Condor Clash in the Maipo – Bacchus Rides Almaviva 2016 to Profit’s Summit
Bacchus recounts his lightning-soaked raid on Chile’s Puente Alto and explains why this “Chilean First Growth” still hides double-digit upside for investors who dare the Andean winds.
How the storm forged the legend
Harvest 2017: volcanoes grumbling, rain slicing sideways, the Maipo vines bowing like supplicants. I leapt from a granite ledge onto a giant condor, thyrsus crackling with sparks, and dived through the tempest toward the Almaviva estate. Inside a roof-shattered winery I found a newborn 2016 cuvée – black-currant, cigar leaf, and the chill breath of snowmelt. I plunged a quartz coin into the barrel and shouted, “Fly with thunder and you’ll trade for gold.” Lightning split the sky, droplets turned to rubies, and the barrel rose behind the condor like a fiery halo. The myth was set; the market soon followed.
A price chart that flies like a bird of prey
Bottles released in 2019 at €87 – barely ninety-eight dollars – changed hands for $237 by August 2020, then crested just above $290 in 2021 before a 39 percent downdraft battered them to $230 in 2023. Today the Liv-ex mid has recovered to $253, while global retail averages a softer $183. If you bought on release, you sit on an 86 percent gain; if you rode the 2023 cliff, you know the wine’s 122 percent volatility personally.
Still, my modern seers – armed with Monte-Carlo rather than goat entrails – now peg a central 2028 value of $289, implying about 14 percent appreciation, though the 95 percent destiny cone stretches from $227 to $361 because a single six-pack in Hong Kong can sway the curve.
Demand thermals and brand gravity
Four in every ten bottles migrate straight to Asia, where Hong Kong bidders routinely add five to ten percent for pristine original-wood cases. A third settle in the UK and mainland Europe, price-savvy but loyal. The United States claims roughly a fifth – respectful, yet still fixated on Bordeaux – while Chile and Latin America keep the rest for pride, not profit. Critics long ago stamped 94–95+ on the label, and today the price is driven less by fresh ink than by the wine’s hard-earned prestige in Eastern cellars.
How to ride the condor without getting tossed
Enter below two hundred dollars retail – or under $210 hammer – to anchor your cost beneath the 2023 abyss. Insist on immaculate OWC sixes or twelves because provenance remains the surest shield when the condor swoops. Keep Almaviva 2016 to no more than four percent of a diversified cellar; currency gyrations and hurricane-level volatility will punish hubris. Then wait for Lunar New Year or Golden Week, when Asian merchants scramble for high-score trophies and thunder sells at a premium.
Final gulp of thunder
The quartz coin I hurled still glimmers inside that barrel, and the condor still circles the Andes, scanning for the next updraft. Almaviva 2016 may not blast the heavens like Lafite, yet its wings beat true. Tuck it into cool shadow, heed the rhythms of the East, and toast with me when the storm returns – for those who hold steady, the Andean lightning will pour liquid profit.
