Our founder and CEO, Ella Lister, has published her Bordeaux 2023 en primeur scores and notes on the Le Figaro Vin website (the scores are currently live on the Wine Lister website, and the notes will be available shortly), providing further insight into this year’s top en primeur picks. Of the 534 wines that Ella tasted, a proportion of which were tasted alongside her colleague, Béatrice Delamotte, Wine Lister’s latest blog explores the top-30 , of which 17 were awarded a score ranging from 96 or above. All appellations are represented on this leader board, while Saint-Émilion occupies the majority of tops spots (seven out of 30).

The only wine to receive a potential 100-points in 2023 is Pomerol’s Petrus (97-100) – which Ella describes as a “wine [that] arrives on the palate like a thousand drops of gold” – versus six that received this accolade in 2022 (Cheval Blanc, Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Léoville Las Cases, Trotanoy, Vieux Château Certan). Petrus was closely followed by fellow Right Bank juggernauts, Figeac and Lafleur, which both score 97-99. Tasting the latter, Ella notes “an explosion of umami on the palate, with an oyster shell salinity”.

On the Left Bank, Margaux, Ducru-Beaucaillou, and Montrose achieve scores of 96-99, with the former being Ella’s highest-scoring first growth in 2023.  Ella notes that Margaux’s 2023 was “sultry and restrained […] like walking into a dimly lit drawing room”, while writing that  Ducru-Beaucaillou 2023 offers “a hedonistic spiral of mouthwatering dark red, brambly fruit, its aromas pure and quivering”.

11 wines gain a score of 96-98, including first growths Lafite Rothschild and Latour. The Left Bank is also represented by Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pichon Comtesse, Haut-Bailly, and Rauzan-Ségla, while entries from the Right Bank include Ausone, Cheval Blanc, La Conseillante, Le Pin, and Vieux Château Certan.

Fellow first growths Mouton-Rothschild and Haut-Brion are awarded 95-98 alongside Pomerol’s Trotanoy, while 10 wines receive a score of 95-97, including four from Saint-Émilion: Beauséjour, Bélair-Monange, Pavie, and Pavie Macquin. As in previous years, Sauternes’s Suduiraut is the only white to make an appearance in Ella’s top-30-scoring wines (Ella describes it as  having a “whole gamut of flavours, from fruit, through to flowers via noble vegetal notes”), while Pontet-Canet makes its debut on the top-30 list this year.

Click here to track all en primeur scores and prices on our en primeur page.