There’s been a long, slow ‘progression‘ in the pricing of Clos des Lambrays. It’s fair to say that the 1990-2010 wines were always thought of well but as a cheaper entry to the world of grand crus, with pricing that befitted their more elegant, more modest, intensity versus other grand crus. It’s unlikely that new generations of drinkers will think of Lambrays in those terms – at least not in terms of pricing – with last week’s newly released pricing of their 2019s!

I lead with the pricing announced in the UK rather than my local Swiss supplier as that latter merchant usually has the pricing only in April – see the link above. Subscribers who have read my reports of Lambrays and Tart will know that I rate the wines highly but that they remain different ‘beasts.’ I’m left wondering, however, if their respective billionaire owners see only the need for equivalence. Both are investing heavily in their charges – seemingly the work at Lambrays with their massive crane and road closure to construct an entirely new cuverie is the more expensive ‘investment.’

Maybe that goes some of the way to explaining a UK price of £1,080 a case, in bond, for the 2019 vintage – per case of three bottles! So add 20% purchase tax to calculate the actual bottle price. It would be unfair of me not to point out a yield of only 15 hl/ha in the Clos in 2019 – half the normal amount – partly attributable to their first year of conversion to organic viticulture*. Still, I’ll leave that to sink in if you were a previous buyer of Lambrays…

It seems that in one swoop the owners of Lambrays want price equivalence (well, nearly) with Clos de Tart, a wine that has been more than double the price of Lambrays for several years now. I have to assume that they have a different (new!) buyer demographic in mind.

Almost the value play of the Clos des Lambrays cellar in 2019 is their Puligny-Montrachet 1er Clos des Caillerets – a mere £798 per 6 in bond – and a different colour, but hey!
*Thierry Bruin was more concerned with producing enough wine than, for instance, organic viticulture. In this respect, Lambrays is a late-comer but Jacques Devauges has a great track record in this area…