At this time of the year the wine trade descends on Bordeaux to taste the new vintage, more commonly known as En Primeur. The last 3 years have been rather unattractive vintages, with 2011 and 2012 following hot on the heels of the magical 2009 and 2010 vintages, which emptied a few pockets. The 2013 vintage was pretty much a disaster. 2014 is looking very good indeed. A warm winter was followed but a great spring. Summer was less desirable, but then autumn kicked in and saved the vintage. Long warm days brought the grapes to full maturity and the vintage ended up a success. Cabernet Sauvignon is the star of 2014, so wines from the Medoc will favour well.

How it works

If En Primeur is new to you, let me explain how it all works. Around Easter time Bordeaux comes alive with merchants from all corners of the Earth making a beeline to taste the new vintage. Once the wines are tasted, notes and scores are made public and the Chateaux start to release their prices. The theory behind this practice is that the Chateau recuperates money that has been spent on the vintage and the end consumer can get the wines at a cheaper price, before they become physically available.

If you are buying En Primeur, the wines still need another 18 months in the barrel. Once they go into bottle, the Chateau will sell them onto the open market and the price is normally 10-20% higher. In 2011 and 2012, the chateaux over-priced their En Primeur offers and prices traded poorly in the after-market. In 2013, the chateaux lowered En Primeur offer prices, but unfortunately the vintage was a disaster due to the weather. 2014 potentially will be the first year for a long time where we will see reasonable pricing with a good quality vintage so we are optimistic this will be a good year for En Primeur.

Depending on the crop size of the vintage and the quality of the wine, the Chateau will decide how much to release as En Primeur, therefore, the initial release is usually in very small quantities.

Once the wines are physically available, you have a few options. You can arrange storage with us under bond Bordeaux, at $ 120 HKD per case per year, arrange shipment back to Hong Kong, which is currently $ 250 HKD per case or if the price has increased considerably, we can assist in selling your wines for you, with a 10% broking fee.

Very important

Emails

We have no idea on what day or time a particular Chateau will release, so there might be a flurry of emails over the campaign. If you are not interested in buying wines En Primeur please let me know immediately and I will make sure you don’t receive updates as they become available.

Wishlists

To make things run smoothly and to help cater to your needs, a wish list is a preferred. Once the wine that you are looking for releases, we will contact you immediately with the price. This is a wish list, so you are not obliged to take the wine you asked for or in some cases, we might not be able to cover demand.

Click here to create your 2014 En Primeur Wishlist!

The Insight

As for tasting notes, these will follow in due course. Influential wine critic, Robert Parker, will no longer taste En Primeur and has elected his protégé, Neal Martin, to fill his rather large shoes. At present James Suckling has released some scores and if he is anything to go by, this is really an outstanding vintage.