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Bordeaux en primeur ‘is out of the ICU’ with stabilising – if lacklustre – 2023 campaign

05 June 2024 By Arabella Mileham

The Bordeaux 2023 campaign has seen a “hopeful first step in resetting en primeur prices”, a new report has said, despite a rather “lacklustre” reception by consumers who are “less willing to spend on anything other than a few cherished brands”.

According to the new report from Wine Lister, feedback from the trade indicated “a lacklustre reception” to the campaign overall and despite an average -22% “discount” on wines offered so far compared to the 2022 vintage, there have been many wines that have “stumbled” due to vintages already in-bottle being available to purchase for less than the 2023 release price. This is despite the average discount sitting “just within the requisite range… of quality versus current market price”.

Wine Lister’s analysis noted that ex-negociant prices should have been between -21% and -34%, while the average price of the 62 wines covered by the data showed this to come in at -22%.

The projection was achieved by comparing the quality score and the current market price of the 2017 and 2019 vintage (which it said was comparable in terms of quality and style), to determine the theoretic market price of the 2023 vintage.

There have been notable successes though. “Several wines have seen decent sales thanks to coming out significantly below current market prices for back vintages, including the all-important 2019 which has proved a fly in the ointment for so many releases,” the report noted.

As such, the campaign had offered “a first hopeful step in resetting en primeur prices before the reach unsalvageable heights”, it noted. “Emergency surgery has stabilised the patient, and the en primeur system is out of ICU ahead of a much-needed recovery.”

db’s own analysis has found that of the 2023 estates released to date, 13 estates have been released with an ex-negociant price more than 30% lower than last year’s release price – the minimum demanded by the trade, 15 plumped for a reduction of between 25%-30%, and 11 hovered between 20%-24%. Meanwhile 14 had a release price that was between 10-19% lower than the 2022 price with only three a release less than 10% lower than last year.

As Corney and Barrow’s associate director and head of monopole Joe Muller told db two weeks ago, a lot of wine estates fell short of a pre-established range that the merchant had worked out would offer clients a fair value price – although there were some notable successes.

Quality

Returning to the Wine Lister report, Margaux was the winning appellation, the analysis found, with 10 out of the 134 top wines achieving higher quality score in 2023 than in 2022, compared to 8 across the remaining Bordeaux appellations. The biggest riser in terms of estates was Château Lascombes, under its new director Axel Heinz, followed by Marquis de Terme.

However, when comparing the average quality scores for appellations for the last few vintages, Pauillac performed most strongly, overtaking Pomerol by one point, while Saint-Estephe saw the largest year-on-year fall.

Additional analysis provided by Wine-Searcher showed that Bordeaux’s share of total searches in the past 12 months has only increased very marginally – from 17.3 – 17.9%, however with supply increasing and demand contracting, this showed that the region still dominated searches and offers on Wine-Searcher, Wine Lister said.

It found that US interest in Bordeaux fell the most between January and April 2024, down 18.8%, followed by the UK (-11.5%), Europe (9.6%) and Asia (-8.7%).

Compound growth rate for the top 8 Bordeaux appellations grew, led by Pomerol and Margaux (3.9%), while Sauternes and Barsac trailed in the final spot, at 1.4%, below the next nearest, Pauillac on 2.6% CAGR.

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