How Much Money Latour Investors Have Lost: A Quick Calculation

The 2016 has been released to the market for £6,200. Does the release price make sense?

Hello fine wine lovers,

I recently wrote an article for Tim Atkin stating that rising release prices and the cost of ageing have made it financially unviable to collect and store wine, and the latest Latour release of their famed 2016 vintage is a case in point.

Liv-ex published an analysis of the Latour releases and for the purpose of this analysis, we will be referring to the below table. In column (A) you can find the Release Prices and in column (B) you’ll find the Current Market Price of the vintage.

Specifically, we’ll take a look at two vintages: the 2008 and the famed 2010.

I chose these two vintages for the following reasons:

1. Before the 2012 when Latour left the En Primeur system;

2. As the 2016 will be considered an extraordinary vintage, we are expecting the release price to match, akin to 2010;

3. 2008 was the last vintage in which investors made money; or have they?

The Problem with Price Returns

The issue with simply looking at column (C) is that it reflects Price Return Since Inception, not Total Yearly Return.

This matters because:

• It only accounts for price changes and ignores the cost of holding the asset.

• Returns aren’t comparable across vintages since each was released at a different time.

To correct for this, we will calculate Total Returns—factoring in the cost of carry, storage, and insurance—and convert them into annualised returns for a fair comparison.

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2008: The Last "Profitable" Vintage?

At first glance, the numbers suggest investors did well.

• Release Price (2009): £1,590

• Current Price (2025): £4,000

That’s a +152% price return. But this doesn’t reflect the cost of carry—the expenses associated with holding an asset, including risk-free interest rates, storage, and insurance.

Cost of Carry Calculation for Latour 2008 (2009–2025)

Inputs:

• Release Price: £1,590

• Storage Cost: 2% per year

• Yield: 0% (wine doesn’t pay dividends)

• Risk-Free Rate: Bank of England’s average rates

Using discrete compounding to factor in these costs, we find:

• Latour 2008 cost of carry price (2025): £2,749

This means the Total Return is only +45% over 17 years, rather than the +152% Price Return.

Converted into yearly terms:

• Yearly Total Return: 2.23% vs Yearly Price Return: 5.6%

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2010: The Price and Total Return Loss

The 2010 vintage was released at £11,000. Today, its market value sits at £8,000, meaning a 30% loss in price appreciation.

When factoring in the cost of carry, the actual cost to customers of holding the 2010 vintage to 2025 is £18,101. This turns the loss into a -55.72% total return, or an annual loss of -5.3%.

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Final Thoughts

We need to distinguish between Latour the brand, Latour the wine, and Latour’s release prices—they are not the same thing.

Latour, a legendary First Growth in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification, remains an icon, and the wine itself is said to be exceptional (it was awarded seven 100-point scores).

But does the release price make sense?

If we assume 2016 is as good as 2010, and the 2010 has a market price of £8,000 with six more years of ageing, then based on a 5-year Gilt rate of 4.29% (cost of carry ~6.5%), for investors to break even (not profit, just break even), the 2016 release price should have been below £5,500. It was realeased at £3,100 for 6 bottles (or £6,200 for 12).

This raises an important question:
Who, exactly, is buying at these prices?

Thanks as always for being here!

Everything is free and packed with valuable insights, but today paid subscribers get exclusive access to the Google Sheet with the full calculations behind this analysis.

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Cheers,

Sara Danese