Vintage 2025

Letter dated 30 April 2026. The 2025 vintage in Bordeaux.

As tastings of the 2025 Bordeaux wines draw to a close and the ‘2025 Primeurs’ campaign gets underway, it is time for us to describe this vintage, which has delighted both Bordeaux winegrowers and the wine journalists and critics we have spoken to.

In summary, three factors characterise the 2025 Bordeaux wines, across all three styles (dry white, sweet white and red):

  • unprecedented early ripening,
  • magnificent quality,
  • a (very) low yield.

And a fourth factor, which the coming weeks will tell us whether it comes to pass:

  • attractive prices, given the current geopolitical and economic uncertainties.

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Bordeaux 2025: the weather

Whilst the 2024 vintage had put the nerves of Bordeaux’s winegrowers to the test with a succession of climatic setbacks, 2025 was a vintage that unfolded smoothly and, all in all, fairly calmly:

- the winter of 2024–2025 was generally mild, with budbreak occurring without haste in early April,

- spring was mild, dispelling the spectre of devastating spring frosts, and dry, limiting the development of fungal diseases and the risk of invasive mildew,

- flowering was early and rapid in late May, under highly favourable weather conditions (no significant rain from 20 May to 11 June), with no coulure or millerandage, paving the way for uniform ripening,

- summer set in properly from mid-June, ensuring steady ripening and veraison (the change in colour of the grapes) at the ideal time in late July,

- the summer was consistently hot and sunny, with only one truly scorching spell in mid-August (from the 7th to the 16th, with a record high of 41.6°C on 11 August),

- the summer was consistently dry from 14 June to 27 August, with 44 mm of rainfall over the period, compared to the 30-year average of 133 mm, representing a two-thirds shortfall in rainfall,

- the harvest took place across all three early-ripening grape varieties, under excellent weather conditions and without any health issues (rot).

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Bordeaux 2025: yelds

By late spring, winegrowers knew that 2025 would be of average productivity (fewer bunches, smaller bunches). Subsequently, the drought that prevailed for two and a half months, from mid-June to late August, certainly ensured the perfect health of the harvest, but also concentrated the juices and limited the development of the berries. By late August, the weight of red grapes compared to the 2020–2024 average showed a deficit of -24% for Merlot and -14% for Cabernet Sauvignon.

Fortunately, two spells of rain, locally heavy, on 29 August and 1 September helped the grapes plump up again, alleviated the water stress on the red grape varieties and restarted the ripening of the berries. In this sense, these rains were not damaging but truly ‘life-saving’ for the vintage.

Ultimately, the 2025 vintage was, despite everything, a poor one, and for dry whites and reds, one might even speak of a half-crop with yields of around 20 hl/ha (instead of 40–50 hl/ha). This is illustrated by the Saint-Julien appellation, with an average yield across the entire commune of just 23 hl/ha, the luckiest estates rarely exceeding 30 hl/ha.

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Bordeaux 2025: a great vintage for dry, fresh and full-bodied whites

The white grape varieties, Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, were harvested early, from 11 August through to the first few days of September, in perfect summer weather. The pleasant surprise was to find that the white grapes had withstood the August heat and sunshine surprisingly well. They were remarkably aromatic and had retained lovely acidity, comparable to that of 2024.

On tasting, the Sauvignons shine with a fresh, floral aroma (acacia, jasmine, orange blossom), whilst the Sémillons, with their white fruit aromas (white peach, pear), offer a rich, indulgent texture.

Less crystalline but more full-bodied than the 2024s, the 2025 dry white Bordeaux wines are a resounding success, from the north to the south of the Gironde. As the Bordeaux oenologists at the ISVV (Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences) wrote, ‘the dry white wines of the 2025 vintage surprise us with their freshness, their brilliance and their vibrant character on the palate. They are truly appetising’.

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Bordeaux 2025: a great vintage for sweet whites, rich and ripe

In 2025, the weather conditions were ideal for producing great sweet whites: the white grapes were ripe and perfectly healthy by the end of August when the rains arrived, triggering the rapid and widespread development of botrytis.

