Liv-ex says Bordeaux’s 2025 En Primeur campaign drew demand for only a handful of wines

Liv-ex, the London-based global marketplace for fine wine, has published its closing report on the 2025 Bordeaux En Primeur campaign, describing a season marked by selective buying, cautious trade participation and strong competition from older vintages already available in the market.

The report, released in June, says the 2025 campaign did not deliver the broad momentum many in Bordeaux had hoped for after the weak 2024 season. Instead, buyers focused on a small group of wines they considered fairly priced or commercially viable, while many other releases struggled to gain traction. According to Liv-ex members, Château Cheval Blanc, Château Margaux, Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Batailley were among the campaign’s clearest successes.

Cheval Blanc, Margaux and Lafite 2025 were each released at €280 a bottle ex-château, or €336 ex-négociant. Batailley 2025 was released at £289 per 12-bottle case ex-London. Liv-ex said these wines stood out in a campaign where merchants and collectors were far more selective than in stronger years.

The annual En Primeur system allows buyers to purchase Bordeaux wines while they are still aging in barrel, usually about two years before delivery. The model depends on confidence from merchants, négociants and private clients that early prices offer value compared with older vintages already trading in bottle. This year, that confidence remained fragile.

Liv-ex said the main problem for many 2025 releases was not quality but competition. The vintage received solid critical scores and was generally seen as one of the better Bordeaux harvests of recent years. But many wines came to market at prices close to those of 2019 and 2020 vintages, which are already bottled, established and in many cases similarly rated. For buyers weighing risk and value, those older wines often looked like the safer purchase.

That comparison shaped much of the campaign. Merchants cited by Liv-ex said clients repeatedly asked whether a 2025 wine offered a clear advantage over another vintage already available at the same price or less. In many cases, the answer was no. The result was a campaign with isolated bursts of demand rather than broad enthusiasm across the region.

Sophia Gilmour, a market analyst at Liv-ex and author of the report, said the campaign should not be judged only by its muted sales. She argued that Bordeaux has seen similar moments before, when release prices were criticized at first but later appeared reasonable as market conditions changed.

“This is not the first time a seemingly critical campaign has been met with tepid sales,” Gilmour said in comments released with the report. “With the wisdom of hindsight, we can look back at campaigns such as EP 2014 — once considered disappointing — and recognize that those prices may well have been sensible. There are indicators that this may too, one day, be the case for EP 2025.”

Liv-ex draws one of its main historical comparisons with the 2014 En Primeur campaign. In its view, both 2014 and 2025 followed periods of ambitious pricing that had weakened buyer trust. Both also came after poorly rated and low-yielding vintages — 2013 in one case and 2024 in the other — leaving châteaux under pressure to restore confidence while also protecting revenues.

At the time of release, 2014 pricing was widely criticized by parts of the trade. But Liv-ex argues that those wines later rewarded buyers as broader market conditions improved and mature alternatives became more expensive. The report suggests that something similar could happen with 2025 if current market stability continues and if competing back vintages do not fall further by the time these wines are delivered.

That argument rests on a key assumption: that Bordeaux prices are no longer in steep decline. Liv-ex said signs of stabilization had begun to appear in the broader fine wine market by the start of this year, after a prolonged period of weakness. That modest improvement helped create some cautious optimism before tasting week, though merchants remained highly price sensitive and unwilling to commit heavily to stock.

The report says this caution was visible throughout the supply chain. After last year’s difficult campaign, many merchants reduced their marketing efforts and bought smaller quantities. Some négociants and retailers still participated, but often with lower expectations and tighter controls on inventory. Even so, Liv-ex noted that most trade participants did not abandon En Primeur altogether. Many stayed engaged enough to support selected releases.

That selective demand may be one of the most important signals from this year’s campaign. Liv-ex said several members reported “flashes of excitement” around certain wines, moments when buyers responded quickly and allocations tightened. Some merchants even expressed frustration over reduced allocations for successful labels, an unusual complaint after a year in which parts of the trade had refused stock from weaker releases.

For Bordeaux producers and their distribution partners, that matters because it suggests demand has not disappeared entirely. Instead, it has become narrower and more disciplined. Buyers are still willing to participate when they believe pricing is justified, but they are less willing than before to support releases out of habit or loyalty alone.

The report places this shift in a broader context for Bordeaux. Over recent years, repeated campaigns with pricing seen as too ambitious have damaged trust among collectors and merchants. At the same time, falling prices for back vintages have made it harder to argue that buying early offers an advantage. The weak reception for 2024 sharpened those concerns by raising doubts about whether traditional supply-chain relationships could sustain En Primeur without stronger end-client demand.

Liv-ex says that backdrop made 2025 especially important. The trade entered this year hoping for a reset after what many saw as an unsustainable period. Instead of a full recovery, it got what the report describes as a middling outcome: not a collapse, but not a convincing revival either.

Still, Liv-ex stops short of calling the campaign a failure in absolute terms. Its analysis suggests that some release prices may look more defensible over time if alternative vintages hold their value or rise as the market steadies. In that scenario, wines bought En Primeur this year could appear better positioned once they arrive physically in about two years.

For now, however, the immediate verdict remains restrained. The strongest-performing wines were those able to stand out clearly on price, reputation or scarcity. The rest faced a market where buyers had options and little urgency.

The closing report leaves Bordeaux with a mixed message. The En Primeur system remains under pressure, but it is still functioning when producers meet today’s stricter test for value. In a market shaped by caution rather than excitement, that may be as much as Bordeaux could expect this year.