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The short answer. Bordeaux 2023 is a good to very good vintage that is uneven from property to property, not a uniform great year. It was released en primeur in spring and early summer 2024 at prices well below 2022 — on Liv-ex's measure about 22.5% lower on average — but the trade's own verdict was that the cuts did not go far enough against wines already in bottle. For an investment buyer the vintage is a selective, price-led decision, not a blanket buy.
The 2023 Vintage in Context
The word that recurs in serious assessments is uneven. A spring 2024 analysis from the EHL hospitality school summarised the tasting consensus as "a good to very good vintage, marked by substantial variations in quality", with "very good wines, and even some truly great ones" alongside weaker efforts. Wine Spectator, reviewing the campaign in June 2024, called it "strong but not a blockbuster" and "a mixed bag", and ranked it below 2019.
That unevenness is the whole investment point. In a uniform great year the market prices everything up together; in an uneven one the gap between the properties that succeeded and the ones that did not is where a careful buyer has something to find — and where a careless one overpays for a famous label in a middling year.
What 2023 Actually Cost on Release
Unlike the record 2022 campaign, 2023 came out cheaper, and in several cases sharply so. Wine Spectator's comparison of US futures prices against the 2022 releases (12 June 2024) recorded, among others:
| Wine | 2023 vs 2022 futures price |
|---|---|
| Léoville Las Cases | down 50% |
| Cos d'Estournel | down 44% |
| Haut-Brion | down 39% |
| Mouton-Rothschild | down 36% |
| Lafite Rothschild | down 31% |
| Lynch Bages | down 31% |
| Cheval Blanc | down 21% |
Across the whole campaign, Liv-ex's review (reported 25 June 2024) found prices fell 22.5% on average against expectations of 30–35%, and concluded the reductions "did not go far enough": the 2023s still came out 2.8% above the current average market price of the previous ten Bordeaux vintages and almost 21% above 2021.
What That Means for an En Primeur Buyer
The same Wine Spectator piece made the uncomfortable point directly: at that time the 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018 and 2017 vintages were trading below their futures prices, with only 2019 having rewarded early buyers. A lower release price than last year is not the test. The test is whether the 2023 costs less than a comparable, already-bottled vintage of the same wine that you could buy today — and for many properties in 2024 it did not.
Practical consequences:
- Compare against bottled vintages, not against 2022. A 2023 that is cheaper than the 2022 release but dearer than the 2021 or 2018 in bond is not a bargain.
- Buy the property, not the vintage label. In an uneven year, the estates that outperformed are the ones worth owning; reviews and tasting notes are the way to tell them apart.
- Price in the wait and the counterparty. Paying now for delivery later leaves you exposed to your merchant until the wine arrives — en primeur explained sets out that risk.
- Decide the tax status before you buy. Holding the wine in bond rather than duty paid changes both the cost and the resale market.
Fine wine is an illiquid asset: prices can fall as well as rise, transaction and storage costs are real, and past performance of a vintage says nothing certain about the next. Nothing here is investment advice.
For the wider asset class rather than this vintage alone, see the wine investment hub, and our guide to reading a Bordeaux label for decoding the bottles themselves.
For investors who want documented, bonded-storage exposure without handling allocation and cellaring themselves, Cult Wines builds diversified fine-wine portfolios on a client's behalf — fees apply and capital is at risk.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bordeaux 2023 a good vintage?
Yes, but an uneven one. The tasting consensus summarised in spring 2024 was good to very good, with substantial variation between properties and some truly great wines; Wine Spectator ranked it below 2019. Choose by property, not by vintage.
How much cheaper was Bordeaux 2023 than 2022 en primeur?
Liv-ex measured an average fall of about 22.5% across the campaign. Individual wines varied widely: Wine Spectator's comparison of US futures prices showed Léoville Las Cases down 50%, Mouton-Rothschild down 36% and Cheval Blanc down 21%.
Is Bordeaux 2023 en primeur a good investment?
Only selectively. Liv-ex concluded the price cuts did not go far enough, leaving 2023 above the current average price of the previous ten vintages, and several recent futures campaigns were trading below their release prices in 2024. Compare each wine with bottled vintages of the same property before committing, and treat wine as an illiquid, at-risk asset.
Where can I read about how en primeur works?
Our guide to en primeur explained covers the system, the timetable and the merchant risk.
Related reading: Vintage Champagne Investment 2026: Krug, Dom Pérignon and the Prestige Cuvées
How to Read Any Vintage Report Without Being Managed
Vintage assessment is a genuinely useful body of work surrounded by a marketing
apparatus that is not. Separating them is a skill, and it comes down to noticing
where each claim comes from:
- Weather data is fact. Rainfall, heat accumulation and harvest dates are
recorded and independent of anyone's commercial interest.
- Barrel scores are provisional judgements of an unfinished wine, made under
conditions the property controls, by critics whose access depends on continued
relationships. That does not make them dishonest; it makes them a narrow, early
read.
- Release pricing is a commercial decision by the property, informed by the
scores and by how much unsold stock of previous vintages the trade is holding.
- "Best since" comparisons are the least reliable sentence in the genre and the
most reproduced.
Where a vintage report gives you the first and is explicit about the second, it is
worth reading. Where it leads with the fourth, it is a sales document.
The Questions That Decide Whether a Vintage Is Worth Buying Early
Buying en primeur means paying now for wine delivered years later. It is only
rational under specific conditions, and they are checkable:
- **Is the release price below the current market price of comparable recent
vintages of the same wine?** If not, you can simply buy a physical, in-bottle,
already-reviewed vintage instead, with no waiting and no counterparty risk.
- Is the wine genuinely allocation-constrained? For most properties it is not,
and it will be available later.
- Is your merchant financially sound? You are an unsecured creditor for years.
This is the risk that actually materialises.
- Will you drink it? If yes, most of the above matters much less.
The mechanics of the system, and its historical failure modes, are set out in
Why the Best Wines of a Vintage Are Not the Best Buys
A strong vintage lifts the price of everything from the region, including the wines
that did not actually do anything special that year. Meanwhile the first growths in
a celebrated vintage are the most efficiently priced wines in the entire fine-wine
market — hundreds of professional buyers assess exactly those bottles.
The interesting positions, where they exist at all, tend to be:
- Properties that outperformed their classification in the specific conditions
of that year, which requires the weather data and the tasting notes together.
- Second wines of top properties in years where the selection was strict.
- Vintages the market has decided are unfashionable, where the good producers
still made good wine. Weak vintages are where careful buyers earn their keep.
The Practical Position
For a drinker, buy what you enjoy at a price you are comfortable with and ignore the
vintage narrative beyond avoiding genuinely difficult years for wines you intend to
keep for decades. For a buyer treating wine as an asset, the vintage is one input and
usually not the decisive one — storage, documentation and transaction costs
frequently matter more, and they are covered in
