Tuscany: a global contender

Wine Lister has produced its second in-depth regional study, this time on Tuscany – a many-faceted fine wine region that is fast-building its position on the global fine wine stage. We will be revealing some of the findings on the blog in the next few weeks, but the full 35-page report is available for subscribers on the Analysis page.

The study focuses on 50 top Tuscan wines, which we have compared below with 50 wines from Piedmont, Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California. Using the three categories that comprise an overall Wine Lister score – Quality, Brand, and Economics – we can put the region’s global positioning in context.

Tuscany Wine Lister Report - regional scores

Although Tuscany comes fourth overall – just ahead of Piedmont – its Quality score is bettered only by Burgundy, scoring 883 points to Burgundy’s 917. Quality scores are derived from Wine Lister’s partner critics’ scores and a wine’s ageing potential, and Tuscany’s excellence in this category may be one explanation for its rising appeal.

Tuscany’s Brand score is the fourth best of the group, suggesting that after a handful of top brands such as the Super Tuscans, the rest of the top 50 do not confer the same level of prestige as wines in Bordeaux, Burgundy, or even California. Meanwhile, the region’s commercial clout is the weakest of the group, scoring one point less than Piedmont in the Economics category.

In upcoming posts, we will delve into the trade’s view on Tuscany’s foremost appellations and which are the wines to watch.



Latour 2005 and Les Forts de Latour 2011 released

This morning sees the ex-château release of Latour 2005, along with second wine, Les Forts de Latour 2011. We have put together two factsheets bringing together all the most important information about these two formidable wines, both approaching their drinking windows.

The 2005 Grand Vin has the third-highest Wine Lister Quality score of the last three decades, and looks reasonable value next to the 2009 and 2010:

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The 2011 vintage of Château Latour’s second wine, Les Forts de Latour, is an economic powerhouse, with impressive price growth since its release:

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You can download the slides here: Wine Lister Factsheet Latour 2005 / Wine Lister Factsheet Les Forts de Latour 2011


Online searches soar for major wine regions

Measuring the number of searches on the world’s most visited wine site, Wine-Searcher, provides a unique insight into an individual wine’s overall popularity. Following on from last week’s blog on wine searches we have aggregated two years’ worth of this data at region level, to put popularity in perspective and map fine wine market trends over time.

Wine Search Frequency

Above, we have taken the 50 most searched-for wines from the leading fine wine regions in France and Italy and tracked their changes in search frequency over two years. Despite natural peaks and troughs – including large spikes for Champagne during the festive season – the last six months show an acceleration in searches for wines of every region.

Several wine regions have seen searches more than double in the last two years, with Tuscany, Piedmont and Burgundy as the stand-out performers. Meanwhile, Bordeaux – the most searched-for region in real terms – has struggled to engage new audiences at the same rate as its counterparts. For more on Tuscany’s rising global clout, see our in-depth regional study, available to subscribers on the Analysis page.

To view the popularity of individual wines, simply search for your wine of choice on Wine Lister and explore the Brand score sub-criteria.


Value Picks

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if there was a tool to help you work out which wines represent the best value for money?  Well look no further; our Value Pick indicator algorithm puts that knowledge at your fingertips.

Analysing the very latest price data and reviews from our partner critics, Wine Lister’s algorithm awards Value Pick status to those wines that achieve the best quality to price ratio (with a proprietary weighting giving more importance to quality, thus allowing the finest wines a look-in).  Crucially, Value Picks are awarded at vintage not wine level.

Here are Wine Lister’s newest Value Picks:

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Wine Lister’s prices per bottle are provided by our price partner, Wine Owners, whose own proprietary algorithms process millions of rows of incoming price data from Wine-Searcher to calculate a more realistic Market Level price – the price at which a wine is likely to find a ready buyer – based on market supply and spread models.  Wine Owners believe lower retail prices will sell first, hence their price may be below the Wine-Searcher average in some instances.  As you can see, using this method, each of the new Value Picks is priced at £25 or under, with the cheapest costing just £11 (excluding tax).

Furthermore, other than William Fèvre Chablis (64/100), all of these wines have an average critic score of 74-77/100 on Wine Lister’s rebased, calibrated scale (where any score above the average of 40-60/100 is strong).  Underlining their appellations’ reputation for excellent value, two sweet white Bordeaux feature in the list: Coutet Premier Cru 2007, from Barsac, and Rayne-Vigneau Premier Cru 2013, from Sauternes.  Each earning an average critic score of 77 and with plenty of life still in them, these represent remarkable value for money.


