The most affordable Bordeaux Primeur wines 2023

The dust has settled on the 2023 en primeur campaign, and although many have judged it a failure, there are still plenty of really interesting wines from the 2023 vintage on retailers’ lists, due to ship in about a year.

With many of the wines considered to be good value, there are still plenty of opportunities to buy them, so perhaps it’s worth reconsidering your choices. We thought it might be insightful to apply our QPR ratings (that is, value for money, rather than the venerable west London football club) to the list of available wines to see if we could dig up a few bargains.

The QPR ratings for this story differ from our usual value for money version used in this series because the number of critics’ reviews for a single vintage is more important, so the QPR is based on weighted critics’ reviews rather than a simpler system of dividing the rating by the price.

The formula compares our aggregated critics’ rating to the world average price of the wine before taxes. We applied this formula to all wines, including white and sweet wines, currently listed in the Wine Searcher database from the 2023 Bordeaux vintage. After applying our criteria to the list of available wines, we selected the best 20.

We take a quick look at the wines ranked 20th to 11th before concentrating on the top 10 below. There are some nice surprises that might be worth considering for collectors.

So what do we know about the vintage that might give us some insight into what we’ll find when we look at the data? We know that the Cabernets did well, so perhaps we can assume that the best value wines are predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc dominant wines, and thus likely to be predominantly from the leading appellations of the Médoc.

There were a number of big names among the wines ranked 20th to 11th. At number 20 is the truly outstanding example of Château Clinet from Pomerol, a lively, exciting wine with structure and freshness – the wine has a QPR of 3.8. At number 18 and 17, with QPRs of 3.87 and 3.93 respectively, were two of the heavyweights from Saint-Julien, the rich Château Léoville Poyferre and the more structured and elegant Château Léoville Barton. At number 14 was the absolutely stunning Château Haut-Bailly 2023 with a QPR of 4.06. Boire Manoux’s Château Batailley from Pauillac always offers reliable quality and value for money and had a QPR rating of 4.1, earning it 13th place. In 12th place is the elegant, slim and lively Saint-Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classe (B), Château Canon with a QPR of 4.11.

Two other affordable Saint-Émilion Grand Cru classes have worked their way into this lineup. At number 19 is Château Jean Faure with a QPR of 3.84 and Château Fleur Cardinale is in 16th place with a QPR of 3.97. What is notable about these wines, however, is that their global average price (excluding tax) is £32 and £31 ($41.40 and $40 respectively). However, the crown for most affordable wine in the top 20 quality/price, with a QPR of 4 but a global average price of just £17, goes to the incredibly drinkable Château Montlandrie. At number 15^th In our range, this wine is a spectacular Côtes de Bordeaux Castillon from Duranto.

At number 11 is the outstanding wine from Château Montrose, the most expensive wine in the top 20 in the quality/price category, matching its total price (excluding tax) of £128 with an overall rating from 97 critics, achieving a QPR of 4.28.

Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion, an estate with one of the highest Cabernet Franc percentages of any estate in Pessac-Léognan, ranks 10th. The estate has rightly received critical acclaim, achieving an overall score of 96. With a global average price (excluding tax) of £86 per bottle, this wine is one of the more expensive in the top 10, but still achieves a respectable QPR of 4.44.

In ninth place with a QPR of 4.56, Château Barde Haut outperformed its Saint-Émilion Grand Cru peers Fleur Cardinal and Jean Faure. The wine achieves this thanks to a global average price (excluding tax) of just £27. Made in a rich, modern style, Barde Haute’s wines have been on a rapid upward trend for some time.

The sheer quality of Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande’s wine takes it to eighth place. The illustrious super runner-up is the most expensive wine to make the top 10 of the quality/price rankings and the second most expensive in the top 20, achieving a QPR of 4.58 despite its global average price of £115.

In seventh place, Château Pavie Macquin is one of the more affordable of the four Saint-Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classe (B) wines in this range (at £47, Château Beau-Sejour Becot is marginally cheaper). Although its overall rating from 94 critics is not as high as its more expensive rivals, a global average price (excluding tax) of £50 per bottle gives a very respectable QPR of 4.64.

