Bordeaux primeurs 2014

The way-too-expensive wines from lackluster 2011, 2012, and 2013 have languished, unsold. Even wines from the great 2009 and 2010 vintages, like first growth Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, have dropped 30 percent to 45 percent from their futures prices.

As Alexander van Beek, general manager of Chateau Giscours and Chateau du Tertre explained over dinner in New York a couple of weeks ago, “2014 isn’t homogeneous, so you can’t generalize about price. People with more long term vision should be rewarded.”

In Bordeaux-speak, that means my neighbors should reduce prices, not me.