Wine investment: Bordeaux 2025 campaign imminent
Decanter's Market Watch takes the temperature as Bordeaux en primeur season arrives, plus legendary Burgundy wine Romanée-Conti 1945 sets a new auction record. Read the latest edition, featured in the magazine's May 2026 issue.
Bordeaux 2025 arrives to mixed market
Bordeaux’s latest en primeur season has arrived, entering a market that’s balancing improved buyer sentiment against macroeconomic uncertainty and plentiful supplies.
Bordeaux’s 2025 vintage has garnered an early reputation as a high-quality, low-volume crop, though barrel samples of the wines were still being tasted as Decanter went to press.
The build-up to this year’s releases campaign was dominated by heightened macroeconomic uncertainty and intense scrutiny of the en primeur system, yet also better fine wine market sentiment.
Geraint Carter, of international merchant Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform, said: ‘There’s a bit more activity around Bordeaux than there was a year ago, and a fair chunk of that is in younger vintages – such as 2019 and 2020 – where prices have [largely] come down and they appear to represent value.’ (See table below)
At Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, the Bordeaux 500 index crept up 0.2% in value in the first quarter of 2026, although it was still down 15.3% over five years.
Sophia Gilmour, Liv-ex market analyst, described the broader market as ‘stable but precarious’.
Despite improved conditions in the past six months, she said: ‘We’ll more than likely bump along the bottom for a while as buyers rebuild their trust in prices and sellers begin to clear the surplus stock.’
Carter said there’s no shortage of young, good-quality Bordeaux. He cited 2019 as a high-quality vintage offering a potential point of comparison for the 2025-vintage campaign.
He suggested that if one assumes that the vintages are of similar quality, 2025 would have to be ‘at a serious discount to current 2019 [vintage] prices’ (see table) to be interesting from an investment perspective.
Release prices above this level may still attract collectors seeking to secure ex-château wines for future drinking pleasure, of course.
Many châteaux have already cut release prices over the past two campaigns, albeit sales for 2024-vintage wines were generally weak.
In the US, ongoing uncertainty regarding current and future tariffs were an additional stumbling block, said Shaun Bishop, CEO of California-based merchant JJ Buckley.
‘If the client doesn’t fully understand the final (delivered) price, then the en primeur release pricing is pretty much moot.’
From Decanter magazine's May 2026 issue.
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
Reanimating en primeur
To the cynic, Bordeaux en primeur 2025 feels like the fifth instalment of a zombie franchise that ran out of ideas in part two: hard to kill and increasingly divorced from reality.
Expectations are understandably muted, with recent campaigns having lurched between the frustrating and the frankly absurd.
And yet, there are still grounds for cautious optimism. Early indications suggest a vintage of genuine quality. In an era of ever-greater precision in vineyard management and cellar technique, it’s a welcome reminder that greatness still rests heavily on nature’s goodwill.
Encouragingly, 2025 also continues a run of smaller vintages which, in isolation, is rarely good news for producers or consumers, but in a market still grappling with excess supply, it may prove helpful.
However, all of this will be squandered if pricing is wrong. So we end with a gentle exhortation to producers: the small improvement in sentiment late last year shouldn’t be mistaken for a full recovery.
Buyer sentiment remains weak and, in this era of omni-crises, only a fool would assume the outlook will surprise to the upside. Today’s buyer is better informed and more selective than ever, and with ample back vintages available and the cost of capital rising, pricing must reflect reality.
Bordeaux isn’t essential, but it can still be irresistible. Price with realism and humility, or risk becoming the sequel nobody asked for.
Auction news and latest releases
Romanée-Conti 1945 sets new price record
Legendary Burgundy wine Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 1945, from fabled producer Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC), has broken its own auction price record by selling for more than US$800,000 (£591,000).
US-based auction house Acker (formerly Acker, Merrall & Condit) sold a bottle of DRC, Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 1945 for $812,500 at its recent La Paulée event in New York.
That’s a new record auction price for a bottle of wine, said Acker. It said the new record-holder was first sold in 2018 and originated from the cellar of Burgundy winemaking pioneer Robert Drouhin.
Auction house Sotheby’s sold two bottles of DRC, Romanée-Conti 1945 from Robert Drouhin’s private cellar in 2018, including one for $558,000 – a world record at the time.
Only 600 bottles of the 1945 vintage were produced, and the lauded vineyard site was subsequently replanted due to the phylloxera pest.
Latour 2019 makes its debut
Château Latour 2019 (100pts, Decanter) has been one of several high-profile releases hitting the market for the first time in recent weeks.
Latour 2019 was around £2,790 (6x75cl in bond) in the UK. Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said the wine was among the more expensive Latour vintages on the market but below the price of Latour 2016, a fellow 100-point wine released to widespread acclaim last year.
Geraint Carter, of Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform, said demand for Latour 2019 began modestly but that the wine ended up selling ‘pretty well’.
Other Bordeaux releases in recent weeks have included Château d’Yquem 2023, with particularly strong scores.
Liv-ex quoted an ex-negociant price of €255-a-bottle, similar to other recent vintages, with an international release price of £3,120 (12x75cl in bond).
Fine wine diary: What's coming up
Taste Bordeaux 2025
Bordeaux’s en primeur campaign will likely dominate the releases landscape in May. In London, Berry Bros & Rudd will host a tasting of Bordeaux 2025 samples on 12 May. Prospective buyers can also read in-depth analysis and exclusive tasting notes from the vintage online via Decanter.com and Decanter Premium, and look out for a report in the next issue.
One-off Oregon wines
A 10th edition of the Willamette Valley Wine Auction will take place in May, showcasing one-of-a-kind, 2024-vintage wines from this US stronghold for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. An online auction and live event on 13 May will be followed by a trade-only sale on 14 May. For more details, see the auction website.
Christie’s in Asia
Christie’s is set to auction the fifth, and final, instalment of rare wines from the cellar of collector Joseph Lau, in Hong Kong on 22 May. It’s part of a series of sales of different collectibles, ranging from fine art to precious jewels, to mark 40 years of Christie’s auctions in Asia.
Clos Vougeot festival and auction
The 18th edition of the Musique et Vin au Clos Vougeot, to be held in June, will feature charity auctions of a range of top Burgundy wines. Sotheby’s said that it will host an online auction from 15 to 30 June, and there will be a live sale and gala dinner on 28 June, the final evening of the festival.
Please note: Release schedules are subject to change.
Decanter’s Market Watch pages are published for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Wine prices may vary and they can go down as well as up. Seek independent advice where necessary and be aware that wine investment is unregulated in several markets, including the UK.
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