Prices are going to increase, even though nothing has been specified”, explains Olivier Richard, secretary of the Greater Burgundy wine brokers’ organization.
Although there are no official statistics as yet, with grapes only just in the tanks if that, there are plenty of forecasts being bandied about Beaujolais to quantify the inevitable rise in prices for Nouveau wines due to the small 2021 crop. Recurrent comments imply that the basic price could be 250/hl (some rumours put the figure even higher), which equates to an increase of 30 % compared to last year’s 190/hl. Although the attitude is very much wait-and-see during harvesting, “passions are flaring up, and so are the prices”, says Jean-Marc Lafont, chairman of the Union des Crus du Beaujolais, who makes no bones about his concern over the prospect of rapid price hikes: “Price points need to improve, but not in leaps and bounds”.
“Beaujolais needs to regain value, but gradually. It is not good to raise prices too quickly”, concurs Daniel Bulliat, chairman of the Beaujolais wine marketing board (InterBeaujolais), who feels that price increases in excess of 20 % are difficult to explain to consumers. Stressing that “buyers do the increasing and vendors the decreasing”, Daniel Bulliat points out that pressure on inventories, which fell to 200,000 hectolitres of wine in Beaujolais at the beginning of the 2021-2022 marketing campaign, implies choices in production distribution, and therefore concerns about supply potential, between Nouveau wines and age-worthy offerings.