Fixed price, future deliveries: who carries the risk in a bulk programme?

Consider three hypothetical offers for the same wine at €0.75 per litre, for 288,000 litres a year. The first requires taking and paying for everything up front. The second allows four deliveries across the year, with the annual volume committed. The third allows each parcel to be bought with no obligation over the ones that follow.

In the first two offers the price is fixed for the annual volume. In the third, €0.75/l is the price of the first parcel; the rest stay open to market conditions. To isolate the effect of the calendar, the example initially assumes all of them are bought at the same price.

The price per litre can be identical across all three. The exposure over the following months is not.

If the price per litre is the same, what are we comparing when one offer requires taking everything and another allows the call-offs to be scheduled across the year?

At Corbeau we adapt the shipping schedule to the client's needs within the agreed annual volumes. The conversation changes when that annual commitment is not met: that is where renegotiation arises.

Moving a call-off within the programme is not the same as reducing the annual volume.

Three structures, three different commitments

What follows are hypothetical structures for the same wine and the same demand. They describe neither Corbeau's offering nor standard market terms.

Long-term contracts and spot transactions coexist as real modalities of the bulk trade. None dominates in every scenario, and the answer may be a hybrid: a committed base volume with additional needs to be confirmed.

SourceCiatti, Want to Buy Bulk Wine

Four things are worth separating, because the commercial conversation routinely merges them: the forecast, the firm order, the annual volume commitment and the purchase option. A forecast does not in itself constitute a guaranteed reservation, and a tolerance can be negotiated but should not be assumed included.

There is also a definition that changes much of the rest: whether what is reserved is an identified lot or the capacity to supply a profile. That difference determines what gets tied up and how it is validated.

Where the inventory sits and who finances it

The difference appears when inventory and holding costs are compared.

Every value that follows is an illustrative assumption. These are not Malbec prices, bank rates or Corbeau's commercial terms. The purpose is to isolate the effect of the calendar, not to calculate a landed cost.

Assumptions: uniform demand of 288,000 litres across twelve months, equivalent to 24,000 litres a month, with continuous and uniform outflows; price of €0.75/l; payment on receipt, with no advances or credit; inventory financing at 10% a year; storage at €0.006/l per month. In B and C, deliveries at the start of months 0, 3, 6 and 9. The comparison uses the buyer's same receiving point and excludes transit, safety stock, duties, freight, bottling, materials, insurance and losses.

The monetary figures for C only match if each subsequent purchase is also executed at €0.75/l: that is a constant-price scenario, not a forecast. If a reservation charge applies in B, or payments, freight or insurance change, the figures have to be recalculated. B reduces the buyer's average inventory by 75% and their holding costs by €15,876 a year, roughly 5.51 cents per litre across the annual volume. This is not a net saving for the whole programme: the costs and commitments of the structure at origin are missing.

It is worth bounding what that cost measures. Financing is calculated on the average value of inventory, and does not represent total working capital or a cash budget: customer receipts and other operating balances are not modelled.

The next step is to look at inventory across the whole supply chain.

If in B all the wine is already prepared and reserved at the outset, stock at origin after each delivery would be 216,000, then 144,000, then 72,000, then zero litres across each quarter: an average of 108,000 litres.

Assumes all the wine is finished and reserved from the outset.

Inventory can move between the parties without disappearing. What changes is who finances it, where it is kept, and which commercial terms make that distribution workable.

That does not mean the total cost is identical. Rates, facilities, storage costs and financing needs can differ substantially between the two parties. Nor does it mean every scheduled programme ties up finished wine from day one: if it is produced or assembled progressively, the comparison changes.

When sales do not follow the plan

The comparison becomes interesting once the year stops resembling the forecast. The most instructive case is sales below expectation.

With sales 25% lower — 216,000 litres instead of 288,000 — the difference is 72,000 litres, with a reference value of €54,000 at the base price. In A, if everything was received, 72,000 litres remain unconsumed at the close. They are not a €54,000 loss: the wine remains an asset, subject to its recoverable value and to the future cost of holding it. That figure should not be confused with a recognised expense or with recoverable cash.

