Why buy En Primeur?
En Primeur refers to the process of buying wine in cask/barrel before it is bottled at the Chateau and released onto the global wine market. Delivered 2-3 years after the vintage, En Primeur wine can only be purchased by the unmixed case. However at the time of purchase you can choose how you wish it to be bottled, ie. half bottles, magnums, imperials.
The main advantage of buying wine En Primeur is that the initial opening prices are usually considerably cheaper than after the wine is bottled and shipped by the producer.
En Primeur wine is exempt of capital gains tax in the UK which is incredibly fruitful for those wine investors who make money on their En Primeur. In recent years En Primeur is increasingly being bought for investment purposes. In the UK there has been a number of specialist wine funds being set up to take advantage of this growing market. However like all investments it can go up and down in price. Our recommendation is to only buy En Primeur from wine merchants you know and make sure that when the wine comes into the Bonded warehouse that it is in your name as the owner of the wine.
Don't forget to shop around on price - after negotiating their allocations each wine merchant releases the wine to their customers - there can be quite a bit of difference on price. At Bon Coeur Fine Wines we try to allocate as fairly as possible with those customers who bought the wine last year getting first refusal. However, allocations are getting smaller and demand throughout the world for En Primeur wine is growing - so if you are interested remember to register your interest early and talk to as many merchants as possible to get a good overview of the vintage and anticipated release prices.
If you are interested in buying En Primeur wine we publish a review of the vintage in April - if you would like a copy of this please contact us and we will put you on the distribution list.
Meanwhile if you would like to learn more about En Primeur wine please go to our En Primeur help section. If you would like some investment advice call James Goodhart at Bon Coeur Fine Wines who runs our investment and wine broking business.
