Château Branaire-Ducru
Château Branaire-Ducru.
(Image credit: Per Karlsson, BKWine 2 / Alamy Stock Photo)

While merchants have reported strong collector interest in some Bordeaux 2022 en primeur wines, high release prices may not help the region’s near-term market momentum.

Bordeaux’s 2022 en primeur wines were well received overall, despite some ‘tone deaf’ prices, said UK merchant Goedhuis & Co.

Château Cheval Blanc was a success story, said several merchants. Goedhuis said 75% of production was released en primeur, with the remainder set for release in 15 years’ time, ‘undoubtedly at a higher ex-château premium’.

Clyde Beffa Jr, co-founder of K&L Wine Merchant in California, highlighted strong sales on wines including Mouton Rothschild and Lafite Rothschild, plus ‘superb value’ on Branaire-Ducru and La Gaffelière.

Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Carruades de Lafite and L’Eglise Clinet also offered value, said Liv-ex. However, it described the campaign as ‘another missed opportunity’ in general. Despite high vintage quality, the campaign ‘is unlikely to have encouraged a new generation of buyers’, it said.

Goedhuis & Co also noted, ‘Historically, the market demand for Bordeaux cools after a highly priced campaign, as it did after the 2010 and 2018 en primeur campaigns.’ It added, ‘We will see over the coming months how the market responds.’

Matthew O’Connell, CEO of LiveTrade at Bordeaux Index, said of the campaign: ‘I don’t recall any wines that I would describe as [released at] investible prices.’ Prices may rise in future, ‘but for something to be investible at the present time it has to be better value than other vintages’, he said.

Each estate has its own context, but he said the well-regarded 2020 and 2019 vintages were options to consider, as well as Bordeaux’s benchmark 2016 vintage.

Analyst group Wine Lister said Château Canon 2022 has ‘potentially strong investment potential’, given the lower-scoring 2020 vintage was up by 85% since release.

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(Image credit: Credit Unknown)

Château Figeac 2022 (98-100pts, Decanter), was released at £3,036 (12x75cl in bond), above other recent vintages. The estate has been on a strong quality run, but the price may partially reflect its promotion to St-Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé A status last year.

The Bordeaux Index view

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com

Bordeaux’s en primeur campaign for the 2022 vintage ended with a busy last fortnight of releases, but with no real change in trend vs the remainder of the campaign: in most cases pricing of this excellent vintage proved to be acceptable to ongoing collectors but of less interest to those with more of a focus on relative value or outright investment merit.

The result – compounded by lower volumes as châteaux take a longer-term perspective on release strategy (gone is the Big Bang release approach of old) – was a campaign that was small and somewhat uneventful, despite wines which in the glass were fundamentally very interesting.

There are two market implications arising from this campaign. One is the attractiveness of back vintages of high quality – 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020, but even some much older vintages – particularly in the context that it seems likely that higher release prices are here to stay. The second is that it will be interesting to see how much interest the Bordeaux market commands in the second half of 2023. We tend to find that smaller EP campaigns lead to muted market activity in the months that follow – but we shall see this time around.

Bordeaux Index

(Image credit: Credit Unknown)
Chris Mercer
Chris Mercer

Chris Mercer is a Bristol-based freelance editor and journalist who spent nearly four years as digital editor of Decanter.com, having previously been Decanter’s news editor across online and print.

He has written about, and reported on, the wine and food sectors for more than 10 years for both consumer and trade media.

Chris first became interested in the wine world while living in Languedoc-Roussillon after completing a journalism Masters in the UK. These days, his love of wine commonly tests his budgeting skills.

Beyond wine, Chris also has an MSc in food policy and has a particular interest in sustainability issues. He has also been a food judge at the UK’s Great Taste Awards.