Younger Bordeaux vintages drive record year at iDealwine

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In what was a “record year” for iDealwine, co-founder of the online auction business Angélique de Lencquesaing told db in a podcast last week that Bordeaux had seen a “big rise” in 2025.

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During an interview on 23 July – which you can listen to below – de Lencquesaing said that her business, which has offices in Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and New York, had seen a 9% increase in value, and 19% of volumes sales passing through its auctions.

According to iDealwine’s Auction Barometer report, that meant a total of almost 391,000 bottles, representing €33.9 million (€42.4m including fees).

Notably, despite the ongoing news of Bordeaux oversupply and vineyard removal schemes, iDealwine saw Bordeaux volumes up 23% (105,000+ bottles – one in three lots sold), with the Barometer showing value sales increasing by 19% to €12.5m, and prices remaining almost flat (-3% vs. the market’s -8%).

A big interest in Bordeaux

Commenting on the trend, she said, “It’s quite amazing: everyone is talking about Bordeaux being completely out of fashion, but that has never been true on iDealwine, actually, and last year we saw that people have a big interest in Bordeaux.”

Continuing she recorded, “What I think is quite interesting and also quite a surprise is that younger vintages are trading more actively.”

Putting numbers to the latter observation, she said, “Bordeaux wines that are under 10 years old represented 28% of the bottles that were auctioned last year, and the year before, it was only 20% – so it was a very, very big increase in younger wines.”

Explaining the development, she said, “I think it’s a result of the change that has occurred on the style of the wines that are produced in Bordeaux, which makes them accessible younger; they can be drunk younger.”

She added, “People now know that they won’t have to wait for decades before they can open their bottles; they can buy young wines and have a great pleasure opening quite a young vintage of Bordeaux.”

Buy-and-wait losing appeal

As for sales of Bordeaux futures, she said that the region’s 2025 en primeur campaign wasn’t a pricing failure but a demonstration that fewer collectors want to buy-and-wait.

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She said, “Prices have become really attractive in the campaign this year… and there are great opportunities in the 2025 vintage.”

“But you can open, say a bottle of 2010, and it will be absolutely fantastic to drink, but for a bottle of 2025, you will have to wait, and even though you don’t have to wait for decades, you will still have to wait for a few years before first you get the bottle and then you can open it,” she remarked.

While she noted that the 2025 offer for “10 to 20 big names” was “a success,” generally the demand for en primeur this year was subdued.

“I think it’s really the result, not of a bad pricing campaign – because I think the prices were good – it’s more of the trends of consumption: now, there are fewer and fewer people who want to create a cellar, buy wines, wait for years and years before they can buy it,” she said.

Concluding on this topic, she commented, “I think the proportion of people who buy a wine, a bottle of wine that’s going to be open the same night, is huge. So it’s the whole idea of buying which is also which is now in question; I don’t think it’s a question of price – it’s really a question of a habit in consumption.”

The best-selling Bordeaux

Meanwhile, below is a reproduction from information from this year’s idealwine Auction Barometer on the best-selling Bordeaux in 2025. The web-based business notes that a handful of properties stood out for “striking increases in their volumes”. Among these was Château Lafleur (no. 14), which saw its volumes more than double, while its average price dropped to €471 (-25%).

Idealwine wonders whether Château Lafleur’s announcement to withdraw from the Pomerol appellation as of the 2025 vintage could have prompted some enthusiasts to part with their bottles, noting that interest in this rare property was strong, though not at any price.

Elsewhere, idealwine noted that Château Figeac (no. 16) managed to “combine a sharp rise in volume (+72%) with only a marginal dip in average price (-3%), confirming the property’s momentum and enduring appeal since its elevation to premier grand cru classé A status for its 2022 vintage onwards”.

Scroll down to see the top 20 best performers of the past year.

Top 20 Best-Selling Bordeaux Properties in 2025

Rank 2024 Trend Property Auction Value (€) Bottles Sold* Average Price (€)
1 1 Petrus 1,145,599 462 2,480
2 2 Château Mouton Rothschild 904,445 1,927 469
3 3 Château Lafite Rothschild 812,227 1,691 480
4 5 Château Haut-Brion 594,609 1,327 448
5 4 Château Margaux 581,131 1,654 351
6 6 Château Latour 424,002 1,034 410
7 7 Château Cheval Blanc 408,407 895 456
8 8 Château d’Yquem 366,422 992 370
9 10 Château Angélus 257,743 925 279
10 9 Château Léoville Las Cases 232,470 1,676 139
11 13 Château Pontet-Canet 214,243 1,988 108
12 11 Château Lynch-Bages 206,454 1,568 132
13 12 Château Montrose 202,020 1,477 137
14 25 Château Lafleur 186,194 396 471
15 16 Château La Mission Haut-Brion 175,150 666 263
16 21 Château Figeac 173,571 933 186
17 14 Cos d’Estournel 173,197 1,195 145
18 27 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 155,761 1,109 140
19 19 Château Palmer 152,923 740 207
20 32 Château Haut-Bailly 147,885 1,725 86

Source: idealwine auction barometer 2026. *Bottles auctioned, scaled to 750ml equivalents.

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