I appreciate the work here, and I think the pricing analysis is useful, but I also think this misses the larger point. Bordeaux’s problem isn’t simply that the 2025s are too expensive relative to 2016 or 2019. It’s that the whole conversation has been reduced to this: the same estates, the same hierarchy, the same annual release nonsense, the same price nitpicking.
En primeur doesn’t just reveal Bordeaux’s pricing problem. It creates Bordeaux’s identity problem. It forces the region to introduce itself every year as a financial instrument rather than as wine, farming, restaurants, culture, discovery, or drinking pleasure.
Imagine any other region allowing itself to be defined this way. Imagine Burgundy’s global conversation being reduced every year to whether Rousseau, Roumier, DRC, Leflaive, and Coche released at the correct discount to back vintages. People would start hating Burgundy too. Burgundy just hides the Porsches and Ferraris better. Bordeaux makes the machinery visible, then wonders why everyone finds it vulgar.
So yes, the wines may be too expensive. But that feels like the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that Bordeaux has let its most boring economic ritual become its public face. At some point the answer is not a fairer en primeur price. It’s admitting that en primeur, at least as the dominant regional narrative, needs to die.
Thank you for sharing your view. I'd like to say I agree with you, but I'm afraid I don't.
En Primeur has worked successfully for decades. Do you really think that people analysing prices are the problem? The same kind of analysis could—and arguably should—be done in Burgundy as well.
I write for a relatively small niche of readers who are interested in collecting wine and buying at the right price. Bordeaux, thanks to its transparency, has always been at the forefront for collectors. In many ways, those "boring" economics are precisely what made Bordeaux such a success for so many years.
I've just come back from a trip to Burgundy, where the Porsches and Ferraris are certainly hard to miss. Yet I was also told that, in the 1990s, a grower selling Meursault was barely making ends meet because Burgundy was simply out of favour. Consumer tastes changed, and so did prices.
You argue that Bordeaux's mistake was allowing its most technical and economic ritual to become its public face. I still think the issue comes down to taste and price. As I write in my piece about Pokémon cards, the value of any consumer good ultimately depends on whether someone is willing to pay for it. If anything, Bordeaux's ritualised and transparent pricing process is precisely what attracted so many collectors and made the region fascinating to follow in the first place.
I don’t think people analyzing prices are the problem. Your analysis is useful, and frankly Bordeaux is easier to analyse than Burgundy precisely because the machinery is more visible. That’s part of its strength.
But I still think that strength has become a trap.
En primeur may have worked for decades, but lots of systems work until the conditions that made them work disappear. My issue isn’t that collectors talk about price. Of course they should. My issue is that Bordeaux’s most visible annual conversation has become almost entirely collector-facing: release prices, back vintages, relative value, allocation, liquidity, whether the campaign “worked.” That may be fascinating if you are buying Lafite, VCC, or Cheval as a financial object. But I just think it's a very narrow way for a vast wine region to present itself to the world.
Burgundy has the same wealth, the same excess, and plenty of absurd pricing. No argument there. But Burgundy’s public mythology is still rooted in growers, villages, vineyards, scarcity, farming, cellars, and place. Bordeaux’s mythology, at least internationally, has become campaigns, châteaux, rankings, scores, courtiers, négociants, and pricing strategy. That difference matters.
So yes, I agree that taste and price are central. But taste is not formed in a vacuum. The stories and systems around a region teach people how to desire it. Bordeaux has taught too many people to encounter it first as an economic ritual rather than as something alive to drink.
That’s why I think “the wines are too expensive” is true but incomplete. The deeper problem is that the pricing conversation has become the main stage. En primeur may still serve collectors. I’m less convinced it still serves Bordeaux as a region.
First, let's get one thing out of the way: I don't know anyone who buys Lafite, VCC or Cheval as a "financial object" per se. Every collector I know buys them because they genuinely love wine. (In fact, I know a start-up that set out to sell wine solely as a financial asset and eventually realised that all of its clients were, first and foremost, wine lovers.) I think the idea that people buy fine wine purely as a financial asset is largely a misconception. If your goal were simply to own a financial asset, you'd buy something with better returns and far greater liquidity—gold, Bitcoin or stocks, for example.
I also think younger generations enjoy geeking out over niche passions, and price and all the release fuss is part of it. That's why I'm building what I'm building: I believe this kind of content resonates with younger audiences. We've already seen it happen with watches through Hodinkee.
