Good news for wine buyers as Chateau Latour exits decades-old 'en primeur' system A Chateau Latour source said: "Our team will taste the wine often and decide when it is ready. That's the goal. We wanted to kill the speculation side of the market. However some traders reacted angrily to the news. They speculated that the change has been designed to cut out the hundreds of middlemen in Bordeaux, who take a cut of the profit when they sell the wine on. Others suggested that Chateau Latour's motive is to increase sales to China, where consumers are relatively new to the en primeur system. The en primeur system works well for the chateaux - they sell their wine as futures to negociants in the spring following the grape harvest. This gives them a good cash flow and subsidises the finishing of the wine. However the process is less good for drinkers, who must base their buying decisions on the judgment of those who have tasted a barrel sample of an unfinished wine so young and unready that the tannin kicks and the acidity screams. Stephen Browett of Farr Vintners said that Chateau Latour's owner, Francois Pinault, the third richest man in France, according to Forbes, with a net worth of £13billion, could probably afford the change in system. "For the consumer it might be a very good thing if a rich bloke in Paris is prepared to finance the maturation of all this wine," he said. Mr Browett questioned whether other chateaux will follow suit. Personally I don't think others will follow suit. Even the other first growths, with all their fame and pull find the negociant system works for them because they have other properties whose wines they want to sell. Lafite has Rieussec and properties in South America, for example," he said.