Buying “en primeur” is buying forward, buying wines when they are first on the market, but before they are bottled and will be sold for general commercialisation.

This is a practice that dates back to the 1960s, when the estates who produced Bordeaux wines, known as “chateaux”, began to offer their wines to the powerful wine merchants in the City of Bordeaux in the spring following the vintage, for they needed the money to pay the back bills and to finance the year up to and after the vintage to come. 

In those days the chateaux were financially very insecure – unlike today – and there was even a system known as selling “sur souches” literally “on the vine” in the summer before the autumn harvest.  This was a pure gamble from both sides, as, even though the wines were offered at low prices, if the vintage was a write-off – 1963, 1965, 1968 – the merchants lost out, and if it was a success – 1961, 1962, 1966 – the chateaux lost out.  This practice was abandoned once a little financial security came to Bordeaux after the 1970 vintage.  

The old-fashioned reasons for buying “en primeur” were not only to get the best opening price, but also to buy much more than you expected to drink, sell half later on at a good profit and drink what you were left with “for free”.   I have bought this way in every good vintage since 1985 and the vintages I am enjoying now from my very cold cellar in Dorset are from the mid-1990s, long enough ago that I have forgotten the pain of paying for them and can just enjoy the wine.   I tend to keep most of what I buy in “lesser” vintages, as I only buy the wines I like, but in the “greater” vintages I go more for investment than drinking and it is with these wines that I make the profit.  

The reason why wines from good vintages go up in value is very simple:  when they are offered “en primeur”, the wines are still in barrel and not a single drop has been consumed.  Once in bottle, the corks begin to be pulled and, especially in the great vintages, each bottle drunk confirms the quality of the year, while it diminishes the quantity available for purchase.   This I refer to as a “double demand curve” and, economic crises notwithstanding, it has proved to be true.  

2009 is a very good vintage indeed, perhaps the best ever for Bordeaux, certainly the best in modern times, which are acknowledged to have begun with the 1982s.  Prices began coming out in mid-April, but even as I write this on June 9th, less than half of the top 75 wines in Bordeaux have come out and none of the First Growths.   Following Vinexpo in Hong Kong at the end of last month, the huge expected demand from Asia, particularly China, has been confirmed, and prices, which were reasonable at the start, are now taking advantage of demand to rise to heights not seen before.   Those chateaux that are reasonable – Ch. Du Tertre for example, which is one I bought for the Wine Society of India as well as for my own cellar – sell out immediately.  Berry Brothers and Rudd, London’s oldest wine merchant, sold 800 cases of this wine in just one hour!  

My selection for the WSI contains my favourite wines that I know will offer great drinking and great value for money from the 12 major appellations in Bordeaux:  Medoc, Haut-Medoc, Saint-Estephe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux, Pessac-Leognan, Sauternes (sweet white), Fronsac, Lalande-de-Pomerol, Pomerol and Saint-Emilion.  We will be offering one bottle of each in the 12 bottle selection and everyone of these I have bought for my own cellar.  I will describe the individual wines in my next blog.