A vintage shaped by record heat that somehow produced wines of remarkable freshness. Bordeaux 2025 is already being called a cross between 2020 and 2016 — and on the eve of the formal tastings, here is our honest take on what it means for your cellar.
Growing Season and Wines
The 2025 growing season was challenging by any measure. The earliest budbreak since 1989. June temperatures second only to 2003 since records began. A harvest that started in August for the whites, with some Merlot picked in the first days of September. Conditions that, on paper, should have produced heavy, overripe wines.
They didn't. What emerged from the vats has genuinely surprised the first tasters. Decanter's Georgie Hindle, who has already tasted close to 200 wines, describes "exceptional concentration, aromatic purity and a freshness that contradicts the record-breaking heat." The technical picture is equally striking — alcohols largely between 12.5 and 13.5%, cool overnight temperatures maintaining a high diurnal range throughout the summer, and a timely dose of rain at the end of August completing ripening without dilution on well-drained terroirs. The result, by early consensus, is a vintage that sits somewhere between the precision of 2020 and the structure of 2016, with the brightness and juiciness of 2023. If that assessment holds across the board when the formal tastings conclude on 23 April, 2025 will be a very serious vintage indeed, and a more than worthy entry into those legendary years ending in '5.
Our team is in Bordeaux next week tasting across the range. We will report back fully once we have formed our own view, and we won't be rushing to publish before we're confident in what we're telling you.
The Market: an Honest Assessment
En Primeur has had a difficult few years and we won't pretend otherwise. As Colin Hay noted in a recent analysis for The Drinks Business ahead of this campaign, the mood among the key players — properties, courtiers and négociants alike — remains complex.
The most concrete data point comes from Liv-ex, whose bid-to-offer ratio has turned positive for the first time in three years. This implies that demand on the secondary market now marginally exceeds supply. Whether it represents a genuine turning point or a temporary shift in a still-fragile market is too early to say with any confidence.
We would gently caution against some of the more optimistic statements beginning to circulate about a bold recovery in fine wine's secondary market performance, though there are promising signs.
Our view, as ever, is simpler. Buy the wines you will genuinely want to drink. Buy them from producers you trust, at prices that make sense for the pleasure they will deliver. On that basis, if 2025 is the vintage early tastings suggest it is, and the pricing is right, there will be very good reasons to buy — and we will tell you honestly which ones when the time comes.
Our Syndicates: The Inside Track
Last year we assembled what we believe was an exceptional line-up of club barrels from some of Bordeaux's most revered châteaux: Montrose, Suduiraut, La Conseillante, Figeac and Pontet-Canet among them. Each of these Syndicate Member received personalised labels on their bottles and an invitation to lunch or dinner at the château itself, at a date arranged directly with fellow members. The wines are outstanding. The experience is genuinely something else.
For 2025 we are planning another line-up of the same calibre. Given the smaller volumes coming out of the region this year, particularly at the quality end of the market, the barrels we are able to offer through the Syndicates Club will be more sought after than ever. Members get first access to every release alongside the full suite of Syndicates benefits.
We will share details of our 2025 line-up over the coming weeks, though we anticipate a narrow focus, as always. If you would like to be first to hear — or would like to discuss joining the Syndicates Club before the campaign opens — your Wine Guru is the person to speak to, or you can sign up to Bordeaux 2025 En Primeur to find out more.