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Majestic to sell wines en primeur after a ten year break
UK specialist retailer Majestic has resumed its sales of en primeur for the first time in a decade, offering 35 wines from châteaux including Lafite Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Mouton and Margaux.
The retailer last offered en primeur in 2012, the year that Majestic purchased fine wine merchant Lay & Wheeler (Lay & Wheeler was subsequently sold to a private company for £11.3 million in 2019, following the sale of Majestic by Naked Wines Plc, which the parent company’s reverse merger with Naked Wines PLC in 2015.).
It is now offering wines from 35 chateaux from across Bordeaux, priced from £27- £494 a bottle (£165 – £2,964 a case of six), as part of an exclusive service designed to help customers invest in some of the world’s greatest wines.
Customers need to register their interest via email or on the Majestic website, with a specialist responding to discuss options and talk through the selection process, its new en primeur brochure said.
The brochure lists wines from chateaux including Château Calon-Ségur, Cos d’Estournel, Palmer, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Cheval Blanc, Angélus, Canon, Château Pontet-Canet and La Fleur-Pétrus – which are available by the bottle or as a case of six.
Majestic’s chief commercial officer Robert Cooke said the retailer’s Bordeaux suppliers had been “overwhelmingly positive about us re-entering the market and we’re extremely pleased with the allocations we’ve received”.
He said that the last few years had shown “a real desire for customers to get beneath the skin of wine” and en primeur would take that “a step further”
“It turns buying wine into an experience, which is something we really specialise in at Majestic – whether for an individual or as a beautiful gift to lay down for the future,” he said.
The en primeur offer has been overseen by en primeur buyer Jake Biggs, who started with the company in 2015 as a trainee manager, en primeur expert Emma Biggs and Rob Cooke.
A Majestic spokesman added that move would mainly appeal to existing Majestic customers, but the team hoped to broaden the appeal of the market to new En Primeur customers too.
“Our customers have been asking for us to re-enter the market for some time – and after obviously a transformative two years for Majestic, this campaign felt like the right one to return with,” he said.
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