In B, lower demand does not remove the annual commitment, and the balance may sit at origin or at destination depending on the deliveries actually taken. This is precisely where renegotiation arises — not in the ordinary adjustment of dates within the annual volume.

In C, if the reduction is known before the fourth purchase is placed and no obligation covers it, it need not be contracted. That flexibility is not available once an order is signed, nor with every supplier, and its counterpart is having secured neither price nor availability.

The reverse case matters too. With sales 25% higher — 360,000 litres — both A and B covered 288,000: 72,000 litres are missing, and a fixed annual commitment does not guarantee extra volume. C also has to find additional product. What helps is identifying the base demand and the additional demand in advance, and agreeing how additional quantities will be requested.

What a fixed price does not fix

An agreed price leaves several things unresolved, and they are worth naming.

→ The actual arrival schedule. Sea-Intelligence reported in October 2026 a global schedule reliability of 50.6% and an average delay of 6.65 days among late arrivals, with data through September.

→ The price of future purchases. In C, the final three parcels total 216,000 litres. If they move from €0.75 to €0.825/l, the wine purchase rises by €16,200; if they fall to €0.675, it drops by the same amount.

→ The currency of outstanding payments. In B, €162,000 of planned purchases remain after the first delivery. If the buyer budgets in another currency and has not fixed the exchange rate, their cost can move even though the euro price is fixed.

SourceSea-Intelligence, Global Liner Performance, issue 182, 28 October 2026 On the shipping figure it is worth being precise. These are global indicators of vessel arrivals, not of wine deliveries to a warehouse, and the 6.65 days apply to late arrivals rather than to all voyages. They cannot be used to derive a safety stock: that requires the distribution of delays, the variability of demand and the service level sought.

An example sets the scale. If a delivery arrives thirty days later than planned, the assumed consumption means 24,000 litres have to be covered across that interval, and a stock-out only occurs if existing inventory and the other deliveries fall short. Holding those additional 24,000 litres across the whole year would cost €3,528 in financing and storage at the rates in this case. That is a cost sensitivity, not a stock recommendation.

There is also a frequent confusion worth undoing. The International Chamber of Commerce distinguishes operational obligations, the allocation of costs and the point at which the risk of loss or damage transfers. Its rules do not in themselves establish ownership, the schedule or currency of payment, the price, or remedies for breach. And in the C group, the destination to which carriage is paid does not necessarily coincide with the point where risk transfers.

SourceICC, Incoterms and Commercial Contracts

The agreed Incoterm determines where the risk of loss or damage transfers. The consequences of lower demand depend on the purchase commitment and on the other terms of the agreement.

And moving a delivery has consequences beyond the winery. Carriers' terms distinguish demurrage, detention and storage, with charges applying after the relevant free time. Rescheduling a shipment before loading is different from delaying collection from the terminal, unpacking the container or returning the empty equipment: commercial flexibility with the winery does not remove obligations to the carrier, the terminal or the bottler.

SourceMaersk, Terms for Detention and Demurrage

The flexibility that can be agreed

Extending storage is not simply a matter of counting months either. The OIV guide for bulk wine transportation addresses oxidation, contamination and the retention of representative samples, and the condition and preparation of the wine are worth assessing before any extension. There is no universal holding period for any given Malbec. With all of that on the table, these are the questions worth settling before comparing two proposals.

SourceOIV, Good Practices Guide for Bulk Wine Transportation

Questions recommended for organising the negotiation. Review frequency, notice periods and tolerances are agreed project by project.

Payment, reservation and storage terms have to be agreed for each project.

A sound programme does not need every call-off to be right a year in advance. It needs to distinguish which volume underpins the agreement, which movements the calendar allows, and how to act when demand changes. That is where a price becomes a supply relationship.