Latour 2007 ex-château release

Today saw by far the largest release of Latour direct from the cellars since the property withdrew from the en primeur system starting with the 2012 vintage. Château Latour has released c.3,000 cases of its 2007, the first real test of its new distribution strategy, and reports from the Place are positive. Courtiers and négociants say the price has worked (for the first time the ex-château stock is released at market level, with no “provenance premium”), and report that the entire parcel has been sold, with demand “very strong”.

Using Wine Lister’s unique combination of data, we’ve created a visual guide to this exceptional château and its 2007 vinatge:

latour-thumbnail

You can download the slide here: latour-2007-slide


Yquem 2014 released

Yesterday, Monday 19th September, saw the release of Château d’Yquem 2014 – the vintage with the highest Quality score in 10 years.

Drawing on the wealth of information in the Wine Lister database, as well as the views of some of the trade’s key players, we put together a collection of extraordinary facts and figures about this iconic sweet wine:

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You can download the slide here: yquem-2014-slide


Ten rising stars as predicted by the trade

Which producers will see the largest gain in brand recognition in the next two years? That is one of the many questions we asked in a unique survey of our 42 Founding Members – the majority of the world’s largest merchants, top international wine auctioneers, and several high-end retailers, together representing well over one third of global fine wine revenues.

rising stars

The chart above shows the top 10 brands expected by Founding Members to see their brand recognition increase in the next two years. Unsurprisingly, Burgundy takes the lead, making up six of the ten places. The trade’s picks included rising stars such as Arnaud Ente and Jean-Marc Roulot. Wine Lister’s Founding Members also believe that superstars such as Armand Rousseau will grow even further in brand recognition.

Penfolds also already possesses a brand so strong it is hard to comprehend how it will grow much further, as the trade predict it will. The appearance of three Bordeaux wines also comes as a surpise, given the preeminent position already occupied by brand Bordeaux in the fine wine market. Our Founding Members see room for burgeoning brand power for Châteaux Figeac, Haut-Brion, and Lynch-Bages. Why?

Figeac is causing a stir and is widely held to be on the path to regaining greatness. Haut-Brion is perhaps viewed as having less renown relative to its fellow first growths in the Médoc, in spite of Samuel Pepys fame (“a good and most particular taste”). However, Lynch-Bages is already so many leagues ahead of its peers in terms of brand recognition (check out its impressive distribution in top restaurants and online search frequency on the site), that it’s hard to see where it can go next. Have our Founding Members got it right?

To access more findings from our Founding Member survey, read the complete study, “Bordeaux – Reasons to Hope“. If you are not a subscriber yet, why not try a 14-day free trial!

 

 


Would you pick Bordeaux for value?

The Wine Lister Indicators have been devised to tell you in one glance the particular characteristics of a wine. One of those is Value Picks: wines which represent exceptional quality for the price. Of all the fine wines in our database, Value Picks have the best quality-to-price ratio, where we have applied a coefficient to allow exceptional quality to be recognised, even for higher-priced wines.

In the image below, taken from our study “Bordeaux – Reasons to Hope”, we list the value picks among the 100 foremost wines of Bordeaux. On our site you can view a wider selection of Bordeaux Value Picks.

To read the complete Bordeaux study, follow this link, and if you are not a subscriber yet, why not try a 14-day free trial.

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Why Bordeaux is still to be reckoned with

In recent years Bordeaux has been subject to “Bordeaux Bashing”. Commentators decried excessive pricing, and made much of other regions rivalling Bordeaux in popularity terms. However, the chart below, taken from our study “Bordeaux – Reasons to hope”, tells a different story.

We compared the popularity of five top wine-producing regions based on the number of online searches on the world’s most visited wine site, Wine-Searcher, thanks to our unique data partnership allowing us to provide a unique insight into a wine’s overall popularity and desirability.

The 100 most consulted Bordeaux crus were searched for around five times more than the top 100 crus in other regions. Even when you combine searches for wines by producer, to account for regions where each producer makes significantly more cuvées than in Bordeaux, and instead take the 100 most searched-for producers from each region, Bordeaux is still almost three times more popular in search terms. That should give Bordeaux one concrete reason to hope.

To learn of others, read the complete report by clicking on the link below. If you are not a subscriber yet, why not try a 14-day free trial?
https://www.wine-lister.com/reports

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