Whilst the New Year can mean a chance to rest and recoup after the chaos of Christmas, for wine merchants who offer en primeur the charge continues. Christina Albon explores Burgundy En Primeur.
In the wine trade, January is Burgundy month – where some of the region’s, and in my opinion the world’s, finest producers release their newest wines for sale. These wines, however, won’t be available on the shelf in your local wine shop and certainly aren’t ready for drinking just yet…
What is En Primeur?
Most wine is bought already bottled, straight off the shelf, but for those in the know, there is another route – en primeur. En primeur, quite literally translates as ‘first look’, essentially it’s buying futures in wine. This is where the public gets the opportunity to buy wine, usually by the case, whilst it’s still in barrel in the winemaker’s cellars via your trusted local wine merchant.
What are the benefits of buying En Primeur?
It’s an excellent way to acquire sought-after wines at sensible prices, often for less than the eventual retail price. It also helps spread the cost; you pay for the wine at the point of purchase, and then the duty and vat when the wine is delivered to you.
Burgundy 2024
At the moment (January 2026), we’re in the midst of the Burgundy 2024 En Primeur campaign. Producers release their allocations and prices for the 2024 vintage on an almost daily basis during January, and it’s a scramble to offer those wines to you as quickly as possible. However, we have been working behind the scenes on this campaign for nearly three months already, to ensure it’s all in hand and thoroughly researched.
At the beginning of November, we, along with wine merchants from around the world, travelled to Burgundy for a full week of meeting producers in their cellars and to taste the wines from barrel to help us fully understand the vintage in question, 2024. Despite being a small region (it accounts for just 3.4% of French wine production), there can be big variances in weather patterns and climate from one village to the next. Across the week, we tasted close to 200 wines from more than 20 growers across the Côte d’Or, from Marsannay in the north to Maranges in the south.
Part of the reason Burgundy is so sought-after is its scale. The average size of a domaine in the region is less than 9 hectares, often split over many small parcels. Take Domaine Henri Germain et Fils in Meursault, for example, which is now run by Henri’s son, Jean-François, and granddaughter, Lucie, they have 8 ha of vines, split over 23 parcels and make 15 different cuvées, so as one can imagine there isn’t an awful lot of any of them and they often sell out before hitting the shelves! Tasting these wines side by side in the cellar and discussing them with the winemaker gives a wonderful insight into the nuances of a particular wine and domaine. Back home, a list of desirable wines is compiled, and the writing begins – vintage report, tasting notes, producer profiles – all to ensure we are ready to hit the ground running in January when the wines are released.
When are En Primeur wines available?
Wine Merchants such as Tanners offer wines en primeur all year round, but the highlight of the calendar is the first six months of the year. In addition to Burgundy, we run campaigns for the Rhône Valley (currently running), and then April/May sees what for many is considered the most important of en primeur campaigns, Bordeaux.