An outstanding year, a challenging year, a vintage which is not as it should be… and as such it must pique your interest.
A huge dichotomy because it was hot and dry over the summer (the vignerons call it a ‘solar’ year, lots of heat), but it produced fresh, tempered clarets with lower alcohol, typically 12.5-13.5. Many growers told us it should have been like 2003, with similar drought and temperature, yet the ‘vintage comparison’, as an aide-memoire if you need one, is between 2016 and 2022: properties everywhere have managed to make very good to outstanding wines.
How did that happen?! To start, we can thank 2024, whose difficult and cool season ensured typically poor flowering the following spring as the vines recovered. In 2025, the bunches of grapes were full of small, loose berries, which, after a hot June to September without rain, produced thick skins with very little juice. An issue for properties was, and is, the lack of yield and therefore quantity, regardless of the locality or variety. And while vineyard management becomes better understood and deployed, this is a vintage that was made in the cellar. Gentle macerations were essential to forestall too much extraction, after one of the earliest starts to harvest ever.
The vintage was ‘saved’ in terms of shape, freshness, juiciness, etc., through two bursts of heavy rain around August 28th – bless that Bank Holiday weather! It allowed the grapes to swell a little, the vines to de-stress and balance the sugars while getting the previously underripe tannin to peak perfection. We found that the limestone soils of Saint-Emilion produced wines with much more apparent acidity (sometimes perfect freshness, sometimes too much tartness) while the Merlot on clay soils, which retain water naturally, were fleshier with more volume in the mouth. The ripeness of Left Bank Cabernet Sauvignon, however, is brilliant, the aromatic lift of Cabernet Franc on the Right Bank incredibly seductive. You could pick and choose, and we have, although with decades of experience in the Tanners team, our selections are invariably the familiar names who perform year after year, and you can be confident they are the best around.
As always, price is going to be key. There were some indications that prices will remain at 2024 levels (and these 2025s are generally superior in constitution to the last vintage), which will rubber-stamp the call to buy. The campaign will start quickly, probably by the time you read this, and could be over quickly as there isn’t a lot of wine to go round; Château owners seem to have recognised the dire straits into which Bordeaux has descended over the past decade, so we are expecting some great prices for some truly great wines. We will try to highlight the best value at all price points online, but for the inside line, please pick up the phone for the best performers across the whole of Bordeaux.