Latour stops selling en primeur, what will the brave new world look like?

The monumental news for this year’s primeur campaign is that Château Latour has decided that it will no longer sell any of its wines as futures.

Rumours of this have been circulating this afternoon and I envisaged a situation where the wine would be released in tranches soon after bottling and the sizes of the tranche would depend on the Estates cash flow and the market price. I must say that I was shocked to read that the Château is going to hold back the entire stock from all future vintages until they feel the wines are ready for drinking.