Bordeaux 2025 Primeurs: Primeur Picks
My first task having completed my tastings was to deliver my primeurs spirit guide, in the shape of Taylor Swift, and the Björk BG-100 model, back to the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux offices in the city centre.
Parking outside, Taylor quickly escaped the confines of Twingo’s interior, and immediately stripped off to once again reveal her skin-tight and sequin-encrusted black cat suit. Throwing a length of black nylon rope around a concrete horizontal, she immediately began to ascend the building’s exterior.
No, I have no idea where the rope came from. It just appeared without any rational explanation, as things do in a dream. It’s almost as if I am making this up as I go along.
Björk stared on, confounded.
“Heimskur andaleiðsögumaður,” she muttered, before she sauntered up the steps to the main entrance and passing through the sliding doors without so much as a goodbye, or even a glance back at the two of us.
Twingo and I bade farewell at the airport. I can’t say which one, because after two weeks of publishing en primeur reports, I have forgotten which one I claimed to have landed at. Whether it was Bordeaux, Bergerac or Toulouse (whichever one takes a direct flight from Edinburgh on the right day), that’s the one we finished at.
Enough of all this now. Let’s reflect on the vintage and its wines.
Tastings and Disclosures
First, a few facts about the tastings, and I should also make some disclosures, as I forgot to include them in my introduction to the vintage.
All the wines in this report were tasted over a period of approximately two weeks, running from April 11th until April 25th. There was no weekend break – the weekend preceding the official primeurs week is pretty much the only time when the Bordelais invite you to tastings on Saturday and Sunday. So it made for 14 solid days of tasting. During this time I made 86 tasting visits, including some very long tastings with négociants, consultants and the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux where I tasted multiple wines in one sitting.
All in all I tasted 653 wines, tasting many of the more serious wines two, three or even four times. While not all of these wines will be relevant to the en primeur market (even if those making the wine believe the en primeur market is relevant to them), every encounter is valuable as it contributes towards an overall view of the vintage.
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