The 2025 en primeur campaign asked Bordeaux a single question, and it asked it in prices. After the 2024 campaign cut release prices by roughly a quarter, the leading chateaux of 2025 nudged them back upward. The rises were careful, the comparisons were constant, and the benchmark against which every release was measured was 2022, the vintage that set the modern high-water mark for release pricing.
Mouton sets the tone
Chateau Mouton Rothschild released its 2025 at 300 euros per bottle ex-negociant, up from 252 euros for the 2024, an increase of about 19 percent. The reported blend of 98 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 2 percent Merlot was described as a first for the estate, a striking compositional shift at one of the Medoc's most watched addresses. The critic Neal Martin scored the wine 96 to 98.
The release price is only the first of the numbers that matter in Bordeaux. UK merchants offered the 2025 at about 1,824 pounds per six-bottle case in bond, the trade price before duty and tax. French retail pricing reached 423.60 euros per bottle including VAT, an 18 percent rise on the 2024, but still far below the 732 euros asked for the 2022. The message was legible at every stage of the chain: prices were moving up, but not back to where they had been.
That discipline was the campaign's real story. A first growth raising its release price by nearly a fifth could once have set off a wave of follow-on increases across the classified growths. In 2026, it set off a wave of arithmetic instead, as every merchant worked out what the new price meant relative to the 2022s still sitting in the market.
The three prices attached to the Mouton release show how the campaign is read at different levels. The ex-negociant price is the chateau's price to the negociants of Bordeaux; the in-bond merchant price is the trade's offer before duty and tax; the French retail price including VAT is what the consumer pays. Each is a different window onto the same release, and the discipline of 2026 was visible in all three.
The 98 percent Cabernet Sauvignon blend, described as a first for the estate, added a winemaking talking point to the pricing story. Whether it marks a lasting shift in the estate's assemblage or a single vintage's answer to its growing season is a question for future releases. For the 2025 campaign, it gave the trade something to discuss beyond the price, which is never a bad thing in en primeur season.
Every release measured against 2022
Chateau Pavie released its 2025 at 216 euros per bottle including VAT, 12 percent above its 2024, but the comparison that counted was the 420 euros asked for the 2022. La Mission Haut-Brion was offered around 870 pounds per six-bottle case in bond, roughly a 30 percent discount on the market price of the 2016. The estate also reported a final yield of just 23 hectolitres per hectare against 38 in 2024, a small crop priced with restraint.
The pattern repeated across the releases: modest increases on the 2024s, wide discounts to the 2022s. For buyers, the 2022 releases have become the reference price for top Bordeaux, the number every new release must justify itself against. For the chateaux, the strategy was to reclaim some of the ground lost in the 2024 reset without testing how far the market's patience extends.
| Wine | 2025 release | Against the past |
|---|---|---|
| Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2025 | 300 euros per bottle, ex-negociant | Up from 252 euros for the 2024; Neal Martin scored it 96 to 98 |
| Mouton Rothschild 2025, UK merchants | About 1,824 pounds per six-bottle case, in bond | Trade offer price before duty and tax |
| Mouton Rothschild 2025, French retail | 423.60 euros per bottle, incl. VAT | 18 percent above the 2024; well below 732 euros for the 2022 |
| Chateau Pavie 2025 | 216 euros per bottle, incl. VAT | 12 percent above the 2024; against 420 euros for the 2022 |
| La Mission Haut-Brion 2025 | About 870 pounds per six-bottle case, in bond | Roughly 30 percent below the market price of the 2016 |
A campaign of May and June, with a pause
The releases ran through May and June 2026, with a lull around Vinexpo Asia at the end of May. The rhythm is familiar to anyone who follows the campaign: the releases build through the spring tastings, pause while the trade gathers in Asia, and resume with the second wave once the fair is over.
The pause matters more than it looks. En primeur is a campaign in the old sense, a coordinated sequence of announcements, and its pacing is part of its persuasion. A concentrated burst of releases creates momentum; the Vinexpo break lets the first prices settle into the market's judgment before the rest follow.
The reset that held
Twelve months earlier, the 2024 campaign had cut prices by roughly a quarter, and the trade spent the year wondering whether the reductions were a one-off concession or a new discipline. The 2025 releases answered the question: up, but not back. The chateaux reclaimed margin without reclaiming the peaks, and the 2022 benchmark remains the ceiling against which every future campaign will be read.
Whether buyers followed the prices is the campaign's remaining question, and the one the 2026 vintage will have to answer. For now, Bordeaux has shown it can raise prices and keep the market's attention at the same time. That, after the shock of the 2024 reset, counts as a result.
