Liv-ex Warns Bordeaux En Primeur Faces a Test of Price Discipline

Liv-ex said on Wednesday that Bordeaux En Primeur is entering a critical phase, warning that the system’s long-term survival depends on whether châteaux can resist the temptation to raise prices before the market is ready to absorb them.

In its Bordeaux En Primeur 2025 Opening Report, the fine wine exchange said successive years of post-release price declines had weakened buyer confidence and left collectors, merchants and négociants questioning the role of the campaign. The report said the 2025 vintage is being released into a market that is only beginning to stabilize after three straight years of declines, with many wines still in correction and broader economic and geopolitical conditions remaining uncertain.

Sophia Gilmour, a market analyst at Liv-ex, said volumes from the 2025 growing season were down because of hydric stress, which would leave producers facing higher costs per bottle. She said that could tempt estates to push prices higher if critics award strong scores, but that such a move could backfire if buyers continue to compare new releases with cheaper mature vintages already on the market.

The report said Bordeaux remains the largest region in the secondary market, accounting for 35% of traded value, though its share has fallen sharply from levels that were once common in the early 2000s. Liv-ex said Bordeaux’s market share had stabilized in a range of 30%-40% over the past four years after a long decline from 2010 to 2021.

The exchange said its Bordeaux 500 index appeared to be moving into a period of sideways trading, similar to the years after the heavily priced 2009 and 2010 releases. That kind of movement, it said, would not be dramatic but could help rebuild confidence after a prolonged correction.

Liv-ex also pointed to signs that U.S. interest in Bordeaux has been edging up again. Wine-Searcher data showed more searches from American buyers, and Liv-ex said U.S. trade values had been shifting back toward Bordeaux over the past six months even as overall buying levels remained below those seen in March 2025. The report said tariffs at 15% continued to weigh on demand for physical vintages in the United States and made En Primeur purchases less attractive because buyers must commit before wines are bottled and shipped.

The euro’s weakness against sterling and the dollar could help exporters by improving purchasing power for overseas buyers, Liv-ex said. But it added that currency support alone would not be enough to rescue a campaign if release prices are set too high.

The report singled out several wines as examples of how recent market conditions have changed buying behavior. It said Château Lafite Rothschild’s market price index had fallen 2.8% since April 2025 and that trade levels were 14.1% lower in 2025 than in 2024 by value. La Conseillante’s index was down 6.8% over the same period, while Beychevelle’s was down 2.7%, with trade levels falling 27.9% year over year by value.

Liv-ex said one of the clearest signs of strain came from the 2024 vintage, which it described as unusually good value but still widely available rather than quickly sold out. The report argued that collectors had been burned by repeated promises of strong returns while portfolios continued to lose value, and that merchants had responded by cutting purchases sharply or stepping away from En Primeur altogether.

The exchange said trust would need time to recover even if pricing improves this year. It noted that some merchants marketed the 2024s as good value, but after similar claims around the 2021, 2022 and 2023 campaigns, many buyers no longer took those messages at face value.

Liv-ex said official reports on yields for 2025 have not yet been released, but lower volumes tied to drought stress will likely keep production costs elevated. It warned that if châteaux price aggressively while surplus stock from previous vintages remains unsold, the result could be more pressure on warehouses already holding several recent releases.

Founded in 2000 and based in Britain with operations in France and Belgium, Liv-ex connects more than 550 businesses across 42 countries through its trading platform. The company said its latest analysis drew on 26 years of pricing and transactional data and included more than 130 pieces of analysis in the full member report.