At -25%, Château Margaux rounds off En Primeur season where only price and top growths mattered

he last of the 1855-classified Médoc Grands Crus to be released En Primeur, Château Margaux came out on June 2 at an ex-negociant price of €276/bottle, which is 25% down on the 2023 vintage and ranks as “the cheapest vintage since 2014 (€240)”, according to the English platform Liv-Ex. The Margaux Premier Cru Classé echoes similar downward pricing trends for Châteaux Lafite-Rothschild released on April 29 (€288, -28% compared with 2023), Mouton-Rothschild on May 13 (€252, -25%) and Château Haut-Brion on May 20 (€240, -24%).

Although demand for the most highly renowned and coveted labels remains strong, the same is not true of all the other Grands Crus. “The market wanted the chateaux to drop their prices. The Premiers Crus did this in a significant way because they have room to manoeuvre in terms of pricing”, explains Romain Grudzinski, head of European markets with Liv-Ex.

Coming on the back of two challenging En Primeur campaigns for 2022 and 2023, greater awareness of market realities among properties is also coupled with a 2024 vintage that is “not a must-have” and has encouraged “most of them to lower their prices. A clutch of other properties think, however, that they will cope because they do not produce enough wine to meet current global demand”, adds Grudzinski.

Place de Bordeaux shippers hope the release of Château Margaux will not mark the end of the 2024 En Primeur campaign and that there is still time to complete sales, but there is already a feeling that the En Primeur system is contracting and focusing on the top labels, seemingly neglecting the wines that had joined the Place de Bordeaux futures scheme.