The châteaux thus had complete freedom to organise their sorting (harvesting) between 16 September and 18 October according to the desired concentration. Whilst the 2025 sweet wines all possess great aromatic purity, the finest have managed to avoid the pitfall of excessive opulence by striking the perfect balance between tension, richness and refined texture.

As botrytisation was widespread (with little wastage) and the grapes were harvested at the ‘fully roasted’ stage rather than the more concentrated ‘candied roasted’ stage, the harvests were generous, ensuring good overall yields (12 hl/ha at Suduiraut, 13 hl/ha at Rieussec, 18 hl/ha at Doisy-Daëne...). Furthermore, all the estates noted exceptional aromatic purity this year, to the extent that they reduced sulphiting (the addition of sulphur) during sorting, or even dispensed with it entirely, as at Suduiraut.

2025 is undoubtedly a great vintage for sweet Bordeaux wines, producing powerful, expressive wines with a bouquet that reflects the grapes’ full ripeness (yellow peach, mango, roasted pineapple, candied citrus) and a rich sweetness balanced by underlying acidity. The 2025s are, in both style and quality, in the same vein as the 2023s, another very great vintage from the Sauternes region.

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Bordeaux 2025: grapes are shaped by Mother Nature...

As mentioned above, the two and a half months (from mid-June to late August) of continuous drought and the intense heat of August (+3.1°C compared to the thirty-year average) simultaneously:

- accelerated the ripening of the red grape varieties, resulting in a historically early harvest,

- reduced the size of the berries, resulting in lower yields and more concentrated juices. This concentration affected all the components of the grapes, namely sugars (= potential alcohol content), polyphenols (= tannins) and anthocyanins (= colouring matter).

In both the Médoc and the Libournais, the harvest began in the very first days of September and, with the Cabernets following on the heels of the Merlots, finished on 21 September.

The two ‘salvific’ rains at the end of August allowed for significant berry enlargement, a thinning of the skins and a reduction in concentrations. At the time of harvest, the grapes harvested showed balances very close to those of the famous 2022 vintage [ISVV figures]:

• for Merlot
   - weight of 100 grapes: 122 g in 2022, 118 g in 2025 --->>> similar
   - sugars: 240 g/l in 2022, 226 g/l in 2025                  --->>> lower alcohol
   - total acidity: 2.4 g/l in 2022, 2.4 g/l in 2025            --->>> identical
   - anthocyanins: 1.98 g/l in 2022, 2.23 g/l in 2025      --->>> more colour

• for Cabernet Sauvignon
   - weight of 100 grapes: 95 g in 2022, 97 g in 2025     --->>> similar
   - sugars: 232 g/l in 2022, 224 g/l in 2025                  --->>> lower alcohol content
   - total acidity: 3.0 g/l in 2022, 3.4 g/l in 2025            --->>> higher acidity
   - anthocyanins: 2.42 g/l in 2022, 2.57 g/l in 2025      --->>> more colour

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Bordeaux 2025: ... but wines are shaped by human hands


When winegrowers initially have superb raw materials in their vats, everything thereafter depends on the art and skill with which they craft their wine. It is worth remembering that wine is not the natural product of the vine but the result of human labour working with a natural product.

Given that the 2025 grapes had everything (colour, density, ripeness, tannins...) in abundance, the best approach to this vintage was to avoid, above all, seeking to extract and concentrate the juice further. Otherwise, these wines would rest on a particularly firm, even robust, tannic foundation and would only become enjoyable after a long period of bottle ageing, in the hope that they have not, in the meantime, lost all their fruit and body.

In contrast, the most astute producers (who are now legion) realised very early on that, to get the best out of the 2025s, they would need to vinify them gently: low-temperature fermentation, sparing pumping-over or punching down, limiting or eliminating press wines, etc.

