Is Bordeaux 2025 Worth Buying En Primeurs? Our Honest Verdict

Six châteaux. Six appellations. Hundreds of barrel samples. One question that matters.

Is Bordeaux 2025 worth buying En Primeurs?

Here is our honest answer — and it is the same answer we give every year, because it is the only truthful one: yes, selectively.

Why 'Selectively' Is Not a Hedge — It Is the Advice

No Bordeaux vintage is uniformly excellent across all appellations, all soil types, and all price tiers. Anyone who tells you '2025 is a buy across the board' is either being careless with the truth or selling something. Great En Primeurs buying has always been about knowing where quality is real, where it is merely very good, and where it is being priced as if it were both.

We went to Bordeaux to find the answer to exactly that question. We attended the official Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux tastings in April 2026, tasted barrel samples at Lynch-Bages, Léoville Barton, Cantemerle, Valandraud, Beauregard, and Domaine de Chevalier, and formed views that are our own — not borrowed from critics we respect but did not meet for dinner the night before their scores were published.

Where We Would Buy

The Left Bank — Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Saint-Estèphe, and the southern Haut-Médoc — performed consistently well. Cabernet Sauvignon thrived in 2025's conditions, and the vintage's signature combination of richness and freshness is precisely what the great Médoc châteaux produce in their finest years. Buy the top estates here with confidence.

The Right Bank's best addresses — those in Saint-Émilion and Pomerol with good drainage and thoughtful viticulture — delivered exceptional results in 2025. Château Valandraud produced one of the most complete wines we tasted all week. Château Beauregard showed Pomerol at its most focused and mineral. Buy selectively here, and do not be guided purely by name or classification alone.

The whites of Pessac-Léognan and Graves are, in our view, the most compelling single argument for 2025 as a historically important Bordeaux vintage. Domaine de Chevalier Blanc 2025 was the tasting of the week for our team. Buy these wines if you have the cellar space and the patience — they need fifteen years.

The Sauternes. A good botrytis autumn, properly expressed honey and apricot character, essential freshness preserved. If you have never bought a great Sauternes En Primeurs, 2025 is the vintage to start.

Where We Would Not Buy

We would approach the lesser appellations with genuine caution. The variation in 2025 was particularly pronounced in less-favoured terroirs — heavier clay soils without good drainage, lower-lying plots that struggled with the wet spring. The En Primeurs premium is only justified by unambiguous quality. When quality is not unambiguous, wait.

We would also be cautious of any wine priced, in En Primeurs release, as if 2025 were a perfect vintage. It is an excellent vintage. It is not a 2009, 2010, or 2016. Release prices that reflect the former when the wine is the latter will not age well — financially or in the glass.

The Case For Buying Now

En Primeurs prices are set before the major critics have published their scores, before the secondary market has formed its view, and before the word-of-mouth that builds in the months after release. In a genuinely good vintage — which 2025 is for the appellations described above — buying now means buying before the price rises.

History is clear on this: the wines we recommend buying in En Primeurs 2025 will cost more at release in 2027 than they cost today. How much more depends on how the vintage is ultimately rated. But the direction of travel, for the top addresses in the top appellations, is upward.

How to Buy Through Dis&Dis

We are independent wine brokers. We go to Bordeaux — we don't read about it from a desk. We taste the wines. We form our views. And for clients who want to buy, we manage everything: reservation, documentation, storage (if required), and delivery to your door when the wines are released in 2027–2028.

The process starts with a conversation. Write to us at hello@disndis.com with what you are looking for — appellation, château, budget, or simply 'advise me' — and we will respond with a specific recommendation. No commitment required to enquire. We will never recommend a wine we would not buy for ourselves.