Vineyard land prices

Wine is acknowledged as a natural product, and there is a widespread acceptance that the region or even vineyard of origin has a major effect on wine quality (see climate and wine quality, soil and wine quality, and viticulture). Needless to say, those vineyards with a reputation for high wine quality attract high land prices. Perhaps the clearest examples are to be found in the Bordeaux region, where, thanks partly to several important classifications of individual châteaux, land prices are also clearly stratified. In the mid 2000s, for example, the price of planted vineyard entitled to the basic Bordeaux appellation had fallen to very roughly 25,000 euros per ha (it was about 200,000 francs per ha in the late 1990s) while one of the most celebrated properties might cost the equivalent of 1.5 to 3 million euros per ha (very much less than Gérard Perse offered axa-Millésimes in 2001 for Ch Petit Village in Pomerol, only to rescind the offer). According to the 2013 French government’s valuation (for tax purposes) of vineyard land, the maximum value within the Gironde region was 2.35 million euros per ha in Pomerol, followed by 2.1 million euros in Pauillac.