Gere Kopár en primeur – buy or …?

Few wineries are selling their young wines from the barrel to the masses. As long as buying en primeur is concerned, the 4 key factors in my decision are: inflation rate, en primeur discount (price), year of harvest and risk. The latter is the only unpredictable. Attila Gere himself made less well-done Kopár in rather good year (2003) and good wine in well, average year (2004). Especially with the recent change in the cuvée’s composition (now it’s 50% merlot and 50% cabernet franc), so no cabernet sauvignon which had been so characteristic in the past’s Kopárs (around 40%), our risk-taking appetite must be increased to consider buying en primeur this year. So what about the price then? HUF5800 (EUR 23) gross is slightly more than 4% more than the en primeur price 2 years ago. Inflation’s exceeding it by 3-4 percentage points this year. So fair enough, from this point of view. The said 2004 item’s now on sale at wine&arts for 10500 (EUR 41) a bottle, which is an 88% increase in 2 years compared to HUF 5568 (EUR 22). Fair enough even for us who underestimated the inflation 2 years ago. If you’re a fan or simply have a big wine-lover family or friends, you shoud go for the 2xdozens and get a Magnum free. Provided that the 88% return on your investment is sufficient to cover the risk of Gere repeating his under-performance of 2003 and the replacement of CS by Merlot and CF. You still have 2 weeks to decide, a lot more than in an afternoon after a Central Bank interest rate committee meeting like today .