These producers have produced remarkable red Bordeaux wines, creamy and velvety, intense and distinguished, rich yet fresh, with moderate alcohol levels (some examples: 12.4% at Lafite-Rothschild, 12.8% at Cheval Blanc, 13% at Pichon-Comtesse de Lalande, 13.1% at Mouton-Rothschild, 13.2% at Cos d’Estournel, Talbot and Ormes de Pez, 13.3% at Pichon-Baron and Lynch-Bages, 13.4% at Nénin, 13.5% at La Conseillante, Potensac and Sansonnet, etc.).

Although weather data ranks 2025 third (behind 2003 and 2022) among the hottest years in Gironde, the wines of the 2025 vintage are distinguished by moderate alcohol levels and preserved acidity, attributable to the cool nights in August (25 nights below 20°C).

For this reason, the 2025s are, in our view, not so much comparable to the eminently sunny 2022s, but rather should be considered as generous wines imbued with classicism. To sum up, the great 2025s are comparable to the 2015s for their richness, and to the 2016s for their aromatic freshness.

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Bordeaux 2025: some tips to guide your choice of red wines

• As the weather in 2025 was consistent across the whole of the Gironde region, and the quality of the 2025 vintage is directly linked to the estates’ philosophy and the expertise of their teams, there is no particular success story that stands out for a specific grape variety or region. In 2025, one must above all place one’s trust in the estates run by the most talented winemakers of recent vintages.

• The summer drought made the winemakers’ task more difficult (stunted ripening, leaf removal from the vines, etc.) for young vines with shallow root systems or plots on the most well-drained soils. This was particularly the case in the Haut-Médoc on the outskirts of Bordeaux, in the Martillac area for Pessac-Léognan, in Saint-Émilion on the sandy terroirs near Libourne, and on the southern slope of Pomerol.

• Looking back at our tasting notes, we noted this year that the Margaux appellation as a whole performed very well, even among the lesser-known wines. This is often the case in hot vintages (2022, 2018, 2015, 2009...) where the elegance and finesse of Margaux blend beautifully with the opulence of the vintage, that is to say, when Margaux takes on Californian characteristics.

• Due to their concentration, the 2025 Bordeaux wines will be wines for the long term, at least 10 years for the more accessible ones, and 25 years or more for the grand crus. However, second wines and ‘bourgeois’ estates with voluptuous, well-integrated tannic structures, such as the 2022s, which are already enjoyable and exciting today, can be tasted shortly after bottling.

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Bordeaux 2025: prices

For white wines, it is easy to predict that the châteaux will maintain prices at roughly the same level as last year:

• dry whites, currently in vogue, have a growing market but also increasing production – and therefore competition – (2025 is the first year of the new ‘Médoc blanc’ AOP).

• Sweet whites have traditionally kept their prices unchanged and are unlikely to deviate from this trend this year, satisfied with a harvest of good quality and quantity in 2025.

Conversely, several factors are leading red wine producers to make conflicting assumptions about pricing:

• inflationary considerations
   - the high quality of the wines (soon to be recognised by critics), placing 2025 above 2024 and even 2023,
   - the small size of the harvest, at barely half that of a normal vintage.

• Deflationary considerations
   - an unfavourable national and international environment with prospects that are uncertain to say the least,
   - a luxury goods market in contraction across all continents (except Africa),
   - a general decline in demand for red wines in Western countries,
   - significant stock levels among major distributors (merchants, importers, wholesalers, etc.).

Under these circumstances, it seems reasonable to anticipate for the ‘2025 En Primeur’ wines, compared with last year’s ‘2024 En Primeur’ prices:

- a moderate (single-digit) price increase for the 20 (maximum) statutory Bordeaux labels that are in consistent international demand. In this case, the price of the ‘2025 Primeurs’ will remain lower than that of the ‘2023 Primeurs’,

- price stability (2025=2024) for the vast majority of classified growths. In this case, given the genuine quality of the wines, the ‘2025 Primeurs’ will represent excellent value for money.

As the first significant premier cru to release its 2025 vintage, the launch (29 April) of Château Pontet-Canet, with a symbolic price increase of 2.8%, augurs well and, in our view, sets an exemplary precedent for all forthcoming classified growths. To be continued...

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