Appellations

What is En Primeur?

"En Primeur" or "Primeurs" is the process of buying wine before it is bottled (sometimes known as wine futures).

2024 Bordeaux primeurs are the wines made from grapes harvested in Bordeaux in September/October 2024. 

April/May 2025 - The wines are aged in barrel at the Chateaux, tasted by us and the critics in Spring 2025 and offered onto the market in April/May 2025. Wines will be bottled after approximately 18 months.

Spring/Summer 2027 - wines will be shipped to the UK in the Spring and will then be available to be transferred or delivered In Bond or Duty Paid.

There are several reasons why buying En Primeur can make sense:

    • Choose a different bottle size for your wines.  Large format bottles such as 1.5 litre magnums, 3 litre double magnums, 6 litre imperials are much harder to find later on.  They look impressive on the table, and are a great way to mark special dates, birthdays and anniversaries.  Half-bottles are a great choice also, always popular for Sauternes and increasingly so for red wines too.
  • Buy wines at the best possible price.... The whole idea behind "en primeur" is that opening prices are usually (and sometimes considerably) cheaper than prices once available on the open market.  The Chateaux are able to sell their wines early, and the savvy collector secures a prized allocation at the best price, so the thinking goes.

  • Secure rare wines or formats that are made in very limited quantities or which may not be available following release.

  • Ensure perfect provenance direct from the Chateau, and to know the full history of the wine from initial purchase to shipment from Bordeaux direct to professional storage in a bonded warehouse, free of taxes.


NB: For En Primeur there is no minimum order value but we sell by the case of 6 or 12 bottles.

Staying in Touch

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Send in your Wishlist

If there are wines of particular interest - do let us know. Do you want to receive updates on all releases or just a select few?
If you love St Julien, or if you prefer to look at value wines sub-£300/cs, let us know. You can put together a Wishlist of wines selected by you to follow throughout the campaign, and add notes about your criteria.

Waiting List

If a wine sells out, we can sometimes buy additional quantities later on. Let us know your interest so that we can tell you as soon as it comes back onto our books.

Allocations

Some wines have become even more sought-after than ever and we already know that quantities of the top wines will be limited. Where we are over-subscribed, we will allocate according to the following criteria:

  • Balanced orders
  • Previous en primeur buyers
  • Regular buyers throughout the year
  • Other en primeur orders

En Primeur is always an exciting time once the pace gets going. For more information, please get in touch. 

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