WineCap: which châteaux ‘won’ EP in terms of pricing?
Out of around 130 “commercially significant” investment-grade wines released in this year’s Bordeaux en primeur campaign, fewer than ten producers “truly responded” to the trade’s call to offer tempting pricing, WineCap CEO Alexander Westgarth has claimed.
In WineCap’s Lessons from Bordeaux En Primeur 2025 report posted on LinkedIn, Westgarth pointed to the estates which had proved to be “sensible buys”, including Lafite Rothschild, Cheval Blanc, Leoville Las Cases, Margaux, and Château Ducru Beaucaillou. With the remainder largely failing to do so, WineCap argued that Bordeaux 2025 “largely feels like a missed opportunity” for despite the “undoubted” quality of the wines, “one question ultimately mattered more than any critic score: Is the 2025 release cheaper than comparable back vintages?”
Biggest Successes
The report highlighted three of the bigger successes.
Chateau Lafite Rothschild entered the campaign relatively early, “at an attractive price point” compared to physical back-vintages like the legendary 2016 and 2018, “all while carrying a critical quality profile that rivals both” WineCap noted.
Similarly, Ducru-Beaucaillou priced the2025 ex-negociant at the same price as lower-scored 2024 last year, meaning “the superior quality of this year’s release made the value proposition stronger”, and also available physical vintages such as 2018, 2019 and 2020.
It also picked out Leoville Las Cases, one of the later releases, which “generated momentum by intentionally leaving value on the table”, WineCap said. Pricing the 2025 release “at a visible discount to its physical counterparts from 2018, 2019, and 2020” helped to create “an immediate incentive for buyers”.
These examples were “the type of pricing strategy many hoped to see more widely across the campaign,” WineCap argued. Ones that created “a value proposition that could compete with an abundance of excellent back vintages already available in the market.”
Adrian Brice MBA, head of buying at WineCap argued that the chateaux that succeeded this year “were those that showed they were listening.”
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“They recognised the reality of today’s market, respected the end customer, and priced their wines accordingly. That’s how you rebuild engagement with En Primeur.”
Which vintages provide the best comparison?
Head of investment Martin Pruszynski, reiterating what he told the drinks business last week, pointed out that the “right” vintages to compare the “stellar” 2025 with are the 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2016.
“If an investor can buy a legendary 2018 or 2019 vintage – wines that already have five or six years of bottle age – for less money than a 2025, then the ‘18 and ‘19 are better investment opportunities,” he said.
The wine investment firm noted for example that, the 2019 physical vintage for Chateau Ausone, is currently almost 10% cheaper than the 2025 release. Others following this pattern include Palmer and Pavie, where back-vintage discounts of 10% to 20% “mean there was very little economic incentive for a collector to buy early”, he said. “In these instances, if the pricing didn’t make sense, we simply don’t offer the wine as an investment.”
The report also pointed to lower production in the 2025 vintage, which produced the lowest yield since 1991 at 291 Litres, compared to the five-year average (2021-25) of 359m Litres.
This “naturally alters the value proposition and creates a different market dynamic than a more abundant harvest”, Westgarth said. He pointed to estates such as Château Margaux and Château Cheval Blanc, where “scarcity became an important part of the equation”.
“It is likely to also be a factor in why some producers did not implement the level of price reductions many in the trade had hoped for,” he added. “The realities of reduced production meant that expectations might need to be tempered by the economics of a smaller crop.”
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