Which brings me to Burgundy.
I think Burgundy's scarcity and lack of accessibility will come back to bite it over the next decades. From conversations during a recent trip there, I got the impression that many producers are aware of this too. Prices have become so detached from reality that younger sommeliers and wine buyers won't recommend Burgundy—not because they don't appreciate it, but because they can't build wine lists around bottles their customers will never order.
Beyond DRC and a handful of iconic producers, Burgundy's appeal is driven more by terroir than by individual brands. That makes it less resilient than many people assume. I don't think Burgundy enjoys some permanent, unassailable status; I think it's simply in fashion.
And fashions change!
If younger drinkers and sommeliers never develop a relationship with Burgundy because it's too expensive to buy, taste or pour, the region risks becoming culturally irrelevant outside the very top end of the market.
I think we may be talking past each other a bit. I’m not arguing that Bordeaux should become Burgundy, or that collectors are the problem. My point is more structural: Burgundy, despite the absurdity at the top, still has a legible ladder into the category with aligote, négociants, villages, serious mid-tier wines, cult growers, premiers crus, grands crus, trophy bottles. Bordeaux often feels more like a void where the middle should be: commodity at one end, collector ritual at the other, with the vast middle struggling to exist culturally. No amount of En Primeur excitement is going to change that.
That’s what worries me. Without a healthy lower and middle tier, even the top becomes less resilient over time, which I actually think is already part of the current pricing problems. Luxury needs aspiration beneath it. Watches work because people can participate at multiple levels while still understanding the dream. Bordeaux too often feels like mall watches and Patek, with nothing in between.
Anyway, I appreciate the exchange. This is probably bigger than a comment thread.
I have a clarification request please. I am seeking to understand the pricing information presented.
I note that you specifically highlight the value presented by VCC, looking at the data is not Lafleur also worthy of comment? ie the Lafleur 2025 en primeur price seems particularly favourable in relation to ‘16/‘19.
I appreciate the work here, and I think the pricing analysis is useful, but I also think this misses the larger point. Bordeaux’s problem isn’t simply that the 2025s are too expensive relative to 2016 or 2019. It’s that the whole conversation has been reduced to this: the same estates, the same hierarchy, the same annual release nonsense, the same price nitpicking.
En primeur doesn’t just reveal Bordeaux’s pricing problem. It creates Bordeaux’s identity problem. It forces the region to introduce itself every year as a financial instrument rather than as wine, farming, restaurants, culture, discovery, or drinking pleasure.
Imagine any other region allowing itself to be defined this way. Imagine Burgundy’s global conversation being reduced every year to whether Rousseau, Roumier, DRC, Leflaive, and Coche released at the correct discount to back vintages. People would start hating Burgundy too. Burgundy just hides the Porsches and Ferraris better. Bordeaux makes the machinery visible, then wonders why everyone finds it vulgar.
So yes, the wines may be too expensive. But that feels like the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that Bordeaux has let its most boring economic ritual become its public face. At some point the answer is not a fairer en primeur price. It’s admitting that en primeur, at least as the dominant regional narrative, needs to die.
Thank you for sharing your view. I'd like to say I agree with you, but I'm afraid I don't.
En Primeur has worked successfully for decades. Do you really think that people analysing prices are the problem? The same kind of analysis could—and arguably should—be done in Burgundy as well.
I write for a relatively small niche of readers who are interested in collecting wine and buying at the right price. Bordeaux, thanks to its transparency, has always been at the forefront for collectors. In many ways, those "boring" economics are precisely what made Bordeaux such a success for so many years.
I've just come back from a trip to Burgundy, where the Porsches and Ferraris are certainly hard to miss. Yet I was also told that, in the 1990s, a grower selling Meursault was barely making ends meet because Burgundy was simply out of favour. Consumer tastes changed, and so did prices.
You argue that Bordeaux's mistake was allowing its most technical and economic ritual to become its public face. I still think the issue comes down to taste and price. As I write in my piece about Pokémon cards, the value of any consumer good ultimately depends on whether someone is willing to pay for it. If anything, Bordeaux's ritualised and transparent pricing process is precisely what attracted so many collectors and made the region fascinating to follow in the first place.
