‘Subdued’ en primeur campaign despite the ‘uniqueness’ of the vintage

High stakes ahead of this year’s En Primeur campaign have made it a nerve-wracking six weeks for the trade, and though some merchants are reporting “a sizeable amount of wine” sold, the reaction overall has been “somewhat subdued and cautious”.  In view of the quality of the vintage, this is both frustrating and worrying. Arabella Mileham reports. 

Speaking to the drinks business last week, Max Lalondrelle, managing director of fine wine purchasing at Berry Bros. & Rudd said that this year “en primeur has worked for us”, with BBR selling “a sizeable amount of wine”. Despite the success of the campaign however, there was no doubt that the structural changes in the market have had an effect on en primeur and “it is no longer what it used to be”.

For example, BBR has scaled back its en primeur offer by around half in the last decade to around 60 wines this year, he said, and there was “less noise” around en primeur than a decade. En primeur for many merchants is now only “part of the conversation, not all of it”, he said, and there was “less traction” for it now than in previous years.

“If we’d had a similar vintage 15 years ago, we would have sold more,” he told db. “If we had had access to choose more of some wines, then we could also have sold more. But is en primeur different now than it used to be? Yes, absolutely.”

Robert Matthias MW of Lay & Wheeler noted that ahead of the campaign, there was “cautious optimism” for the campaign, and although the Bordelais was cautious about “shouting about how good the vintage was”, they knew that the wines they had were very largely very good.

Although there were “a few good signals at the start of campaign”, and however, he argued that the slow and “lumpy” pace of the campaign has not proved helpful – and the early start meant that merchants and critics barely had time to digest the tastings and prepare before the campaign started.

“The campaign has not been a disaster. There’s been some lovely wines – Lafitte, Cheval Blanc, Mouton and Bataillay proved some high points, but it’s been a bit of a concertina towards the end, and that doesn’t particularly work in its favour,” he said.

In addition to this, the “modest” price increases this year – which saw the 25s “somewhere in between the ‘24s and ‘23s or in some cases the ‘19s” – had not taken into account where the market had taken the wines to in the last few years.

He pointed out that it was particularly frustrating, because “the quality has never been better”.

Pricing 

Marc Ditcham of Corney & Barrow laid some of the responsibility of this for on pricing, arguing that despite producing wines of very good quality, the Bordelais had “ignored the pleas from negociants, UK merchants and the final consumer to pay heed (once again) to the challenging global economic environment in which they are releasing these young wines.”

He noted that due to the lower yields than 2024 and “a common consensus that the 2025 vintage has provided wine of superior quality”, many Chateaux had decided to release the 2025 vintage at a price greater than last year.

“Though this strategic approach would have made sense in the halcyon days of En Primeur, today the appetite by our customers is more apathetic as older, back-vintage wines often remain available on the secondary market at similar or cheaper prices. Furthermore, with there being very little financial incentive to buy En Primeur, there is far less urgency from collectors to get involved early, being content to wait for the wines to land in the physical market before procuring.”

However Ditcham noted that there were some customers who remained “unfazed and unfussed by such detail” when deciding to buy En Primeur, believing this to be the best time to buy a wine or château that they love, or choosing a specific format type/case size, rather than risking missing out.

“In truth no one knows how these wines will be received once they go through bottle élevage and what type of financial economic market they will finally land as physical goods,” he said. “With no change in sight to this somewhat mystifying and archaic system, the Bordeaux En Primeur ‘circus’ continues to fascinate and intrigue all stakeholders who subscribe to this perennial drama.”

Hindsight might prove interesting

However Matthias insisted that “in the fullness of time, the ‘25 prices will look sensible” and this year has hinged more on a question of demand.

“There is a market [for Bordeaux], and a lively and active one as a lot of people love Bordeaux, but there are waves in demand,” he explained. “For some estates, it’s really worked, and there has been some energy and success but there is a signal of change in the pattern of buying these days.”

“There are people who think they want Chateau X but it’s not quite the same demand as you’d have seen a few years ago – not in terms of Bordeaux overall, but for en primeur as a futures way of buying Bordeaux.”

While “not a bad campaign” he said, particularly coming off the back of last year’s being “about as bad as it gets”, it was not appreciably better either – and sadly “not one that signals the return of en primeur”.

Lalondrelle argued there had been a “misunderstanding” about the quality of the vintage – whether press-related, merchant-related or winery-related, particularly relative to its pricing. “I think the quality of this vintage is incredible and probably my top three in the last 25 years.”

Furthermore, in most cases “the prices are pretty good” he said.

“If you look at the price from a previous vintage, yes, [they are more] but this vintage is unique.” He argued that while a lot of merchants and other said it effectively needs to be cheaper than the ’19 or ’22, “you can’t really compare – you can’t replace the ’25 with the ’19,  because they have totally different vintages.”

Martin Pruszynski, head of wine investment at WineCap agreed that in retrospect, the pricing may seem”100% fair for the fairly large array of ‘comme-ci, comme-ça’, ok releases”, particularly bearing in mind that Bordeaux pricing have stabilized.

“I’m fairly comfortable that we’re at the bottom end of the market, but ultimately you can only make decisions with the information that is available at hand at the time – and that is how these wines are priced against comparable vintages right now,” he said. “I can’t make a decision based on where they will be in two, three, four, 15 years time.”

Where the ’25 will ultimately fit into the “hierarchy” of vintage in time is an argument for another time, he added, but currently it is being set against the ’22, ’20, ’29, 18, ’16, 15, and, to a lesser extent, the ’10 and’09.

However, Lalondrelle maintained that is is frustrating that the conversation around Bordeaux invariably revolves around pricing.

“I understand it, but I get saddened because when we sell wine from Piedmont, New Zealand, Spain or Burgundy, we don’t talk about pricing, we talk about the quality of the product,” he said. “The quality and the difference in winemaking for this vintage is like a different era. If you had this vintage in the early 2000s,  they would have made it a very, very different way. So it is very difficult to compare it to anything else, really.”

“For that reason, it should be looked at as a unique and wonderful vintage that everybody must have in their cellar at some point if they like to collect lovely Bordeaux wine. It doesn’t mean it has to be en primeur, necessarily, but over time I think people should definitely consider having some.”

Can the golden age return?

So perhaps it is pointless to hark back to the dizzy heights of en primeur, and necessary for all involved to accept that the way people are buying has changed and the only way to meet this is to adopt a new approach and make the existing system more flexible.

“The Bordelais has to consider the life cycle of the customer, how they drink and how they buy, and that’s different to how it was 15 years ago,” Matthias argued. “The quality has never been better, that’s what’s so frustrating. There’s a real step change in quality in the last 10-15 years, but it’s a question of the market and where it will be in a few years. We need to keep adapting to customers’ changing needs and keep that in mind.”

Lalondrelle agreed, noting that essentially there is a “clash of generation” in the market place, whereby “new consumers want access to goods a lot quicker than they used to.”

“Whereas an older generation was quite happy to buy something and then wait for it – that was actually part of the reward, I think in this new ‘Amazon-delivery’ world, this is less and less the case,” he said.

 

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