Bordeaux 2012: Nearly 6000 visitors at En Primeur say official figures

According to official figures, 5,800 people visited Bordeaux for En Primeur week to taste the 2012 vintage from barrel: a 7% increase on last year’s tasting of the 2011 vintage.

The barrel cellar at Mouton-Rothschild

This was 14% less than those who came in 2011 to taste 2010 from barrel, according to organising body the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux (UGCB).

Confirmed visitors, in the week of 8 April, came from 67 countries, but French participation – as usual – dominated by a large margin.

The UGCB does not release the number of tasters per country, but French participants represented ‘about 70% of all visitors’ this year according to Olivier Bernard, president of the UGCB.

France was followed, in order, by the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Germany and mainland China, Bernard announced to media at the closing lunch of the week-long tastings.

Most of the other top countries following France have participants ‘in the hundreds’ according to Bernard who was ‘particularly impressed’ with the 200 or so visitors from China, who surpassed the number of Belgian or Spanish tasters this year.

In all, the seven chateaux that hosted the major UGCB tastings for the main regions of Bordeaux registered 17,500 visits.

This year is the 40th anniversary of En Primeur week: it was first organised by the UGCB in 1973.

See all the pictures from this year’s official En Primeur tasting week

Written by Panos Kakaviatos