Don’t miss your chance to invest in an original wooden case of one of the world’s most powerful wine brands – Château Lafite – with a commemorative 150th anniversary label which could see it grow 200% in value over two years!
Price:£6,480 per 6 bottle original wooden case (ex-fees)
Château Lafite 2018 – the latest release of one of the world’s most powerful wine brands.
Issued with a special label to commemorate the 150th vintage of the legendary château.
Critic Score: 98-100/100 from The Wine Advocate & arguably their greatest wine to date
Those who bought into the Château Margaux 2015, with its commemorative label, will be aware of the 90% price increase this caused in the following three months.
Château Mouton’s 2000 is trading up 755% on release
The label will be displayed this year, with the number ‘8’ in the vintage playing strongly toward the Chinese market, this is the time to buy into this collectible piece.
In late 2019 we had confirmation from the President of Château Lafite. Jean-Guillaume Prats, that the 2018 bottle will be issued with a commemorative 150th anniversary label to celebrate the Rothschild’s tenure at the great estate. If this follows the commemorative labels of the Château Mouton Rothschild 2000 & Château Margaux’s 2015, then we are likely to see a significant uptick. Couple this with the significance of the number ‘8’ being in the vintage (associated in Chinese culture with ‘absolutely prosperous’ or ‘must earn a lot’), Lafite’s appeal to the Asian market and that this will almost certainly be their second 100 point scoring wine in the last 60 years from the Wine Advocate, the case for investment is unassailable.
Wine Critic Scores
Each year the leading wine critics head out to Bordeaux to taste the new releases. Nearly all use the 100 point scoring system and very few are awarded the “perfect score” in any vintage. When multiple critics are potentially awarding 100 points, as is the case with Château Lafite 2018 then we know the wine is very special.
98-100 pts – “The Wine Advocate”; leading BDX publication founded by Robert Parker.
98-100 Jane Anson – “Decanter”; the leading UK wine lifestyle magazine.
98-100 Jeff Leve – “The Wine Cellar”; highly respected on-line publication.
99-100 James Suckling – “Jamessuckling.com”; formerly of the Wine Spectator he is a highly respected critic with significant influence in Asia.
To give it some context Château Lafite, one of the greatest wines in the world currently only holds 100 points from the Wine Advocate for one other vintage in the last 60 years (2003). Interestingly 2003 was an extremely hot year and retrospectively this will likely not to be considered one of the great Lafites.
Investment Analysis
*A wine’s POP score is its price-over-points ratio, our loose measure of value. It is calculated by dividing the price of a nine-litre case of wine by a shortened 20-point score. We have calculated this 20-point score by simply subtracting 80 from the official rating from The Wine Advocate (for barrel-score spreads we use the mid-point of the score), on the basis that any wine under 80 points is unlikely to attract a secondary market. In theory, the lower the POP score the better value a wine is.
Tasting Notes:
“The 2018 Lafite Rothschild is blended of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8.5% Merlot and 0.5% Petit Verdot and has 13.3% alcohol. The Merlot was harvested September 17-24, the Cabernet Sauvignon was harvested September 25 to October 5, and the Cabernet Franc was harvested on September 24. It has a deep purple-black color and then WOW—what a nose. It comes sashaying out of the glass with bags of grace and perfume, revealing notions of lilacs, red roses, fragrant soil, cinnamon stick and Morello cherries with a core of blackcurrant cordial, fresh black plums, redcurrant jelly and tapenade plus a waft of iron ore. Medium-bodied, the palate has wonderful, tightly wound layers of black, red and blue fruits intermingled with floral, earth and mineral notions and a rock-solid frame of the most finely pixelated tannins you can possibly imagine. Anyone who wants to see what I mean when I babble about the Lafite tannins needs to try this benchmark. The finish goes on, and on, and on. If this wine doesn’t get Bordeaux lovers hearts’ racing, nothing will.”
Lisa Perrotti-Brown (98-100 pts)
“This is silky and delicious and juicy, not something you can often say about a Lafite En Primeur sample but before you even get close to tasting the wine you can feel the layers building. It has the precision, the freshness and the sense of effortless elegance that Lafite always conveys with lots of power and depth, deep black fruits on the nose and a mix of spices from rosemary to saffron on the palate. Is it better than the 2016? It’s hard to say at this stage but it certainly feels its equal, although differently constructed and unlikely to take as long to come around – think 10 rather than 14 years before reaching its drinking window. It’s worth adding that very few wines have been so unmarked by the extremes of the vintage, or as technical director Eric Kohler puts it; ‘Even after 25 years of working at Lafite I continue to be full of admiration for this terroir. Other plots that we own reacted to the heat at times, but Lafite just kept sailing on as usual.”
