prices for prestigious Bordeaux, Burgundies, and a handful of California Cabernets, etc. The auction market has quickly realized that the top prices being fetched for rare wines are in Hong Kong, but I predict that by the end of 2010, that market will be saturated with more top wines than even Chinese high-flyers can absorb. Combine that with the growing inventories of vintages that will be very difficult to sell unless discounted and dumped on the marketplace (2007 and 2008 Burgundies, 2007 Bordeaux, 2008 Northern Rhônes, and lots of high-end luxury Champagne), much of this wine is going to find few takers in 2010, and will have to be sold at distress-sale prices. Be prepared, the discount sales are inevitable.
Of course, all of this economic turmoil over fat inventories of difficult-to-sell vintages is going to play out in the background of the 2009 vintage being tasted and reviewed this spring, summer, and fall. Virtually all of France as well as other parts of Western Europe are proclaiming this to be one of the all-time great vintages of the last 30 to 50 years. Of course, we all know wine producers have a tendency to assert that the greatest wine they have ever made is the one currently for sale, but the weather in Western Europe, and particularly in France, supports the view that this is well beyond just another promising vintage. I, of course, will be looking at the Bordeaux end of it in March, following that up with a look at the Rhône in late August and September. I know the Bordelais would like a return to the astronomical 2005 Bordeaux prices, which were conceived at a time when the world economy was buoyant. But times are vastly different in 2010, and it is impossible for me to imagine that 2009 will be able to fetch the kind of prices 2005 did. I am no economist, though, and we'll have to see what actually takes place. Certainly, I continue to expect plenty of economic carnage in the wine world in 2010, and I think the worst may be yet to come. But for wine drinkers, not speculators, 2010 could be a banner year.

All the best in wine and life,
Robert M. Parker, Jr., January 2010

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