Bordeaux’s latest futures campaign is here and some of the top wineries in the world are slashing prices for their latest vintage. Some of those prices are the lowest the wine world has seen in more than a decade. Yet it might not be enough to entice customers. Could this be another lost campaign for the French region?

The premise of Bordeaux en primeurs is fairly simple: The top wineries sell futures the spring after harvest, while the wines are still aging in barrels. They get cash up front to help them cover production costs. The négociants—as well as the retailers, restaurants and consumers they sell the futures to—get first dibs on the wine, theoretically at a lower price than when it’s bottled and released two years later.

There are three major ingredients for a successful en primeurs campaign in the U.S. market. The vintage must be promising, the global economy must be stable and the dollar must be fairly strong. None of those conditions have been met this time around.

A Challenging Growing Season

My colleague James Molesworth has been tasting and reviewing Bordeaux since 2008. In his recent barrel tastings, he finds that there is plenty of quality, but that 2024 will not prove to be a blockbuster vintage.

The growing season was cold and damp. Bordeaux’s winemakers have made tremendous strides in recent decades on grappling with challenging vintages, thanks to better approaches in the vineyards and a more delicate touch in the cellars, so the vintage is not a washout. But it’s also not a wow, and it suffers in comparison to the 2022 vintage. Those wines are arriving at stores in bottle right now, and it’s a fantastic vintage.

An Uncertain Economy, Plus Tariffs

No matter how strong the latest vintage, the nature of Bordeaux futures means sales are at the mercy of global economic conditions. The world was already suffering from a pandemic/inflation hangover, and the trade battles between the United States and everyone else are only adding to the anxiety.

The uncertainty over the tariffs is a particular challenge. Earlier this year, President Donald J. Trump threatened 200 percent tariffs on all imports of European Union alcoholic beverages. Those duties never appeared, but since April the U.S. has imposed 10 percent tariffs on all E.U. goods. And there’s a possibility that could rise to 20 percent in July if Washington and Brussels don’t make a deal. And what will the tariffs be when the wine is delivered in two years? No one knows. That’s led some top merchants to avoid the campaign altogether.

“For the first time ever, we will not do an en primeur campaign and we will not buy any wines for our own stock,” said Shaun Bishop of JJ Buckley Fine Wines in California, though he says they will accommodate individual client requests. “The main reason is the tariff uncertainty. If we do not know the final price, then we cannot recommend our clients to buy en primeur. Instead, we recommend to buy other vintages, already in bottle and ready to be delivered and enjoyed now.”

Other retailers told Wine Spectator they are buying some futures, but are being much more selective about which wines they offer, based on prices and customer demand.

While the châteaus have already demonstrated that they’re willing to cut prices dramatically in this challenging sales environment, there’s one more complication for U.S. consumers—the dollar. Since the start of the year, the U.S. dollar has declined nearly 9 percent compared to the euro. So even though wineries are cutting prices, not all of that savings is making it to U.S. shores.

May 6: Cheval-Blanc Rides In

Today brought some heavy hitters to the campaign, as both Cheval-Blanc and Lynch Bages released their first allocations of futures. In St.-Emilion, Cheval-Blanc released its first tranche at €276 per bottle ex-négociant, a drop of 28.1 percent from the 2023 futures release price of €384 per bottle. At retail, the 2024 futures are being offered by top U.S. merchants at an average price of $372 per bottle, or $4,464 per case. That’s a 30 percent drop from last year’s $531 per bottle.

Over on the Left Bank, Château Lynch Bages released its first tranche at €60 per bottle, a 16.7 percent cut from the 2023 futures. That translates to an average price of $84 per bottle at retail, a 15 percent dip from the 2023 futures. Further south in Pessac-Léognan, Smith Haut Lafitte released its red wine futures at €62 per bottle and its white wine futures at €108 per bottle. At retail, the red can be found for an average price of $89 per bottle, a 28 percent reduction from the 2023 futures, while the white is averaging $149 per bottle, a 3 percent reduction, this being a more promising vintage for white Bordeaux.

May 2: Enthusiasm for Lafite, Others Not So Much

First growth Château Lafite Rothschild grabbed attention when it released its first tranche at €288 per bottle ex-négociant, a 27 percent reduction from the 2023 futures. The wine is at top U.S. merchants for an average price of $393 per bottle, or $4,716 per case, a 26 percent dip from last year’s campaign.

Pauillac’s Pontet-Canet and St.-Emilion’s Angélus got more of a cold shoulder when they released their futures. Pontet-Canet priced its first tranche at €60. It’s being sold in the U.S. at $89 per bottle, just 4 percent lower than the 2023 futures. Angélus released its 2024 futures at €180 per bottle. U.S. merchants are offering it for $256 per bottle, a 27 percent reduction from last year’s campaign. Angélus has raised prices dramatically in recent vintages, and those hikes may have caught up with it.

2024 Futures Prices

These estates represent a selection of leading wineries. Retail prices are an average of trusted retailers we follow. Prices for the 2024s are listed alongside the current prevailing retail price for Bordeaux's recent vintages, so you can measure where the wines are vis-à-vis those currently on retail shelves.

Data compiled by Cassia Schifter

$NA means a wine has not been released or is not sold in sufficient quantities by U.S. retailers yet to determine an average price.