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Bordeaux 2025 en primeur: Pomerol ‘rain came just in time’

12 May 2026 By Colin Hay

db Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay continues his tour of the Right Bank’s 2025 en primeur offerings with an, at times, emotional visit to Pomerol.

Pomerol’s hallowed plateau used to be the exception to any generalised rule about weather-related woes. That was then. Since 2024, and again in 2025, though for very different reasons, Pomerol got it tough and the plateau was not spared.

For the first time – possibly ever – the rich, deep, concentrated and, above all, water-retaining clay for which this appellation is globally renowned dried out to such an extent that the concrete, which it was in the process of becoming, threatened to suffocate the plants it is so famous for protecting.

But, thankfully, that’s not quite what happened, though just how close we came to a ‘plateau-of-Pomerol-free’ vintage is an intriguing question and one likely to remain a matter of opinion. The rain came just in time.

What is clear, as Table 1 shows more eloquently than words, is that Pomerol suffered – a lot, and a lot more than any other of the leading appellations – with yields lower even than in 2013 and nearly a third lower than the rapidly declining 10-year average.

	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	10-year average	% Change
Pomerol	39.8	28.9	32.3	45.2	28.4	25.9	36.6	-29.2
Saint-Émilion (GC)	36.7	27.5	41.2	40.5	36.4	34.7	37.9	-8.4
Margaux	36.3	38.6	31.3	37.7	33.1	28.8	39.2	-26.5
Saint-Julien	34.3	35.2	34.3	50.3	32.5	26.4	36.3	-27.3
Pauillac	37.4	35.1	34.8	47.1	29.5	30.2	40.2	-24.9
Saint-Estèphe	41.2	40.7	31.5	51.6	33.6	36.8	44.4	-17.1
Pessac-Léognan	34.6	30.7	35.7	38.1	39.0	31.0	35.6	-12.9

Table 1: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes

It was, then, with a certain amount of trepidation that I began tasting through the wines of the appellation. And, to be fair, it was not long before I came across a few tell-tale signs of extreme hydric stress: wines that were clearly over-ripe, lacking in acidity but often not in residual sugar and, in some cases, with the palpable presence of artificially elevated acidity. But as I tasted more, it became clear that these were the exceptions.

Quite remarkably for the most part, and above all on the plateau itself, Pomerol has produced a series of exceptional wines in 2025. They are characterised – like the vintage more generally – by low alcohol, bright, crunchy fruit and a certain fresh – even bracing – natural acidity.

Marielle Cazeaux of Château Conseillante

Table 2 shows, for a selection of the plateau Pomerols for which I have the data, final yields and the percentage of Merlot and Cabernet Franc in the composition of the grands vins. Though the yields are, in some cases, vanishingly small, they are quite variable and the consequences on the composition of the final grand vin blends modest.

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What the data show is that the mildew of 2024 (concentrated as it was on Merlot) was much more impactful than the drought conditions of 2025. Indeed, if anything, the vintage marks a return to more conventional blends for the grands vins of the plateau.

Wine	% Merlot			% Cabernet Franc			Yields (hl/ha)
Wine	2023	2024	2025	2023	2024	2025	2023	2024	2025
La Conseillante	88	80	87	12	20	10	43	22	30
Le Gay	95	81	93	5	19	7	42	18.4	19
Lafleur	46	45	48	54	55	52	—	41	35
Petit-Village	65	60	60	25	31	32	36	20	16
Le Pin	100	100	100	0	0	0	40	29	20
Vieux Château Certan	82	71	80	18	20	15	43	30	22
La Violette	100	100	100	0	0	0	30	16	12
Average	83	78	81	15	18	17	39.1	24.9	22
				10-year appellation average				38.2	*37.8*

Table 2: Percentage of Merlot & Cabernet Franc in the grands vins and final yield (hl/ha), 2023, 2024 & 2025

But what is perhaps most striking of all is that the very best of the wines here – almost regardless of the final yield in the vineyard – indicate nothing of the hydric stress conditions out of which they were forged.

Among them is a wine with the (perhaps dubious) double honours of being the first to have made me sob like a baby in the tasting room and to have broken my en primeur scoring system in its evident perfection. That wine is Le Pin and that tasting will remain with me forever.

La Conseillante, Petrus and Lafleur (now of course sporting a Vin de France identifier rather than its more customary Pomerol appellation but included here among its peers) are all potential candidates for perfection. On another day, any and all of them could have made me cry!

And Église-Clinet, Trotanoy, Vieux Château Certan and La Violette follow them very closely indeed.

There are plenty of other stars at a great variety of likely price points, but I would particularly like to underscore the startling brilliance of the still somewhat underappreciated Petit-Village and the best young vintage of Certan de May that I have ever tasted.