Bordeaux En Primeur 2024: Our Definitive Assessment
A cool, challenging growing season produced wines of uncommon elegance and restraint. After tasting across all five appellations, we share our picks, pricing view, and investment case.
Introduction
En Primeur week brought us to Bordeaux under grey April skies — a fitting metaphor, perhaps, for a vintage that defied the ripeness-at-all-costs orthodoxy of recent years. The 2024 growing season was defined by a wet spring, a dry and cool August, and a salvage September that rescued the crop. The result: wines of precision, lower alcohol, and genuine ageing potential.
The Growing Season in Brief
Flowering was disrupted by June rain, reducing yields across the Médoc by an estimated 20–30%. The summer was unremarkable until late August, when Atlantic air cooled the vineyards and slowed ripening to an ideal pace. Harvest began in the third week of September — slightly later than average — with producers reporting excellent phenolic maturity in hand-harvested parcels.
The Right Bank fared marginally better than the Left. Pomerol in particular had a superb campaign, with Petrus, Le Pin, and Lafleur all producing standout wines.
Wines to Watch
Léoville-Barton 2024 — Magnificent St-Julien. Cassis, cedar, graphite and a fine-grained tannin structure. 20-year wine. Our score: 96–98pts.
Pichon Baron 2024 — Back to its imperious best. Dense but sculpted, with a finish of extraordinary length. One of the wines of the vintage. Our score: 97–99pts.
Vieux Château Certan 2024 — The benchmark Pomerol this year. Haunting violet and truffle complexity over a core of satin fruit. Rivals the 2015. Our score: 97–99pts.
Palmer 2024 — Arguably outperforms its classification again. A silky, Margaux-textured wine with uncanny balance. Our score: 95–97pts.
Ducru-Beaucaillou 2024 — Archetypally Ducru: understated on release, transcendent with age. Buy and hold. Our score: 95–96pts.
Pricing and the Investment Case
Release prices have been modest — châteaux have broadly accepted that 2023 excess inventory forced the market to reset. Our expectation is that well-chosen 2024s at opening offer 18–25% upside within a five-year window, assuming pricing holds below the 2019 and 2022 benchmarks.
We are cautious on the First Growths. Lafite, Mouton, and Margaux have released at levels that leave limited margin for secondary-market appreciation in the near term.
Our best-value proposition for 2024: the classified St-Juliens and Pauillacs in the £60–120/bottle release band offer the most compelling risk/return profile we have seen since 2014.
How AMPEL Is Approaching Allocations
We have secured allocations across a carefully curated selection of 14 châteaux for the 2024 campaign. Clients with standing En Primeur instructions will be contacted individually. For those new to the programme, our team can walk you through the mechanics, storage options, and exit strategies in a dedicated portfolio consultation.
Purchases are offered In Bond (duty and VAT suspended) and stored in our approved London City Bond facility. All wines carry a full provenance trail from château to cellar.
Conclusion
Bordeaux 2024 is not a blockbuster. It is something arguably rarer: an honest, intellectual vintage that rewards the patient investor and the discerning collector in equal measure. We are recommending targeted purchases across our curated selection and will be publishing individual château reports over the coming weeks.
If you would like to discuss your allocation or receive our full tasting note dossier, please contact your portfolio manager or reach out through the client portal.