Depending upon your en primeur agent, you should be receiving your 2005 Bordeaux futures sometime this summer. As noted previously, we purchased several wines for this much hyped vintage back in July 2006. The current (March 08) issue of Decanter has two articles from its tasting panels featuring this vintage — one on St.-Emilion and the other on the Cru Bourgeois (the classification of which, by the way, will be reinstated in 2009).

The panel was generally pleased with the wines and I noted that one of my Futures picks was listed among the Recommended wines with 16.4 points (of 20), just shy of their cut-off (16.5?) for Highly Recommended. The wine in question, Chateau Beaumont of the Haut-Medoc, received a very nice tasting note, noting that it should be held for 5-10 years and that there was more to come from this wine. The entry heralded the wine as a good value and listed the price at 8-9.5 British Pounds per bottle.

I was delighted to read the news and was compelled to look up our pending inventory to compare. We had purchased a full case, which we have listed at $12.50/bottle. A quick currency conversion indicated that the price in Decanter was $16.00-$18.85. But, what was it going for in the U.S.? I did a quick search on Wine Searcher and found the wine listed at $19.99/bottle at Star Liquors. Wine Library had it listed as out of stock, but their website also showed a sale price at $19.95 from $26.95/bottle.

Consequently, at an average price of $19.00, my investment has increased by ~50%, which I must admit, is much better than I have done in the stock market lately. So, I’m feeling good about the purchase. Of course, I didn’t buy the wine as an investment, but as Sherry-Lehmann has had my money since July 2006 (and the Bordelais have had Sherry-Lehmann’s money), I’m pleased to see that I wouldn’t have been any better off in investing my money elsewhere and buying the wine upon release instead.

Decanter did not include Chateau de Fonbel, of which we also bought a case, among its St.-Emilion tastings, but Wine Searcher and other internet searches yielded similar price increases for this and the other handful of bottles we purchased. I am looking forward to taking delivery of the wines in July, but will have to continue to wait to try them, or at least the Beaumont, for another few years, by which time the wines should have continued to increase in complexity, if not value. A wise investment indeed!