In kinder terms, the 2010 Bordeaux en primeur campaign - the release and sale of the year's top wines - can be viewed as disappointing; under a harsher light, it is a total disaster.
What started out as a campaign with so much potential fizzled out by the time the wines finally came to market. The year was a vintage that most critics and commentators deemed 'superb', 'impressive' and on a par with the great 2009 and 2005 vintages. The buying power of collectors in the United States, Asia and many parts of Europe now is stronger than it was in early 2010.
Most importantly, mainland Chinese, with their increasingly deep pockets, were eyeing this vintage and watching the releases and prices very closely. According to several fine wine brokers based in Hong Kong, the 2009 vintage attracted many new mainland Chinese punters to en primeur buying, where wines still in barrel are purchased and reserved about 18 months before they are bottled and released. They expected 2010 to be an even more successful campaign.
En primeur commentators returned from Bordeaux in early April very impressed with the vintage. Along with concentration and depth, the wines possessed balance and expressed great long-term ageing potential. We waited eagerly for prices to be released, some hopeful that the Bordelais would conclude that another expensive vintage might turn off buyers, but many were realistic and figured that if the market could support higher prices, then 2010 would be more expensive than 2009.
We waited. April passed, then May. No major releases. We waited some more. In early June, as Vinexpo, the most important wine exhibition in Bordeaux, approached, it was obvious that the first growths and other top wines were not going to be released until after June 24. There was such a long lag between the positive press on the 2010 vintage and the opportunity to buy the wines that interest had already started to wane.
When prices did come out, it was obvious that most were raising prices from their already high 2009 prices. Some were more than 30 per cent higher - for example, Chateau Pontet-Canet - but most came out about 10 per cent higher. A few chateaux such as Ducru-Beaucaillou and Cos d'Estournel reduced prices slightly from their 2009 prices, but these were very rare cases. As in 2009, there would be very few bargains among the top wines in this vintage. Traditional Bordeaux buyers would be priced out of this vintage once again. One Hong Kong collector who has been buying en primeur for more than 10 years told me: 'The prices for my favourite Bordeaux wines are now insane. I stopped buying en primeur in 2008. I would rather buy the older vintages which are bargains in comparison.'