Bordeaux En Primeur | Investment-grade Wine

What are the benefits of investing in En Primeur wine?

Purchase at release

Buying investment-grade wines at their first entry into the market should be priced for future growth.

Securing rare wines

Buying wine 'En Primeur' guarantees future supply of sought after, rare investment wines.

Blue-chip provenance

En Primeur wines are bottled and shipped from the producer's cellar to your storage, providing the best provenance.

Optimise returns

Acquiring fine wine at the earliest stage provides the time to achieve the best results.

En Primeur - key events

'En Primeur' releases happen at different times in the year depending on the region. Burgundy's new vintage release generally takes place in Q1 and Bordeaux's larger campaign in Q2.

The Bordeaux En Primeur campaign is one of the wine trade's annual highlights with hundreds of producers involved and the world's leading critics. The key events are:

Fine wine critics, journalists and merchants are hosted at key chateaux for the tastings in late April
The critics publish their quality scores late April and into May
The chateaux agree their market opening prices with their courtiers and the negociants
The en primeur allocations are released at the opening price via the negociants onto the secondary market normally from early May. The First Growths and other key estates release later
The campaign usually closes in June and the en primeur wine allocations are then traded on the secondary market, whilst the wine continues to age in barrel.
The wine is bottled after two to three years and quality scored again by the critics. This event can trigger further price movement. The wine is then shipped to owner storage in bond.
The 'physical' wines continue to age in-bottle and are traded in the secondary market.

Join our Waiting List

What do you need to consider?

Financial security

En Primeur investments must be made via an agent or merchant with an excellent reputation. The risk is that should your chosen investment partner fail, you may not receive your wine and lose money.

Performance potential

Investment in any type of 'future' presents the risk of the investment not performing to forecasts. Like all investments, it is important to remember that the value of an En Primeur wine can go down as well as up.

Longer investment term

En Primeur wine matures in barrel for 2 - 3 years before bottling and transfer to storage. Wine allocations are traded but generally a longer investment period should be considered.