The incredibly beautifully perfumed and elegantly structured Margaux from Château Brane-Cantenac takes sixth place in the table. With an overall rating from 95 critics and a price of just £48 (world average price excluding taxes), Brane-Cantenac receives a QPR rating of 4.83.

Fourth place is shared by the Pomerol Clos du Clocher and the Saint-Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classe (B) Château Beau-Sejour Becot; both score 95/100 with a global average price (excluding tax) of £47, giving them a QPR of 4.94. It should be noted, however, that Clos du Clocher is the least widely available of the top 10 wines in the quality/price category, with only 30 on offer, so if you want to snap one up, you’ll probably have to act fast. On the other hand, Château Beau-Sejour Becot, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and perfumed wines of the vintage, is widely available.

With Château Pontet-Canet being very popular with investors, it may come as a surprise that it ranks third on this list, but the Tesserons have offered their 2023 at a very reasonable price, so I’m surprised there are still so many offers for this wine. The wine’s excellent overall score of 96, coupled with its attractive global average price (excluding tax) of just £69, gives it a QPR of 5.54. A wine that usually sells out quickly when allocated, Château Pontet-Canet is instead currently the most offered wine of the top 20 in terms of quality and price. Surely this situation can’t last long, can it?

In second place is another wine from Boire Manoux, a producer that seems to have largely got its approach to pricing right in 2023: the Cabernet Franc-dominated Saint-Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classe (B) Château Trotte Vieille. Trotte Vieille’s wines don’t always seem to get the recognition they deserve, but with an overall score of 96 and a global average price excluding tax of £61 per bottle, this vintage yields a very impressive QPR of 6.26. While more widely available than Clos du Clocher, this wine isn’t particularly widespread, but certainly seems worth seeking out.

At first it was a surprise to see a Sauternes top the list, but when you think about it, why would that be? Prices for the fabulous sweet Bordeaux wines have long been low, so when you combine Chateau Suduiraut’s 96 points with its average worldwide price (excluding tax) of £46, it comes to a whopping 7.39 QPR – pretty good for a Premier Cru!

One could argue that modern drinkers have no interest in Sauternes and that the bottles simply gather dust in consumers’ cellars. If you are considering adding a case of Sauternes to your cellar, this lively and concentrated wine would be an excellent option. The wine has the concentration needed to age, but its lively, captivating nature would certainly not gather dust in my wine collection.

This selection of the top 20 in terms of quality/price from the current Bordeaux primeur wines of 2023 is an interesting snapshot of current availability.

No particular region within Bordeaux dominates the results, and there are 10 wines from the Right Bank and nine from the Left. The Right Bank is represented by two wines from Pomerol, three Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classe and four Saint Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classe (B) wines; there is also one Côtes de Bordeaux Castillon.

There are two excellent wines from Pessac-Léognan, and from the Médoc there is a Margaux, two Saint-Juliens, three Pauillacs and a Saint-Estèphe. From the Médoc there are two Fifth Growths and five Second Growths.

Cabernet-dominant wines do not necessarily dominate the range. While it can be argued that Châteaux Les Carmes Haut-Brion and Trotte Vieille are both known for higher proportions of Cabernet Franc in their blends than most other estates in their regions, the presence of Châteaux Beau-Sejour Becot, Clos du Clocher, Pavie Macquin and Barde-Haut in the top 10 clearly shows that good value Merlot wines have been made in 2023.

This exercise, as I’ve explained it, is one-dimensional, as it doesn’t compare the QPR on offer between vintages. However, this is easily accomplished – if you go to the search page for any or all of these wines and click on the “Vintage” tab that appears there, the “Compare Vintages” feature will display a list of overall scores and average prices for the last eight vintages (the list can be expanded). I would definitely recommend checking the prices of recent vintages with physical stock before committing to buying any of these wines en primeur. The exercise is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t take into account the interest costs on the purchase price for the period until the wine arrives, or the shipping costs. I would argue that Bordelaise has done a pretty good job of pricing these 2023s, as they look attractive compared to recent vintages.

There is probably also an argument to be made that the wines with the best QPRs are probably already sold out and so cannot be part of this review. This may be the case for some cult properties, but in general availability of top wines seems to be good.

What I would like to keep in mind about the 2023 vintage, however, is that these are delicious wines with excellent balance and ageability. If consumers have the money, these wines will offer excellent drinkability for decades to come.