Buying en primeur must become a pleasure again and not have buyer “feeling like the butt of a joke”, Liv-ex’s Bordeaux en primeur report has said.
The report, which was published this week, reiterated the question that has been asked for a long time, but is possibly getting louder – “Can [and will] the current system continue to exist?”
The erosion of trust is one of the biggest cracks in the system of buying Bordeaux in particular that needs to be readdressed, it said, pointing to the fact that “dropping x% [sic] on last year’s release is not enough when the market itself has fallen”. Similarly, failing to acknowledge pricing blunders in previous years and turning a blind eye to cheaper, mature vintages on the market has left long time buyers feeling like the butt of a joke,” the report said. ,
Liv-ex’s market analyst Sophia Gilmour, who wrote the report, pointed out that “no matter how much heritage and mystique Bordeaux has cultivated… price is of the utmost importance” and leaving it out of the of the equation “not only alienates collectors but voids half of the fun of buying”.
“Considering that these wines will likely remain untouched for a decade after purchase, it is vital that the buying itself is a pleasure,” she wrote.
Rooting for the system
Liv-ex noted that while “we are all rooting for the En Primeur system” and recent market conditions seem to be “more receptive to its success”, with recent releases still “within the throes of correction”, the longevity of the EP system, and its overall success “are by no means guaranteed”.
“One year may not be enough to bring back long-time buyers or capture new ones”, it said “But should true value become evident in the vintages to come, relationships may well be salvaged.”
It argues that the most committed EP buyers have been “deceived”, “buying year after year on the promise of strong returns while watching their portfolios sink further into the red…” As a result, when a “unicorn” vintage, such as the 2024 came along, “a clear-cut case of good value” which merchants honestly pointed out, “when the rhetoric matched the sales emails for the 21s, 22s and 23s, however, how could a buyer be expected to take them at their word?” As result., much of the 2024 “remains readily available”.
Market in correction but moving sideways
However, as already reported, the market is now in correction. According to the Gilmour, the Bordeaux 500 is “entering a period of sideways movement” (where prices fluctuate within a fairly narrow range, going neither clearly up or down). While this may be “unexciting”, it is “necessary to re-establish confidence” in the system. It is also not a new thing, it noted – we have seen this before, in the years after the “hugely inflated” 2009 and 2010 vintage releases which followed the very successful 2008.
The outcome is that price stability rather than rapid rises is likely as the Bordeaux 500 moves its way out of “(technical) oversold territory” (where a price has risen significantly and rapidly to reach a level potentially higher than its intrinsic value) to price stability itself.
Bordeaux “must be prepared to meet the market where it is”, Liv-ex said. “Should there be better-rated, cheaper vintages available on the market, buyers are unlikely to be gracious –indeed, they have little reason to be.”
Historic supremacy
Meanwhile, the historic “supremacy” of Bordeaux has been eroded and its market share, down the from the 80% mark in the early 2000s, has now stabilised between 30%-40%. But it is still clearly in demand, the “most important region on the secondary market, [and] consistently accounting for a higher share of traded value than any other region”, Liv-ex said. Although levels for buying across all fine wine regions is lower now than in March 2025, “US Bordeaux purchasing creep upwards over the past six months”.
It seems “unlikely” however that US buyers will return to En Primeur buying this year, given the additional uncertainty of buying before the physical vintage becomes available on top of the already felt impact of tariffs.
The weakening of the euro against Sterling and the US Dollar however may prove a boon in that it “improv[es] the purchasing power” of exporters’ partners across both the Channel and Atlantic.
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