The 2025 Bordeaux En Primeur campaign has generated more questions than any vintage in recent memory—about quality, pricing, tariffs, and whether to buy now or wait. Here are the answers to the questions we're hearing most from collectors, with links to the full analysis where relevant.
I don't think Bordeaux 2025 compares to anything else, from the growing season to the En Primeur campaign. Harvests were as early as they've been since 1989 and yields were as low as they were in 1961. The solar vintage seemed to hint at 2022, but the result is something far more restrained. It's with these thoughts that I'd advise throwing all other vintage comparisons out the window and consider 2025 like this: there are a lot of remarkable wines that are very refreshing in style, complex in structure, and at prices that range from sharp to can't miss.
When speaking of Bordeaux, Graves and Pessac-Léognan are often left out of the conversation when discussing the Left Bank/Right Bank divide. This is a glaring omission. Some of the region's best wines and values can be found here—and in 2025, the appellation delivered at every level, from the grand crus to the everyday drinking wines, and from the reds to what may be the finest dry whites of the entire campaign.
2025 Bordeaux is one of the strongest vintages in recent memory, released at prices that may not last. The campaign is winding down, larger formats are going first, and the best allocations are already moving. Here is how to make sure you don't miss it.
Where the Left Bank impressed with structure and precision, the Right Bank was about texture. We spent the first half of our trip across the Médoc and Pessac-Léognan, and the wines were stunning. But the moment we crossed to the Right Bank, the whole character of the vintage shifted under our feet. Where the usual suspects of the Haut-Médoc and the Graves showed depth and promise, the Merlot- and Cabernet Franc-dominated wines of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol gave us something more generous—silky, expressive wines layered with minerality.
The 2025 Left Bank delivered across all four major appellations—but not uniformly, and not in the way recent vintages have prepared us for. Pauillac produced wines of extraordinary density off half the usual crop. Saint-Julien was the steadiest appellation of the entire campaign, top to bottom. Margaux, rescued by sixty millimeters of rain at exactly the right moment, was the appellation of the vintage. And Saint-Estèphe's clay gave the commune a tension the south had to chase. Here is what we found.
If you asked me to describe my perfect Bordeaux vintage, I'd say good concentration, purity, freshness, with moderate levels of alcohol. Balance and full ripeness, but with a sense of weightlessness and texture. That is very nearly exactly what 2025 delivered.
This is a fascinating time for Bordeaux. The wines are as good as they have ever been, and pricing for many releases has fallen to levels that remind us of campaigns from a decade ago. Few regions in the world can offer this combination of pedigree, quality, ageability, and value.
This coming February will mark twenty years for me here at K&L, and I feel truly blessed as I look back at a great 2019. It was very difficult for me to narrow this list down to just ten most memorable Champagnes, as I have been lucky enough to have had so many great bottles over the last twelve months. Most of the wines on this list I drank, not just tasted, and I am pleased to report that after all this time in the business, my enthusiasm for Champagne has not faded at all.
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It’s that time of year that tends to fill us all with both nostalgia and optimism, when we reflect on our past year and peer into the future… and in our world that means we talk about booze! Here’s what the Hollywood staff chose for favorites of 2019 and predictions for 2020.
Read MoreK&L was founded on a love for Bordeaux, so what better category to dive into as we round the corner on a new decade? In this week’s newsletter, our resident Bordeaux aficionados dig into favorite vintages, favorite estates, favorite bargains… everything the Bordeaux lover needs to start the year off right!
Read MoreIt’s here—that time of year when Champagne gets the limelight it deserves: New Year’s Eve! Though you can definitely drink Champagne any time of the year (and should), you can’t drink anything but Champagne on New Year’s Eve. The gods demand it. You’re morally obliged. Hammurabi put it in his code.
Read MoreLast night, I opened a bottle of the Krug Grande Cuvée 168 Ème Édition Brut Champagne as the aperitif for Cinnamon and my father. We paired it with some excellent pistachio paté that Clyde had given us as well as the Jamon Iberico that Cinnamon gave me for my birthday. Krug Grande Cuvée is one of the world’s great wines, and unlike most of the other great wines of the world, it is a wine that is defined by time as much as it is by soil or grape varieties.
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Champagne may claim the spotlight at this time of the year, but there is a myriad of great sparkling wines made all over the world. If your New Year’s Resolution includes trying new things, start 2020 off with some sparkling wines from off the beaten path. We’ve collected five of our favorites from all corners of the globe that we think you’ll really enjoy! Cheers!
Read MoreThis past week, I was treated to not just one, but two great 2012s from the great house Louis Roederer. This producer has been making great wines since 1776 but is never content to rest and is now pushing the envelope harder than any other major house in Champagne.
Read MoreAs we get ever closer to the holidays, life gets more hectic. But the best part of the season is the friends’ Christmas, or, as we call it, our Holiday Champagne Club meeting.
Read MoreThis weekend, K&L Hollywood got together for our annual holiday party. And, if anyone has any doubts, let me assure you that K&L knows how to throw a party. But the highlight for me was the penultimate course: a cheese and Sauternes pairing. Sauternes tastes like springtime sunshine when it is young, and like summer afternoons on a hammock when it is aged. It is pure daylight, and it is amazing—and way under appreciated in America. If you pair it with the right foods—especially the right cheeses—the heavens open up and shine down upon you.
Read MoreI have to admit that I am always skeptical about co-branded products, especially when they have a super cool box. I should know better—the house of Bollinger has a commitment to quality that is second to none, and the 2011 Bollinger "James Bond 007" Brut Champagne exceeded my expectations in every regard.
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This spring, Champagne Buyer Gary Westby was lucky enough to be at Champagne Fallet-Dart in the little hamlet of Drachy, just as they were releasing their 2012 vintage. Our allocation of the 2012 Fallet-Dart Vintage Brut Champagne has now arrived, and he’s very excited about it.
Read MoreHere we have our heavy hitters, our high-scoring, critic-darling wines of 2019. The wines in this newsletter are worthy of cellaring, worthy of gifting, worthy of sipping with the greatest gusto and the greatest of friends. Scores might not be all there is to understanding a wine, but you can at least be assured that some very experienced palates highly endorse these bottles.
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