Bordeaux 2019: Buying En Primeur
As in previous years, I included here some words below on the wisdom of buying en primeur. The intention is really to guide and protect newcomers to the system (if you have read this far in provious years, you probably don’t need to read any further). This is important becasue it is clear that the wines of 2019 will be offered at lower prices than in a number of other recent vintages. Buyers are sure to be tempted, and perhaps rightly so.
In short, en primeur is a method for purchasing wine early, in which the latest vintage is offered for sale before the wines have even been bottled. You pay for the wine often more than a year in advance of receiving it, in the case of Bordeaux usually about two years. I have long believed that the best way to buy at this stage is to engage with a small number of merchants, establish the prices at which you will buy (and, for the expensive wines, the prices at which you won’t). Judge carefully and check out how the wines stack up against prior vintages, both the quality of those wines, and the prices for which they can be bought.
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