Time To Buy Bordeaux, Sell Burgundy (And Drink the Rest During the Holidays)

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Wine experts are advising collectors and investors to buy Bordeaux and sell Burgundies, after a recent economic study found that wine tops equities when it comes to delivering high returns.

Prices for the First Growth Bordeaux are down almost 35 percent from their highs a year ago, according to Reuters. In November, prices for the famed ’05 vintage were approaching five-year lows. But hurry! Paul Hart of the Chicago-based auction house Hart Davis Hart believes that prices for the top five Bordeaux — Haut-Brion, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild, Latour and Lafite-Rothschild — will soon begin to rise.

Burgundies, on the other hand, have been on fire this past season. Hart says that his auction sold four bottles of the 1990 DRC for $53,775, while Acker Merrall & Condit’s John Kapon sold one lot consisting of eight cases of DRC for $353,231 at Saturday’s Hong Kong auction.

“The bottom line — buy Bordeaux and sell Burgundy,” said Charles Curtis, the former head of wine for Christie’s in New York and Asia, who is now leading his own wine consultancy. “The former is at the same price it was five years ago and the latter has never been higher.”

“My sense is that the top (Burgundy) wines might be at or just past their peak for this cycle, but only experience will prove me out on this one,” he added. “Bordeaux prices are looking increasingly attractive and seem for their part to be headed back up.”