Bordeaux En Primeur week returns, but Hong Kong stays remote

ith a month to go before En Primeur week, from Monday 25 to Thursday 26 April, there are “good signals. We feel that people have the confidence to come,” comments Ronan Laborde, chairman of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux (UGCB). Pointing to the variety of registrations in terms of countries and distribution channels, Laborde stresses that “people who attend En Primeur will not miss out on the presentation of the 2021 vintage, which serves a purpose”. As UGCB chair, he feels that distributors understand that the complexity of the vintage, which varies significantly depending on vineyard sites, requires a granular interpretation.

Pre-Covid, 7,000 visitors travelled to Bordeaux for the event but for the 2022 iteration, its organisers are fully aware that these figures will not be matched. “A good indicator will be the number of foreign visitors. In a normal year, we would welcome 3,000. If we reach 2,500, that would be a great achievement”, claims Laborde, underscoring the international significance of the event, as “85% of En Primeur sales are for exports”. The UGCB expects European and American visitors to attend, but it has already written off the chance of visitors attending from China and Hong Kong, where a new wave of coronavirus is sweeping across the region.

“Over the past few weeks we did not hold out much hope that they would come, so we are going to offer them a remote event, as in 2020 and 2021”, continues Laborde, adding that the way in which the remote tastings will be executed will depend on how the pandemic develops. “We are used to dealing with issues as they present themselves”, says the chairman of the UGCB, which organised no fewer than 400 remote tastings in 2021, attended by 2,500 people in France and abroad. Covid has prompted a change in the En Primeur concept – instead of a single event in Bordeaux, the tastings are now spread out internationally, points out Laborde.