I don’t think people analyzing prices are the problem. Your analysis is useful, and frankly Bordeaux is easier to analyse than Burgundy precisely because the machinery is more visible. That’s part of its strength.
But I still think that strength has become a trap.
En primeur may have worked for decades, but lots of systems work until the conditions that made them work disappear. My issue isn’t that collectors talk about price. Of course they should. My issue is that Bordeaux’s most visible annual conversation has become almost entirely collector-facing: release prices, back vintages, relative value, allocation, liquidity, whether the campaign “worked.” That may be fascinating if you are buying Lafite, VCC, or Cheval as a financial object. But I just think it's a very narrow way for a vast wine region to present itself to the world.
Burgundy has the same wealth, the same excess, and plenty of absurd pricing. No argument there. But Burgundy’s public mythology is still rooted in growers, villages, vineyards, scarcity, farming, cellars, and place. Bordeaux’s mythology, at least internationally, has become campaigns, châteaux, rankings, scores, courtiers, négociants, and pricing strategy. That difference matters.
So yes, I agree that taste and price are central. But taste is not formed in a vacuum. The stories and systems around a region teach people how to desire it. Bordeaux has taught too many people to encounter it first as an economic ritual rather than as something alive to drink.
That’s why I think “the wines are too expensive” is true but incomplete. The deeper problem is that the pricing conversation has become the main stage. En primeur may still serve collectors. I’m less convinced it still serves Bordeaux as a region.
I actually think the opposite.
First, let's get one thing out of the way: I don't know anyone who buys Lafite, VCC or Cheval as a "financial object" per se. Every collector I know buys them because they genuinely love wine. (In fact, I know a start-up that set out to sell wine solely as a financial asset and eventually realised that all of its clients were, first and foremost, wine lovers.) I think the idea that people buy fine wine purely as a financial asset is largely a misconception. If your goal were simply to own a financial asset, you'd buy something with better returns and far greater liquidity—gold, Bitcoin or stocks, for example.
I also think younger generations enjoy geeking out over niche passions, and price and all the release fuss is part of it. That's why I'm building what I'm building: I believe this kind of content resonates with younger audiences. We've already seen it happen with watches through Hodinkee.
Which brings me to Burgundy.
I think Burgundy's scarcity and lack of accessibility will come back to bite it over the next decades. From conversations during a recent trip there, I got the impression that many producers are aware of this too. Prices have become so detached from reality that younger sommeliers and wine buyers won't recommend Burgundy—not because they don't appreciate it, but because they can't build wine lists around bottles their customers will never order.
Beyond DRC and a handful of iconic producers, Burgundy's appeal is driven more by terroir than by individual brands. That makes it less resilient than many people assume. I don't think Burgundy enjoys some permanent, unassailable status; I think it's simply in fashion.
And fashions change!
If younger drinkers and sommeliers never develop a relationship with Burgundy because it's too expensive to buy, taste or pour, the region risks becoming culturally irrelevant outside the very top end of the market.
I think we may be talking past each other a bit. I’m not arguing that Bordeaux should become Burgundy, or that collectors are the problem. My point is more structural: Burgundy, despite the absurdity at the top, still has a legible ladder into the category with aligote, négociants, villages, serious mid-tier wines, cult growers, premiers crus, grands crus, trophy bottles. Bordeaux often feels more like a void where the middle should be: commodity at one end, collector ritual at the other, with the vast middle struggling to exist culturally. No amount of En Primeur excitement is going to change that.
That’s what worries me. Without a healthy lower and middle tier, even the top becomes less resilient over time, which I actually think is already part of the current pricing problems. Luxury needs aspiration beneath it. Watches work because people can participate at multiple levels while still understanding the dream. Bordeaux too often feels like mall watches and Patek, with nothing in between.
Anyway, I appreciate the exchange. This is probably bigger than a comment thread.
I really appreciate your work Sara, keep going!
I have a clarification request please. I am seeking to understand the pricing information presented.
I note that you specifically highlight the value presented by VCC, looking at the data is not Lafleur also worthy of comment? ie the Lafleur 2025 en primeur price seems particularly favourable in relation to ‘16/‘19.
Many thanks
Absolutely, that's very true!!!
Thanks Sara, I now need to find someone to buy me some! 😀
🤣😂
Ottima analisi come sempre
Grazie Angelo 🙏🏻