Bordeaux: Cellar Fundamentals
Bordeaux Index
11 September 2025
The fine wine market never stands still, and the past decade has seen seismic shifts across every major region. Burgundy has soared and stumbled, Champagne has boomed, Super-Tuscans have surged, and Bordeaux, long the benchmark, has quietly endured its toughest cycle in living memory. Today, however, the balance is changing. Values, quality, and drinkability are converging to create one of the most compelling opportunities for collectors and drinkers alike.
At Bordeaux Index, we're always thinking about wine: what's new, what's great and what are the best values for our cellars. To say recent market history has been tumultuous underplays the truly profound shifts that have affected almost every region. We've seen an eye-watering, decade plus squeeze up for Burgundy followed by a sudden and dramatic pull back. An explosion in sales and consumption of grand marque Champagne, where an inexorable price-ratchet from the major houses left older vintages at a discount.
For Bordeaux, a lost decade, where despite the collapse of the great Chinese bubble of the late '00s being a distant memory, the psychological hangover remained. Prices adjusted for inflation, trundle along at levels we haven't seen for two decades, with values for legendary wines harking back to a time long before China got thirsty, young vintages got drinkable and an entire tidal wave of wealthy new drinkers started pulling corks.
All the time, the Super-Tuscan boom has continued, with prices climbing ever higher, despite much of their original raison d'etre being Bordeaux varietals, but riper and better value. The comparison was put in stark focus at a recent tasting - Ducru-Beaucaillou 2020 delivered a sensational performance. With cashmere tannins and ripe, multi-layered fruit, it was a complete experience that could easily be enjoyed now. Astonishingly, it sits at a 20% discount to the same vintage Sassicaia, where a decade earlier, the 2010 sold at a 60% premium. Continuing the theme, you can buy 100 point rated First Growths for the same price as an equivalent Solaia, when only a few years ago they sold at a 5X multiple! Even contrasting with other French regions, at no time in recent memory have the great wines of Bordeaux seemed so affordable.
So if there is a greater narrative, it's that the hangover should be well and truly over. The rising tide that's fuelled other regions has left Bordeaux looking like stunningly good value. In terms of quality, gone are the days of interminable patience and long delayed gratification - the wines are purer, more exquisitely balanced and can be enjoyed both young and old. For the years 2015-2020, more have left us slack-jawed in wonder than at any time since we started tasting at BI. Yes, prices can canter along the bottom for a couple more years, but right now is an epic cellar-filling opportunity for some of the best wines we've tasted in our lives. If it's not cheap enough now, when? If you love drinking the greatest red wines, why wait?
Our Sales Director, Joe Marchant, has put together a small collection of some of his favourites - in original wooden cases, and professionally stored since release. If you're thinking about what makes up the building blocks of a great cellar, these are the more than that. They're the foundation...
100 point, top vintage First Growths:
2020 Chateau Haut-Brion Premier Cru Classe, Pessac-Leognan - Buy Now
100 point, top vintage Super Second:
2020 Ducru-Beaucaillou 2eme Cru Classe, Saint-Julien - Buy Now
Latour-Adjacent, top vintage, Medoc Legend:
2019 Chateau Leoville Las Cases 2eme Cru Classe, Saint-Julien - Buy Now
100 Point Lynch Bages:
2019 Chateau Lynch-Bages 5eme Cru Classe, Pauillac - Buy Now
Top vintage, great value Chateau Pauillac:
2019 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste 5eme Cru Classe, Pauillac - Buy Now
Wines offered subject to availability. E&OE September 2025.